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Re: : Music industry proposes a piracy surcharge on ISPs
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:53:59 -0700
________________________________________ From: dave () ddnets com [dave () ddnets com] On Behalf Of Dave Phelps [dave () metrocomp net] Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 9:17 AM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Music industry proposes a piracy surcharge on ISPs Brett, your subscribers paid for their use of your network to reach the rest of the internet. You charge each subscriber a fee for a certain bandwidth, and they pay that fee. Therefore, P2P is not "uncompensated." Your subscribers are paying for it. I don't care how you argue against P2P, your subscribers pay the rate you set for their bandwidth. You cannot dispute that. That means your claim of "uncompensated" is simply untrue. Perhaps you mean to say _undercompensated_, in which case I would again point out that YOU set the rate of compensation. Therefore, if you are "undercompensated" for P2P, then you can simply change the price you charge for bandwidth. It is very simple. I pay my ISP for 512/3M or whatever it is. I expect to be able to upload at 512Kbps and download at 3Mbps at any and all times. If 512/3M is going to be a problem, then they shouldn't sell it to me. If 512/3M is going to cost more than they charge, then the people who set the price have made a grave error. You may certainly (absent network neutrality) tell your subscribers they can't use the bandwidth for certain things (you do inform them prior to or as part of any agreement, I presume). Obviously the subscribers who care will move to your competition, if they have that option. It would seem this would make everyone happy. This is where the network neutrality part comes up, because many of your subscribers probably don't have a comparable option for internet access. This is certainly true throughout much of the country. In the interest of protecting those subscribers, network neutrality rules would require you, and all other ISPs, to not limit or block certain types of traffic, resulting in a requirement for the "common good." Although I have a hard time accepting government controls on anything, I find it more difficult to locate something bad in network neutrality. My biggest concern is that once the government begins control of anything, there is no limit or end. For that reason, with mixed feelings, I'm against network neutrality overall. I like to think, perhaps naively, that the problem will resolve itself. If P2P is consuming too much of your network bandwidth, perhaps your network is excessively oversubscribed. If you currently substantially block P2P, I expect you are still seeing traffic trends continue upward. Perhaps you will consider blocking youtube.com<http://youtube.com> or Google video in your next attempt at bandwidth conservation. There are two solutions for an oversubscribed network: More bandwidth or less traffic. You have selected the latter. Good luck with that. Dave Phelps On Mar 17, 2008, at 8:01 PM, Brett Glass <brett () lariat net<mailto:brett () lariat net>> wrote:
Fred: The problem with the EFF's solution is that it does not address the impact of P2P on ISPs, as illustrated in the slides at http://www.brettglass.com/ITIF/pg9.html and http://www.brettglass.com/ITIF/pg10.html No rational ISP would accept any "solution" which did not eliminate the crippling, uncompensated costs of P2P. Our ISP, in particular, intends to block it until and unless we are compensated for these costs, and would consider any attempt to force us to allow P2P an unconstitutional "taking" of our network resources. --Brett Glass
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- Re: : Music industry proposes a piracy surcharge on ISPs David Farber (Mar 18)