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NCTA to FCC: Google, Facebook may charge ISPs for customer access
(United News of Bangladesh Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
Dhaka, July 27
(UNB) - In a letter filed with the US Federal Communications commission regarding
the pending net neutrality proposal, pro-cable company advocacy group The
National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) believes that if the
"fast lane" net neutrality proposal stands as is, then
"hyper-giants" like Amazon, eBay, Netflix, Facebook, and Google could
charge the cable companies to allow customers to access services, essentially
holding Internet Service Providers hostage. The cable companies allege to have
no defense against such tactics, and claim to lack a "practical ability"
or the incentive to throttle said large Internet companies.
The comment by the
NCTA, who represents Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable,
among others says that "Even if broadband providers had an incentive to
degrade their customers' online experience in some circumstances, they have no
practical ability to act on such an incentive. Today's Internet ecosystem is
dominated by a number of "hyper-giants" with growing power over key
aspects of the Internet experience -- including Google in search, Netflix and
Google (YouTube) in online video, Amazon and eBay in e-commerce, and Facebook
in social media."
The letter to the
FCC also claims that "If a broadband provider were to approach one of
these hyper-giants and threaten to block or degrade access to its site if it
refused to pay a significant fee, such a strategy almost certainly would be
self-defeating, in light of the immediately hostile reaction of consumers to
such conduct. Indeed, it is more likely that these large edge providers would seek
to extract payment from ISPs for delivery of video over last-mile
networks."
The argument by
the NCTA makes little sense, at face value. Should a company like Google
prevent customers from accessing the service, should an ISP like Verizon not
pay any "ransom" for subscriber access, then customers would likely
flock elsewhere. The reverse statement isn't true -- if an ISP customer's
Netflix speeds are hampered by an unwillingness by an ISP to provide sufficient
architecture to do so, most US
customers have no other option for broadband, and are in many cases forced to
remain with a substandard quality of service, due to a combination of business
deals and legislation.
Verizon also
believes the "hyper-giants" are problematic for ISPs. It said that
Internet behemoths have "undeniable power" to affect net neutrality,
and directly complained about Netflix peering, saying that "Netflix has
built its 'Open Connect' content delivery network to support its video service,
and until recently it denied the highest quality video to end users whose
broadband providers did not agree to host Netflix's servers directly on their
networks."
Recently,
information has surfaced, essentially proving that while Verizon is happy to
take Netflix payments for network access, it is still failing to build out
sufficient capacity for the best possible user experience. Internet backbone
company Level 3 believes that Verizon's "issue" could be fixed
"in about five minutes simply by connecting up more 10Gbps ports" at
a cost of a few thousand dollars per card. With Verizon consistently making
billions of dollars of profit per quarter, this shouldn't be an issue, but the
fix has not yet been made, and will likely not.
Time Warner Cable
said something similar to the NCTA's filing to the FCC. It believes that
"it is more likely that some content owners might well seek payment from
broadband Internet access providers as a condition of delivering their
content-paralleling the business model that already exists [in the video
distribution industry]. The Commission should not turn a blind eye to actual
marketplace dynamics in developing open Internet protections."
Netflix CEO Reed
Hastings addressed a situation like this in his quarterly earnings press
conference. Hastings
hypothetically asked "the question comes up-should we over time be
charging ISPs for the privilege of carrying our data to their customers, and charging
for that?"
Answering his own
question, Hastings
responded unequivocally no. He said that "I think the Internet really has
this different, much more open architecture than classic cable, where we meet
in the middle, we bring the bits to where they want, we don't charge them, they
don't charge us. Both sides innovate,. It's very open structure, and I think
then you get more competitors for Netflix frankly, but what you get is this
open vibrant system that the Internet has been so famous for, and that's really
the tradition that we grew up in, and that we're trying to see carry forward,
and I'm optimistic about it, frankly." Netflix does pay Comcast and
Verizon money to facilitate connections to customers, with mixed results.
--Electronista
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