(Fwd) Re:Open Media?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>

| sciguy-Ja3L+HSX0kI at public.gmane.org wrote:
| > Would this mean that an ISP can charge both the website owner and the
| > client for the same traffic being transported across its routers?
| >    
| It's entirely possible that there are more than one ISP involved.  The point
| is that bandwidth costs money, though it's a lot cheaper than it used to be.
| Flat rate encourages abuse.  UBB doesn't.

"abuse" is a loaded term (Bell uses that rhetoric way too often).
Pricing should be rational and encourage rational choices by the
customer.  A better term might be "distortion".  Distortion arises
when prices don't reflect costs.

If pricing reflects cost, there will be no abuse.  (Of course the
costs ought to be reasonable: if your system makes it expensive to
provide something (say, using homing pigeons for backhaul), you should
fix that first.  Competition normally forces this but we're talking
about a monopoly.)

If there really is a cost per byte, charge that amount (plus a modest
markup).

Remember: Bell is rushing to be able to provide HD TV over IP.  The
required bandwidth is much higher than levels they are labelling abuse
now.  Pure guess at average subscriber use: 5 gigbytes per hour
(better quality than DVD, worse than BluRay) times 4 hours a night
times 30 nights in a month is 600 gigabytes per month, 10 times what
they are calling abuse from their broadband customers.  Note: any
multicasting efficiency has no effect on the last mile since it isn't
shared.  Oh: and they have to pay licensing for the content in TV.

Summary: if the CRTC allows Bell UBB to ISPs, then it should reflect
the cost of providing backhaul, and that should be modest.  I don't
think that that will be what happens.
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