2006-01-17

Internet Daily: BellSouth wants new Net fees - Internet Software - Retail - Internet Services - Mobile phones - Travel - Media - Entertainment and Lei

This is completely and utterly retarded. I, the ISP customer, am already paying my ISP to connect me with these "content providers." It is insane for them to try and get money on both hands. Besides, the Internet is much more complex than just "the telco [or whomever] runs a line from my house to Apple." I am paying Optimum Online to connect me with backbones or points of presence, AND give me the few megabits per second of bandwidth or whatever. These other people (Apple, Yahoo) usually either are hosted practically right on top of these places (neteorkally speaking-The bigger ones usually own their own connection (or lease a dedicated one) to these places) or the even bigger ones might own on.) For people like me, or even those who colocate in a few rackmounts, this is even more insane, since we don't usually even know who we are connected to.

On the shared web hosting side (me, and most other websites that don't need a ton of CPU or other resources), we certianly don't have a clue, we just know our hosting company is giving me x GB of bandwith per month. Same goes for those who lease a dedicated server (by now we've definetely covered most web sites), except they know a bit about stuf like, this is my IP, and they also might control their NIC. But just like me, they expect their host takes care of supplying the agreed-upon monthly bandwith as well as speed (per second amount) . Wehen we get into simple colocation, which many of the smaller web hosts hosts buy from data centers, they still usually don't know. Often, they will run their own internal network (there'll be a swittch (perhaps also a router) inside their rackmount for communication among all of their hardware and "the internet", which again, they just tusually tell the data center they want x static IP's andd a x MB/s connection and negotiate on monthly bandwitth similarly. (They also buy the secure physical space, the cooling, the UPSed and generator-backed-up electricity, and their hardware also often gets insured against fire, theft, etc.) Just like everyone else, thy probably aren't too consirned with what backbone everything is going to and cetianly not what ISPs those are ultimately leading to. There are the leet hosts and large websites who colocate but manage their own connections. Here's where they begin to have a clue. They get space from the data center, usually generator backuped (maybe also uninterupted, but many have their own UPS's as well), but the connections to backbones and so forth (perhaosps a POP in the same data center they get seperately. (this generally means paying the backbone some money, to connect them with everybody else on the backbone, most notably the ISPs; this is my biggest reason why it's retarded. these things ought to be p2p, no money flowing from just one direction to the other) They have their own routers to route trafic among their own small network and the Internet backbones. These routers are designed to route traffic effectively, perhaps with some awareness of the ISP.

ISPs are practically peers with websites llike these, since they do practically the same thing, except rather then the computers they are connecting with the internet are not their own in a data ceneter, but they must provide a means of branshing out the network to individual ho,mes (this is probably actually the most expensive art of the buisness, which is why the homeowners pay the ISP bill, and not every web site. some of your fees though, do go to paying the ISPs bills at the backbones and so forth).

BAnyway, I see what they are trying to do. They are pretty much actiing ike it's: Consumer <- Intarweb (Bell South; isn't it ironic that my poking fun at AOL was for the reason that they tried to do this and leave out the next part) -> Web sites. In that case it would make sense. If bell south was "the intarweb", then of course, both sides should pay...perhaps equally!

However, this is not the case. As I explained above, it's more like

ME <- Optimum Online <-their backbone(s) <-THE INTERNET EXISTS AT ITS FULLEST HERE; BACKBONES JUST TRAVEL ALL AROUND THE WORL AND CONNECT AT VERIOUS PLACES (ROUTERS) -> backbones and lines to server data centers -> networks of hosting companies -> "web sites". Now of course, huge companies like Google make their way al the way to the center of the diagram, since they have their own data centers, fast links between them, and therefore practically constitute it's own backbone.

So I'm not really sure how all of the backbones in the middle cooperate, but it's mostly to keep their customers happy. If I was an ISP and was picking a backbone to start off with, I'd pick one that had good connectivity with other backbones in different places in the country, and of course a point of presence geographically near (preferably at) my central offices (where the cable/fiber/DSL/satellite/modems) are (which in turn, are very near near my customers; for isntance, DSL customers must be within 3 miles of a DSLAM, pronounced "Dee Slam", but meaning something like DSL something something). So I suppose that's how that works.

Anyway, so working from both sides, we have zillions of people that wanna connect with other people. Then we have companies that ficilitate this (data centers and places of DSL, etc termination). Now in Bell South's view of the world, this is it. But it's not. Backbones establish physical lines all over the world, and points of presence where their customers can connect to (either in the same data center or by leasing a T3 or OC3 or something line from a telco to there). Major web hosts (and really major web sites), and often ISPs, will connect to multiple of these backbones. Backbones agree to connect with each-other for their own good, which is the good of their customers, who want to connect to the customers of other backbones. So it's really the common good. I'm not positive on this, but generally speaking they don't pay each other a cent. Each side benefits equally from these "exchanges," since customers of both are paying for it. Be careful not to liken this to a web site or ISP connecting to a backbone. They are paying the backbone, because they run the whole redundant infrastrucure, and i think really expensive is the lines themselves (think about Europe to US lines).

So now, why is bell south retarded? Because by their logic, web hosts should charge people that use the web sites they host to use them, since "You're using our network and servers." Earth to idiots: YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE ALREADY PAYING YOU TO LET THEM USE THEM!!!! For ISPs: YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE PAYING YOU SO THEY CAN USE THE SERVICES PROVEIDED BY THE LIKES OF YAHOO AND APPLE. THAT'S WHY IN YOUR ADS, YOU SPEAK OF DOWNLOADING MUSIC FAST AND SO FORTH. If this happens, and it catches on, then Apple et al. will be paying every single freaking ISP. That's insane. The point of leasing bandwith on a backbone is that you get to connect with everone else (including those on other backbones) for one charge.

I say we boycott these guys, and hope it doesn't catch on. I'm not really sure how bell South is going to enforce this. I mean, if they just cut off "content providers" that don't pay, they will lose even the customer (think Joe iTunes user) who has no clue what I just said or why these are unjust. I have even less an idea about p2p filesharing proticols. Or will they artificially slow down traffic to/from IPs that haven't paid the bribe? Again, if Bell South was the intarweb, this wouldn't need to be artificial. They could just lower the physical capacity of the line to Apple. But that isn't the case. A packet from Apple to Bell South passes through backbone(s) and by the time it it's Bell South's most outer router, it has a distinct IP, but the way it came doesn't indicate who it is. Therefore, why should they pay?

This is just a way for them to make another buck. Their customers want more, and therefore they need to pay the backbones, so rather than ask their customers for higher rates (and therefore be less competitive with other ISPs), they go to someone they don't have to answer to and get it from them.

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