SBC/AT&T + Verizon/MCI Peering Restrictions
Any thoughts on this: http://www.convergedigest.com/Bandwidth/newnetworksarticle.asp?ID=16437 --- <snip> The applicants committed, for a period of three years, to maintain settlement-free peering arrangements with at least as many providers of Internet backbone services as they did in combination on the Merger Closing Dates. The applicants committed for a period of two years to post their peering policies on publicly accessible websites. During this two-year period, the applicants will post any revisions to their peering policies on a timely basis as they occur. ---- </snip> Published SFI peering policies are nice, but the overlap in SFI peering between each pair of merging carriers may require them to peer with additional networks. For example, there is some overlap between SBC and AT&T in regards to SFI peers. This might require the combined network to interconnect with additional networks to MAINTAIN the overall number of SFI peers. I guess its a good time to apply to 701 for SFI, although it appears the number of slots are limited to some unknown (and probably low) number. Gentlefolk, start your engines :) Can anyone else think of regulatory restrictions previously placed on SFI relationships in North America? I realize this is more like a consent decree than true regulation, but its an interesting move by the regulators. Regulation is generally a bad thing, but publishing SFI requirements - and even SFI relationships - won't hurt anyone, IMHO. -- Daniel Golding
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like. randy
On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Randy Bush wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts? If Google sets up a WiFi network in San Francisco or buys AOL with Comcast, can Google create a custom content for users on its networks? Or must Google offer the same cotent on the same terms and conditions to everyone? Should AOL be able to offer selected content to only its customers, such as music downloads? Or must AOL supply that content to everyone equally? Comcast offers its users access to the Disney Connection web site, should Disney be required to offer it to all Internet users equally? The NFL offers its Sunday Ticket exclusively through DirecTV? Or must the NFL offer the same content to every network? What rules should exist on how Google operates? Or is it just traditionally lobbying? Google says regulate the other guy, but not itself. The other guys say regulate Google, but not them.
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like. Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts?
the content providers are not common carriers whose irreplacable access to the customer prem was subsidized by public funding and protection. and perhaps we should be declaring our employment affiliations. mine is iij, a large japanese/asian non-carrier isp with some service in the us, plus various consulting gigs, none for content providers. randy
On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Randy Bush wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts?
equal access at same cost perhaps... though honestly it's their content so they can decide if they don't want one or some folks to view it I'd think. (ianal, of course)
If Google sets up a WiFi network in San Francisco or buys AOL with Comcast, can Google create a custom content for users on its networks? Or
this is a 'customer portal' no? Don't lots of folks do this today? to provide customized content to their subscribers, somehow wrapping that cost into the cost of the network service they offer?
must Google offer the same cotent on the same terms and conditions to everyone? Should AOL be able to offer selected content to only its customers, such as music downloads? Or must AOL supply that content to everyone equally? Comcast offers its users access to the Disney
aol/google/content-provider-foo might provide exclusive content for a higher (or lower) price than to normal folks, it also might be bitten by the lose of potential customers that way :( This sounds like a business decision not a legislative one, eh?
Connection web site, should Disney be required to offer it to all Internet users equally? The NFL offers its Sunday Ticket exclusively through DirecTV? Or must the NFL offer the same content to every network?
no one cares about football... Now, hockey! That's a sport that everyone should get access to! :)
What rules should exist on how Google operates? Or is it just traditionally lobbying? Google says regulate the other guy, but not itself. The other guys say regulate Google, but not them.
Isn't this just the normal political/regulator/lobbyist dance? Those with the slickest, loudest, most-involved lobbyists 'win' in the end don't they? Take Disney's constant push to up the Copyright timeframes for example... -Chris
aol/google/content-provider-foo might provide exclusive content for a higher (or lower) price than to normal folks, it also might be bitten by the lose of potential customers that way :( This sounds like a business decision not a legislative one, eh?
Connection web site, should Disney be required to offer it to all Internet users equally? The NFL offers its Sunday Ticket exclusively through DirecTV? Or must the NFL offer the same content to every network?
no one cares about football... Now, hockey! That's a sport that everyone should get access to! :)
<insert tongue in cheek here> I, for one, welcome Christopher Morrow, and Sean Donelan as my new monopoly overlords. I'd like to remind him that as a trusted former associate/acquaintance, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves. </insert tongue in cheek here> And yes, it has been done to death... I am not proud...
Sean Donelan wrote:
Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts?
SBC and Yahoo! have already answered this question (for example). I also think that most people on this list will remember the early days of broadband suppliers like RoadRunner who tried to build a "we are mostly local content, plus some Internet access" model which the customers hated, and they (for the most part) eventually abandoned altogether. Even AOL was forced by market pressure to provide real Internet to its customers. Doug .oO(Glad I don't own any SBC stock ...) -- If you're never wrong, you're not trying hard enough
Sean Donelan wrote:
Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts?
Erm .. the content 'belongs' to the supplier, why shouldn't they be allowed to chose who can and can't get access to it. The electronic retailer I work for deny access to all content that they own/supply to several networks, as a matter of policy. Noone should be able to tell us that we have to start supplying it. We also give some third-parties more content based on commercial relationships in place. Similarly, google own all of the data that they've crawled/indexed/archived - why shouldn't they be able to hold that data to ransom. Why shouldn't google be able to supply extra content to networks that it runs ? [...]
What rules should exist on how Google operates? Or is it just traditionally lobbying? Google says regulate the other guy, but not itself. The other guys say regulate Google, but not them.
So google charge for their data (either by subscription, or forcing users to join GoogleNet to get access to what they want). Fine. If Google do, someone else will be perfectly willing to crawl/index/archive a new set of data. And many webmasters will be quick to deny access to google's spider. -a
I think this whole debate is really funny. Back in the days, email was content, USENET was content. Then FTP. Then IRC and the like. Oh, eventually the "Web" emerged. And so on. And somehow, because it's now movies or whatever, the rules changed. Give me a break. Truth is, the RBOCs keep trying to treat non-telephony like telephony, and it's fundamentally broken. They keep trying to impose a PSTN billing model on the world and really have trouble with any other models. MSOs are realy the same. Disruptors have emerged and will disrupt the post-mature industry. It's not like this is the heyday, as much as there's an illusion of that in certain boardrooms. Money that could've been used to evolve has been squandered on dividends, inefficiencies etc over periods of decades. MSOs are a bit different there. So, to now sit here and somehow justify this as is really funny to watch because when all you know is hammers, everything looks like a nail. And it'll work for a while. Screws will go in eventually. But at some point you'll figure out that you're just out of luck because you haven't spent any money being near the leading edge, the 'fast follower' monicker has become a joke all in itself, and you're not able to figure out what else you need to add to the toolset before all other costs eat you alive (pension funds, healthcare, costs to maintain existing 'paid for' infrastructure that has finally reached its limits for good, etc -- there are enough riders of the apocalypse). So, your hammer will be inefficient and you will have no money left to buy a next gen hammer. Or if you do, all other lines of revenue that sustain you will suffer and break your back. It's a catch 22. Or that's my admittedly cloudy crystal ball. Now, they all got what it takes to be successful. The rbocs with their yellow pages were the google advertising revenue of decades past. They got the basic elements, but they cannot innovate themselves out of a wet paper bag because they're all terrified of cannibalization of existing revenue. Only if they do cannibalize, they stand a chance. And if that's no executed right, it'll break their spines in the process as their dividend happy investors will dump them wholesale. And, let's not forget that the RBOCs aren't the only ones doing this. MSO perspectives are just as bad. MSO's are actually much more protective of their 'content' and how gets to do what on their network for what price. And at some point in the future, they both will look like a lot of energy companies (or steel, pick your poison). The content debate is nicely spun, but it's really ridiculous hype. What people derive value from is what 'content' is. But apparently the industry has as a whole fallen into this spin trap. Particularly how ownership has replaced licensing in all this. Ownership doesn't even exist in some virtual reference. I can't help but find all this amusing.
That's a wonderful bluring of what Randy's issue was to the point of indistinction. Yes, try to flip it. The issue is when a consumer buys access to the "Internet" what do they get? One way of tackling this is a truth in advertising defintion of what selling access to the "Internet" means. If you sell access to the "Internet" does that mean everybody except companies that offer services that compete with you? (for example: competing VOIP for phone companies, or competing IPTV for cable networks) Does access to the "Internet" include prefixes of: * prefixes of networks willing to pay you money * prefixes of networks willing to call it even * prefixes of networks that wanted you to pay money At some point, what you would be selling would not be access to what the average business customer or consumer would call the "Internet", in which case you shouldn't be allowed to market it that way. You should have to call it access to the "Partial Internet", or "Some of the Internet", or "The portion of the Internet willing to pay us money". i.e. "Contains only 50 percent Internet". (heh, just like a can of mixed nuts letting you know the amount of peanuts, or "fruit juice" that discloses whether it really has any fruit juice in it at all.) Most of us can probably agree that you should be free to sell whatever concontion of network connectivity you want. Certainly AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy were all walled gardens before the Internet. Knock yourself out, just don't call it Internet access. Mike. On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Wed, 2 Nov 2005, Randy Bush wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
Should content suppliers be required to provide equal access to all networks? Or can content suppliers enter into exclusive contracts?
If Google sets up a WiFi network in San Francisco or buys AOL with Comcast, can Google create a custom content for users on its networks? Or must Google offer the same cotent on the same terms and conditions to everyone? Should AOL be able to offer selected content to only its customers, such as music downloads? Or must AOL supply that content to everyone equally? Comcast offers its users access to the Disney Connection web site, should Disney be required to offer it to all Internet users equally? The NFL offers its Sunday Ticket exclusively through DirecTV? Or must the NFL offer the same content to every network?
What rules should exist on how Google operates? Or is it just traditionally lobbying? Google says regulate the other guy, but not itself. The other guys say regulate Google, but not them.
+----------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -----------------+ | Mike Leber Direct Internet Connections Voice 510 580 4100 | | Hurricane Electric Web Hosting Colocation Fax 510 580 4151 | | mleber@he.net http://www.he.net | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Thu, 3 Nov 2005, Mike Leber wrote:
Certainly AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy were all walled gardens before the Internet.
Before in the sense of before they connected to it. (not literally of course) +----------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -----------------+ | Mike Leber Direct Internet Connections Voice 510 580 4100 | | Hurricane Electric Web Hosting Colocation Fax 510 580 4151 | | mleber@he.net http://www.he.net | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
That's a wonderful bluring of what Randy's issue was to the point of indistinction. Yes, try to flip it. The issue is when a consumer buys access to the "Internet" what do they get?
for some help, see rfc 4084, though it is weak in the area of interest. randy
On Nov 2, 2005, at 8:04 AM, Randy Bush wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
You can pretty much s/the sbc/rboc/g in this context. Leadership seems to believe that because those who conduct business over 'their' infrastructure aren't paying them a transaction fee, there's somehow something wrong with that model. Fact is, they _are_ getting paid for their pipes, and they've never been part of the transaction model (aka tax collectors). If you want to be something else, dump the pipes r us business model. But then you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Somehow, I'm very reminded of how the music industry has acted when faced with a disruptor. Very classic threat reponse of somebody thinking like a mono/duo/whateverpartitionedmarketpoly. Sections in http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/business/2005-10-31- bellsouth-mergers_x.htm have publically confirmed similar thought patterns. But then again, the CEO's of the companies mentioned here do look like twins separated at birth, with companies sharing very similar DNA (even though they all think they're very different). So, my point being in response to what Randy wrote.. expect a lot more where that came from, especially as margins come under more pressure. As long as they pretend disruption can be controlled or isn't happening, this will continue. And one could argue that the recently approved mergers might fuel such attitudes. Best regards, Christian
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy voice customer, and i place a voice call to aunt tillie, does aunt tillie pay sbc to hold up her end of the conversation? if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy dsl customer and i go to <http://content.provider>, why should content.provider pay to give the sbc paying customer what they're already charged for? what these greedy <bleep>s want it a way to double bill. your analogy to the riaa/mpa desperation is apt. randy
On Nov 2, 2005, at 9:36 AM, Randy Bush wrote:
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy voice customer, and i place a voice call to aunt tillie, does aunt tillie pay sbc to hold up her end of the conversation?
No, but they pay their local carrier. And somewhere there's an IXC in the middle. And settlement happens. Access charges, LD charges and all. Hell, they even bill their customers on behalf of all those other guys. And they all want access charges (remember the fights a few years back?), and then they want a cut what goes over the pipe which the access charges just enabled. And I stand here shaking my head, going blblblblblb, wtf. All because they don't want and can't (sic) accept that the pipes r us business has been commoditized and evolution must happen for them to get money out of other services. Now, if they made bw free, and wanted a cut from the transaction.. I don't think anyone would object. Pull up the recent balance sheets and see how much money you'd have to make up to cover the gap. Ooof.
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy dsl customer and i go to <http://content.provider>, why should content.provider pay to give the sbc paying customer what they're already charged for?
That's my precisely my point as well. It's nutty. There are several people reading along here who saw first hand with me what sort of curious models this brought to light..
what these greedy <bleep>s want it a way to double bill. your analogy to the riaa/mpa desperation is apt.
Thanks. And tomorrow we'll all wonder out loud why all these guys haven't been poaching customers in the other's backyard thus far in what's basically been a decade now since 1996, in spite of having hardly any regulatory restraints placed on them (about which they bitch so loudly at home). ;-) Best regards, Christian
--- Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy dsl customer and i go to <http://content.provider>, why should content.provider pay to give the sbc paying customer what they're already charged for?
There is one scenario where the content.provider is paying the carrier as well - when the content.provider is a direct customer of the carrier, rather than being either a SFI-peer or a customer of an SFI-peer. This of course goes back to the question of depeering/transit/etc which we beat to death a couple of weeks ago - many carriers want to get paid both by the sources and sinks of traffic (it's certainly an understandable, if unlikely, desire). I would just like to point out for the record that none of the recent depeering battles have involved any RBOCs... -David Barak __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
There is one scenario where the content.provider is paying the carrier as well - when the content.provider is a direct customer of the carrier, rather than being either a SFI-peer or a customer of an SFI-peer.
This of course goes back to the question of depeering/transit/etc which we beat to death a couple of weeks ago - many carriers want to get paid both by the sources and sinks of traffic (it's certainly an understandable, if unlikely, desire). I would just like to point out for the record that none of the recent depeering battles have involved any RBOCs...
Playing devil's advocate here... But what if (assuming a new generation of peering agreements came into being)... They allowed SELECTIVE depeering... say... by Customer? So SBC could depeer Google... (assume here the SBC wants Google to become a customer and isn't actually competing with Google as an SE guy). And assume that the FCC/Courts will take a few years to deal with the issue. I think it might be able to happen. What would a Google do? Anywhere it moves its bits, SBC would just drop them/ignore them. SBC is running a private network with some interconnections as far as SBC is concerned, and barring any wild lawsuits from customers and assuming an amendment to its TOS... You could selectively depeer BIG guys... that aren't SO big that your customers will mass defect.. So maybe Google isn't the right example. Maybe real.com is a better one. Would you lose many customers if real.com wasn't available to them? I bet not. But would real be willing to pay you $4K a month to keep access to your network??? probably. Just a thought. Deepak
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of David Barak Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 2:18 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: SBC/AT&T + Verizon/MCI Peering Restrictions
<snip>
like to point out for the record that none of the recent depeering battles have involved any RBOCs...
Which makes sense when you consider much of the current traffic flows. It gets even more interesting when you look at the fast-increasing number of fat FiOS pipes. When you take (edonkey/kazaa/ptp-du-jour)+FiOS you get a network of distributed 'content providers'. Reference the earlier post about broadband getting a lot less interesting w/o the content. Well this rings true when you weigh the traffic load of 100K's of users poking around in a portal vs. 100K's of users 'shopping' for music & movies! ___________________________________________________________ Wayne Gustavus, CCIE #7426 IP Operations Support Verizon Internet Services ___________________________________________________________ "Can you ping me now? Good!"
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy voice customer, and i place a voice call to aunt tillie, does aunt tillie pay sbc to hold up her end of the conversation?
Historically, aunt tillie's residential telephone line was subsidized by charging more for business lines. When you called aunt tillie, a portion of what you paid for the call passed through settlement charges and access fees to compensated both your service provider and aunt tillie's service provider for the call. These were usually implemented for social policy reasons, and its been a slow process to re-allocate the various billing practices to eliminate them. Aunt tillie saw it mostly as her local phone bill increased as she lost the benefit of the subsidy.
if i am a paying sbc or other foopoloy dsl customer and i go to <http://content.provider>, why should content.provider pay to give the sbc paying customer what they're already charged for?
When aunt tillie watches a home shopping channel, the channel usually gives a percentage of everything aunt tillie buys from the channel to the local cable operator. When aunt tillie watches basic cable channels, usually the channel gives the local cable operator several minutes of advertising time every hour, even though aunt tillie already paid for her cable. When aunt tillie calls a toll-free (1-800) number, the business answering the call pays for the call including the settlement and access charges for aunt tillie's service provider in addition to the business' service provider. Google pays compensation to some web sites to include "sponsored" links on their web pages. Why do businesses do this? Some believe it benefits advertisers to subsidize consumers basic cable, toll-free phone access and web sites so more consumers have access to their content, and in turn gives businesses a bigger market to sell too. Why would you want to prevent businesses from paying for part of aunt tillie's Internet access? If a business wants to pay for "better than best effort" access for users coming to its web site or using some other service such as VOIP, shouldn't it have that option?
On 11/2/05 2:04 PM, "Randy Bush" <randy@psg.com> wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
randy
For the curious on the list... "How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!" - Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC ----- I choose to view this as ineffectual railing against the seemingly inevitable subordination of bit transport to compelling content. Memo to Ed Whitace: They ARE using your pipes right now, and they AREN'T paying you money. The funny thing is that your customers ARE paying you money for access to Google and Yahoo. Broadband gets a lot less compelling without content, so don't push it. -- Daniel Golding
On Nov 2, 2005, at 9:54 AM, Daniel Golding wrote:
They ARE using your pipes right now, and they AREN'T paying you money. The funny thing is that your customers ARE paying you money for access to Google and Yahoo. Broadband gets a lot less compelling without content, so don't push it.
Hah. Classic. But, but, Dan, that trick-or-treating wasn't all. But if they harness their own content, then what would you have.. a captive supplier to an mono/whateverpoly? Oh what fun that would be for Christmas, on a one horse open sleigh. 'Tis the season, guys. Ho Ho Ho. http://www.cabledatacomnews.com/nov05/nov05-6.html You've got to admit, though, the ability to completely fade out reality and invent your own is impressive, and those CEO's ought to be commended. And while we're doing this with RBOCs, we can bitch about MSOs just the same. One might find a surprising number of similarities. Best regards, Christian
On Wed, Nov 02, 2005 at 03:04:52AM -1000, Randy Bush wrote:
the two year window is far too low given the sbc ceo's recent public statements on the use of his wires by google and the like.
Come on, you didn't see that coming? I'd wager money that right now, somewhere at SBC, there are two executives in a board room with arms interlocked at the elbow, skipping merrily in a circle with giant grins on their faces, chanting: o/~ We're gonna be a tier 1 o/~ o/~ We're gonna be a tier 1 o/~ -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
participants (13)
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Andy Davidson -
Blaine Christian -
Christian Kuhtz -
Christopher L. Morrow -
Daniel Golding -
David Barak -
Deepak Jain -
Doug Barton -
Mike Leber -
Randy Bush -
Richard A Steenbergen -
Sean Donelan -
Wayne Gustavus (nanog)