Google/Verizon. The end of the internet as we know it.

[James Bond]

I'm a little surprised that so many people are upset about this. As long as the QoS is implemented by service, and not company, this is a good news for the internet.

Notice how the people that are FOR this are all Network Engineers, and the people who are strongly against it have no idea what they are talking about?

 

[edro]

Net neutrality is a cool concept... just like world peace.

 

[dwell]

Quite well actually. I haven't seen their company having police break down reporters doors lately. Nor have I seen them attempt to brick my phone because I rooted it.

Yup. I just bought Jason Chen's desktop at a San Mateo police auction\.

 

[jackace]

This isn't capping your pipe, it's capping the content.

The way it works is: Google pays Verizon $50m to get youtube going fast on their network. I go to youtube and get fast video.

KeithTalent.net can't afford pay Verizon anything. I go to KeithTalent.net and the site is slow as seagull shit sliding down a hot rock on a summer day. It doesn't matter that I've paid for the 20down/2up connection from my ISP, Verizon filters your stuff into the slow ass category. Unless you can pay of course.

LOL great post.

I have to agree that the precedence this type of decision sets is dangerous. If we start with 2 filters, what is stopping us from making 3, 4, or 50 filters. Eventually the content on the net becomes about who can pay the most to get their content in the faster filters so the page actually loads in the next year.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I'm a little surprised that so many people are upset about this. As long as the QoS is implemented by service, and not company, this is a good news for the internet.

Notice how the people that are FOR this are all Network Engineers, and the people who are strongly against it have no idea what they are talking about?

I think the people who are for this are naive. Sure, we all want our high priority packets (real time/streaming video and voice) prioritized over HTTP traffic, downloads, etc. However, it's going to be exploited for profit. They'll probably end up with a "pay for QoS" system for content providers. The costs will be passed on to consumers and it will add a barrier to entry for start ups that want to offer a lot of bandwidth heavy content.

 

[jackace]

I'm a little surprised that so many people are upset about this. As long as the QoS is implemented by service, and not company, this is a good news for the internet.

Notice how the people that are FOR this are all Network Engineers, and the people who are strongly against it have no idea what they are talking about?

Would be great if it stayed just types of service, but that is not what they are talking about. They want to give Youtube (a company) better QoS than other traffic.

 

[crownjules]

I'm a little surprised that so many people are upset about this. As long as the QoS is implemented by service, and not company, this is a good news for the internet.

Notice how the people that are FOR this are all Network Engineers, and the people who are strongly against it have no idea what they are talking about?

I understand what Spidey07 is saying and how that would be good for the internet. But that's not what is being talked about in this article.

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Google pays Verizon to ensure that net traffic sent out from Youtube receives priority QoS. There is nothing here that states Verizon would be prioritizing ALL streaming media. Only Youtube's because Google paid for it. And other companies will have to follow suit or else risk losing customers because their site doesn't load as fast.

 

[spidey07]

I think the people who are for this are naive. Sure, we all want our high priority packets (real time/streaming video and voice) prioritized over HTTP traffic, downloads, etc. However, it's going to be exploited for profit. They'll probably end up with a "pay for QoS" system for content providers. The costs will be passed on to consumers and it will add a barrier to entry for start ups that want to offer a lot of bandwidth heavy content.

How are the costs going to be passed onto the consumers if the ISP is getting MORE MONEY from the content providers? That makes zero sense.

And all the folks saying "well my page will take forever to load" don't understand how it works. You're just relegated to best effort, first in, first out which is how most of the traffic is delivered today. Big dumb pipes, instead of big smart pipes which is what you want.

 

[James Bond]

I think the people who are for this are naive. Sure, we all want our high priority packets (real time/streaming video and voice) prioritized over HTTP traffic, downloads, etc. However, it's going to be exploited for profit. They'll probably end up with a "pay for QoS" system for content providers. The costs will be passed on to consumers and it will add a barrier to entry for start ups that want to offer a lot of bandwidth heavy content.

Like Spidey mentioned, it was my understanding that the FCC would not allow this on a per company basis. That's just what I had heard.

If that is not true, then I agree, it could be exploited (and would be).

Edit: I have not read the article yet.

 

[spidey07]

I understand what Spidey07 is saying and how that would be good for the internet. But that's not what is being talked about in this article.



Google pays Verizon to ensure that net traffic sent out from Youtube receives priority QoS. There is nothing here that states Verizon would be prioritizing ALL streaming media. Only Youtube's because Google paid for it. And other companies will have to follow suit or else risk losing customers because their site doesn't load as fast.

Stop using the word prioritize, it is incorrect and not how QoS works. It doesn't get priority over other traffic, video would just be delivered in a consistent stream and still be intermixed with other traffic. The goal of QoS is to provide adequate delivery of the different applications because they have different delivery requirements. If a content provider wants to pay extra so people who use the site get a better than best effort experience what is so wrong with that? All the other sites that didn't pay for it would still work just fine as they do today.

This is the whole problem is these morons that write these articles have no earthly clue about what they're writing. Same with people that support this stupid net neutrality idea.

However the real future is super smart pipes that automatically recognize the traffic pattern and set QoS accordingly. The so called "application intelligence" routers.

 

[her209]

How are the costs going to be passed onto the consumers if the ISP is getting MORE MONEY from the content providers? That makes zero sense.

If QoS is "the answer" then why do content providers need to pay for it? That makes zero sense.

 

[spidey07]

If QoS is "the answer" then why do content providers need to pay for it? That makes zero sense.

Because they can? They're not going to give something for nothing.

ISP - I can mark your stuff as video allowing folks to not have best effort and stuttering delivery and the occasional packet loss
Site - GREAT! How much does it cost?
ISP - Actually it's free!
Site - I smell something fishy, why would you do this and not charge me?
ISP - because we love everybody and our existence is to make people feel good and happy!

 

[her209]

Because they can? They're not going to give something for nothing.

Thanks for the sig material.

 

[jackace]

Stop using the word prioritize, it is incorrect and not how QoS works. It doesn't get priority over other traffic, video would just be delivered in a consistent stream and still be intermixed with other traffic. The goal of QoS is to provide adequate delivery of the different applications because they have different delivery requirements. If a content provider wants to pay extra so people who use the site get a better than best effort experience what is so wrong with that? All the other sites that didn't pay for it would still work just fine as they do today.

This is the whole problem is these morons that write these articles have no earthly clue about what they're writing. Same with people that support this stupid net neutrality idea.

However the real future is super smart pipes that automatically recognize the traffic pattern and set QoS accordingly. The so called "application intelligence" routers.

Your right that QoS won't have much impact if only a few companies pay for the service. What happens when every major corporation in the US or world begins paying for it?

 

[Kev]

I understand what Spidey07 is saying and how that would be good for the internet. But that's not what is being talked about in this article.



Google pays Verizon to ensure that net traffic sent out from Youtube receives priority QoS. There is nothing here that states Verizon would be prioritizing ALL streaming media. Only Youtube's because Google paid for it. And other companies will have to follow suit or else risk losing customers because their site doesn't load as fast.

I continue to see nothing wrong with this model.

 

[Gunslinger08]

How are the costs going to be passed onto the consumers if the ISP is getting MORE MONEY from the content providers? That makes zero sense.

And all the folks saying "well my page will take forever to load" don't understand how it works. You're just relegated to best effort, first in, first out which is how most of the traffic is delivered today. Big dumb pipes, instead of big smart pipes which is what you want.

Costs will be passed onto consumers from the content providers, not from the ISPs. It's pretty simple to understand that if a company has to spend more money to attract and retain customers they're going to need to increase revenue to maintain profits.

 

[Kev]

Costs will be passed onto consumers from the content providers, not from the ISPs. It's pretty simple to understand that if a company has to spend more money to attract and retain customers they're going to need to increase revenue to maintain profits.

Again, how would this be essentially different from a company spending more money on faster web servers to attract and retain customers?

 

[spidey07]

Your right that QoS won't have much impact if only a few companies pay for the service. What happens when every major corporation in the US or world begins paying for it?

Then folks that don't will still be in best effort delivery and you'd have the same experience as you do today. This is all about making The Internet better, not worse.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Again, how would this be essentially different from a company spending more money on faster web servers to attract and retain customers?

It's not. All I'm saying is that it's another expense that has to be paid for by someone. Some people are trying to paint it as an absolute win for the consumer with no downside.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I continue to see nothing wrong with this model.

Say your local "hub" of ISP consumers contains 1000 users. Google has paid your ISP to add specific QoS priorities for YouTube. The routing capability available to your "hub" is limited. You want to watch a video on a random site. The other 999 users want to watch a video on YouTube. Their packets are going to get prioritized over yours (yes, QoS does mean prioritizing packets). With heavy usage, your local "hub" is going to saturate its entire allocated routing capability, meaning not everyone is going to get their packets as fast as possible. The QoS rules are going to route the YouTube packets more quickly than your random site packets. It probably won't be anything as dramatic as a 5 minute wait to buffer your video, but it's going to negatively impact your experience on sites that didn't pay your ISP, if ISP's network is near capacity.

 

[spidey07]

Say your local "hub" of ISP consumers contains 1000 users. Google has paid your ISP to add specific QoS priorities for YouTube. The routing capability available to your "hub" is limited. You want to watch a video on a random site. The other 999 users want to watch a video on YouTube. Their packets are going to get prioritized over yours (yes, QoS does mean prioritizing packets). With heavy usage, your local "hub" is going to saturate its entire allocated routing capability, meaning not everyone is going to get their packets as fast as possible. The QoS rules are going to route the YouTube packets more quickly than your random site packets. It probably won't be anything as dramatic as a 5 minute wait to buffer your video, but it's going to negatively impact your experience on sites that didn't pay your ISP, if ISP's network is near capacity.

Not if implemented properly it won't. You're talking about queue starvation where one class consumes (starves) the egress (output) queue. You manage it properly so this doesn't happen. Also there will always be some capacity specifically reserved for best effort delivery traffic which is how it's delivered today.

As it is now, if you're talking about at or near capactiy then everybody's video experience sucks. QoS works best when there is actually congestion.

 

[jackace]

Then folks that don't will still be in best effort delivery and you'd have the same experience as you do today. This is all about making The Internet better, not worse.

Yes they will still get best effort delivery, but how will the metrics look for someone who is not paying for the QoS? Will they see increased latency, more packet loss, etc?

Not if implemented properly it won't. You're talking about queue starvation where one class consumes (starves) the egress (output) queue. You manage it properly so this doesn't happen.

Even if the QoS traffic doesn't consume the entire egress queue it still effects (negatively) anything that is not prioritized with the same QoS. Slower downloads, higher latency, etc.

 

[Patranus]

Even if the QoS traffic doesn't consume the entire egress queue it still effects (negatively) anything that is not prioritized with the same QoS. Slower downloads, higher latency, etc.

Except for the fact that services like VoIP have narrow requirements compared to Bittorrent.

Do you want Bittorrent to be treated equally when it doesn't matter what order packets arrive or the latency of those packets when those are two issues that impact VoIP?

 

[zerocool84]

Gonna update the OP at all cus they both denied it saying that NY Times is full of bs???

Update: Phew... we think. Google's Public Policy Twitter account just belted out a denial of these claims, straight-up saying that the New York Times "is wrong." Here's the full tweet, which certainly makes us feel a bit more at ease. For now. "@NYTimes is wrong. We've not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of our traffic. We remain committed to an open internet."

Update 2: Verizon's now also issued a statement and, like Google, it's denying the claims in the original New York Times report. It's as follows:
"The New York Times article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken. It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/05/google-and-verizon-sign-net-neutrality-agreement-begin-the-end/

 

[Patranus]

Gonna update the OP at all cus they both denied it saying that NY Times is full of bs???



http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/05/google-and-verizon-sign-net-neutrality-agreement-begin-the-end/

Wait, so two business have made a arrangement but it isn't a business arrangement.

Got it.

(And no, they didn't deny it, Verizon actually confirmed it.)