The internet is over!
 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester

"The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
" :(

We need to all get together and start a co-op internet.

I have a couple 2400 baud modems and one 9600 baud FAX/modem I can donate.... Oh and some UTP wire...... :rolleyes:

Umm...is PODS and other BBS functionality still in place somewhere? We might need that soon.

This whole thing is just further proof of an earlier posting I made, which posits that the entirety of humanity is seen as nothing more than a cash cow ripe for milking in ever more efficient ways. "Be Rich or Get Screwed" should be stamped on the currencies of all the nations of the world.

Last time I checked, I was already paying someone for my Internet access, but that apparently isn't enough. Right now, Time Warner is sucking over $200 per month out of me for cable, phone and Internet, but that isn't enough, apparently, since I still have enough money to eat and live indoors.

Hell, even reviving BBS's won't help. Back at the peak of BBS popularity, Southwestern Bell was on the verge of charging much higher rates for phone lines which were used to connect to BBS's. Why? Because they decided that such services were "businesses" (despite the fact that virtually all of them were free, and despite the fact that the mere existence of BBS's guaranteed that they would have many more lines in service than they would have otherwise). In actuality, the Phone Company just wanted a bigger piece of the pie, and that was their bullying way of getting it.

So's this.

Isn't the internet really just a conglomeration of privately owned companies anyway? Really, when we pay our ISP for our access, we're also paying them to store our information such as emails, webpages, posts on message boards and any other digital information we look at during our surfing the net etc. This information is stored sometimes for a long time e.g. webpages which we've made using our server provided space, or a short time e.g. emails etc. It's all just information being transferred through ISP's who store the information and pass it on when requested.

I can't see how that's likely to change any time soon other than for larger ISP's to try and create a monopoly and therefore take advantage of us poor saps.

Pfft, if it ever gets to that i would simply just stop using the internet. I'm not paying a fortune for for the thing, everything thats done online for me personally isn't important anyway, and if you need it for work, then that the employers problem (which they can claim on their taxes anyway).

Huh? I wasn't aware Comcast was storing anything for me, except my emails until I retrieve them. :confused:

Well, they might not need to keep it since ...

"...a car in every garage, a chicken in every pot..." has become "...an FBI agent in every colon..."

Preferred E-mail?
 

From here.

Now Yahoo is a free service, but AOL isn't. If this is simply a case of putting a 'preferred' sticker on certain items, then this isn't really new. If you do a directory search in the Yellow Pages online, preferred advertisers are given a special section above local merchants.

If however, they attempt to degrade e-mail delivery from companies who don't pay, this is a huge issue for paying customers. Not just sales circulars that we want to receive, but important commercial responses such as registration confirmations, e-mails about flight or subscription/account cancellations might be purposely delayed to blackmail companies to sign up for 'preffered' service.

For a free service like Yahoo, the answer is that you get what you pay for. For AOL, if I found out that an important confirmation or cancellation notice from an airline was dumped as spam even though I had previously received them, I would drop AOL like a hot rock.

When you look at a webpage (like this one for example) you use your terminal to connect to your server. Then you type in a web address, and your server looks for it and finds it on whichever server it's on. The information that you look at on this page is stored on someone's server, and the person that owns the site pays the server for the space. You just get to look at it. :) If you had your own webspace, it would be stored on a server which is paid for somehow, either by you directly, or the space owners (such as geocities) might choose to use advertising to make their money, so that means that they're giving you space for free, but you're advertising their site which puts things like pop-ups etc (which someone has paid geocities to use) on your page.

When I request a web page I'm not looking at it on the server that's storing it. It's downloaded to my PC via the web by my ISP (comcast). Thats why if my cable connection is broken, the page is still displayed on my screen.

Comcast transfers the pages I request but only stores my emails, while I'm offline, untill I request them. As part of there service they set aside two blocks of their storage capacity, that I can use. One for pictures and such and one if I wanted to have a small site. I choose not to use them so they are storing nothing for me, except emails. :headshake

Right. Well that's fairly obvious. I thought you didn't understand what I was saying Bruce. :) Looks like you understand after all. Anyway, my point was that nothing online is free now, so what I don't understand is how people think it can become even more privatised.

People, please. This is the Internet, and we are in charge here.

There is no advantage in being a big company on the Internet. Bigness doesn't really matter on the net. No single entity can hope to truly control any major part of the net; the net won't tolerate it.

This is the internet. Every product on the Internet is one click away from every other product. Companies that charge must actually add value. And as only a select few have learned, on the Internet, it is extremely difficult to gain power by exercising control. Google found that it gained power by giving power away. By doing so it has accumulated more net worth faster than any company in history.

This is the Internet. We are not "consumers", eating products and shitting money. We are all partners. No single company can control you - that is, unless you allow it.

"Preferred Email"? Talk about your euphemisms! Isn't this pretty much "it is alright for you to spam our customers as long as we're making money off of it"?

We can hope that is true. But reality says such big companies are already manipulating so as to charge more money for new services such as VOIP.

From IEEE Spectrum of October 2005:

If it's determined that a Comcast is doing this, the resulting bad word of mouth could literally destroy them as a company. Providing IP service is the only business that matters. In 10 years cable TV may be dead :reaper: as everyone will be able to broadcast over IP. No more channels, buy your basketball from Google to play on your video ipod connected to your home monitor.

And market perception is the biggest differentiator. The only differentiator. Anyone can move bits; depending where you're sitting, you may be bombarded with them. You can get broadband wi-fi at your local coffee place, for example.

Cisco has far more sway than any two-bit network-sniffing company and could well treat such packet warfare as network errors in the future, and try to route around them automatically. Remember the axiom, "the Internet treats censorship as network failure and routes around it." Voice is about 64k of bandwidth at the most, trivial to route around. That's why Vonage has a market to begin with.

New phones will even be wi-fi enabled, so if your own bandwidth doesn't match the bandwidth you get at work, or at McDonalds, providers will get complaint after complaint until they get it "fixed" and inferior service will clearly be the road to failure. Even management will understand because of how quickly it will effect their bottom lines.

We are in charge.

If such were true, then APC, Belkin, Tripplite, and Monster Cable would have been out of business long ago - all marketing power strip protectors that do nothing effective and can even contribute to damage of attached computer. This demonstrated in another series of posts. And yet still, naivety lives on.

If your Skype phone does not work on Comcast, but your Comcast provided phone does, then who will most people blame? Comcast? Of course not. Blame will fall on Skype who in turn loses customers to Comcast. Unfortunately I have seen this too often - market forces punishing the innocent because 'so called' experts (power users) did not first learn basic technology. This is the power behind packet skewing. Experts (power users) will only see what they observe rather than first learn the underlying technology - therefore blaming Skype rather than Comcast. Long ago on The Cellar, I noted this fact in a series of posts about DSL and the reason for 'the bottleneck'. Back then, I noted copper wire was not a bottleneck - as so many others blindly believed. Bottleneck was circuit switching computers - the Central Office.

Also in that discussion was what DSL could have provided. No need for an ISP. A mailbox is a tiny server in your home. Central Office only provides a copper wire connect (or fiber) to the home for a fixed monthly charge. This (back then) scared the Baby Bells who had just finished upgrading all their CO switching computers. Upgrading computers based upon 'circuit switched' technology rather than 'packet switched' technology. IOW Baby Bells should have been selling only IP service. What Isenberg called a "dumb network" - which was superior to the "intelligent network".

Well we still are not there. Meanwhile, legacy service provider (ie AOL, Comcast, etc) will do everything to stifle the above business model. They want your VoIP business and may do whatever is necessary to stifle upstarts - as they did to new DSL providers back when the Baby Bells would not install even in 1990s that 1981 DSL technology.

I don't believe for one moment that market forces are that informed as to identify games played by 'packet skewing'. I do not have enough faith in consumer being technically literate. Why? How many power strip protectors do you see out there? Wasted money. But the consumer still spends tens of times more money for devices that do nothing effective. Therefore how do we expect the consumer to understand that Comcast is doing 'packet skewing' to make their own services more desireable?

Neither Comcast nor the Baby Bells have any interest in only being IP service providers; leaving others to provide 'next layer' services such as 'on demand movies' and VoIP.

For that matter, how many here really understand what I have posted? Posted was a so simplistic overview of the Internet. And yet those same consumers would see through this big business trick of 'packet skewing"? I seriously doubt that consumers would be sufficiently informed. Everytime I see a power strip protector, then I suspect naviety is widespread.

Don't be silly...they're not using it yet, but they will soon. They're selling phone service, and at a time of their choosing they'll slam the door and then point out the clause in their ToS that says you can't do that.

They don't want you doing anything that generates significant upstream that doesn't also generate significant revenue.

For them.

I'm totally fed up with Comcast, from their constantly trying to jam digital service down my throat (at a price) to the crappy, sloppy way they insert their own dreary boring commercials into other people's programming. Often in the middle of another commercial.

Our wideband is *provisioned* by Verizon, but the ISP is Voicenet. Comcast's days in our household are numbered; we're shopping for a good VSAT TV service.

Me too, let me know what you find out. (I want to install it myself but I hear they want to do all that for you)

When you make such a request, your pc gets the page from SOME server, not always the one hosting the original of the page. Two major technologies, still in widespread use that don't conform to your description are proxy servers (especially for content) and mirror servers, which are explicitly not the same server as the one that holds the original information, but holds a perfect copy (in a perfect world).

My humble solution and only partially tongue in cheek, but also aprtly sincere is that once a year we all send each other paper mail via the usps and figure out whjer we'll meet at forks and conduct all this arguing, trolling, red baiting and back biting in person with shared refershmetns.

it would be like a boyscout jamboree ofr bigv and me and a few others and it wouldn't be like that for xoxoxbruce and a few others.

The all the people sucking money out of you could go piss up a rope.

we'll work out the details in person at the next forks. (not sure if the inch or SWMBO will be ready for forks. nor me for thst mttter.)

Just throught of something - this voice-detection technology can't *possibly* tell the difference between voice used for conversation and voice used for voice communication in gaming. Because it'll be identical. Think the gamers can't put 2 and 2 together? You're wrong.

I suspect you are missing one important fact. This voice-detection technology can identify each Skype VoIP packet and each Comcast VoIP packet. Therefore Comcast VoIP packets remain undisturbed whereas Skype packets are skewed (distorted).

This technology is in use in other countries (ie Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany (Vodaphone), France (SFR), and also in South America and Asia) where the local phone monopoly was being undercut by VoIP technology. When used in the US, most consumers would blame Skype for a lousy product; switch to Comcast or the Baby Bell's VoIP instead.

As the article notes, Comcast refuses to acknowledge or deny that they are using software they have already purchased. As the article notes, FCC recently said DSL providers can also do same. Software that can selectively skew competitors IP packets while leaving Comcast packets undisturbed.

Above is in direct contradiction to what UT has suggested - that the internet is nothing more than IP packets. Significant power exists in being a large IP provider. That IP provider can, for example, time shift packets from small competition. That service degradation (to promote a big ISP's higher level products) is all quite legal. All part of an effort by large communication companies to, for example, keep smaller competition from using their existing infrastructure - a reversal of open competition demanded by the 1996 Communication Act.

Most consumers, but all it takes is a small minority of experts to point out what's going on. See the Sony rootkit controversy for an example of how this would work. When the stakes are high the controversy means more to all.

An overnight, sudden loss of 5%, or even 2% of its customer base would be devastating to a large broadband provider. Particularly one that is trying to leverage its size to have an ability to control the Internet.

Firstly the economics: VOIP is cheap to start, with huge potential profits, so if one provider is "broken", two more will pop up in its place. The harder the old companies try to monetize their own VOIP services, the more profit will remain in the industry. Look at how Vonage went from 0 to 60 overnight.

Every IP connection involves not one, but two sides, both of whom have an interest in unhindered packet travel. Every connection involves not one, not two, but several different providers. Just run a traceroute (to comcast.net for example; don't trace cellar.org, it's having a network problem today) and count how many companies are involved in getting stuff from point to point. Even the shortest routes involve 5 companies. All of those companies demand unhindered packet travel and all have the expertise to identify where network congestion comes from.

Comcast's ability to provide IP services to its customers also depends on its providers interest in providing IP services to Comcast. And everyone in the world's interest in connecting to Comcast customers. Comcast slows Skype? At that point Skype blocks Comcast, and guess who loses then?

All the models have changed. There is no more Ma Bell who makes both sides of the connection and can act as a sole arbiter. There is no more 7 baby bells to try the same crap. There are now hundreds of infant bells, many of whom have competitive advantages. And now, millions upon millions of switches no longer in the control of a single entity... or even a single regulatory body.

The companies with a lot of customers simply have further to fall. When someone's phone works off their laptop at Starbucks, but not at their home next door, it will be obvious what's happening.

Well you tell me what experts saw Comcast doing packet skewing on a selective basis this past year? Or were they? How would these 'experts' know? Packet skewing appears similar to other internet latencies. And this is only one trick we now know about. How many others exist that we don't know about.

Bottom line is that large IP providers have major influence - both technical and legal - to make the business much more than just shipping IP packets. The Sony case was only discovered by Mark Russinovich because it was so badly implemented - not because all such techniques can be exposed as you are assuming.

How many years has George Jr been wiretapping without court approval? How much mail has been seized and opened in direct violation of United States laws? You know they are not doing this because 'experts' would discover it? Your assumption that it will always be discovered is seriously flawed.

Who?

No, really, who?

Your points about the two-ended nature of things are very well taken--and are exactly the reason AT&T's garbage is doomed to failure as long as everybody displays some testicular fortitude.

But what you're saying is that in your scenario Skype users would skip Comcast and use a different provider. But that only happens if there's another broadband provider there waiting to sign up Comcast's disgruntled customers, and in a lot of areas there isn't.

YES, tw, my argument is that they probably weren't doing it because nobody has any indication that they were.

You are suggesting that they were doing it because you can't prove they didn't.

Which of our arguments is more logical, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

I am not saying they are or are not. I am saying your arguments are predicated on an assumption that all such truths will be exposed.

According to your logic, all power strip protector manufacturers would be out of business because consumers would learn. According to your assumptions, we know when George Jr is wiretapping and opening our mail. I don't believe it for one minute. Your underlying assumptions are seriously flawed. This is not a question as to whether Comcast IS skewing packets, This is all about your logic and underlying assumptions. They are flawed.

Furthermore Comcast could be selectively using 'packet skewing'. Consumers would blame Skype long before they would blame 'packet skewing'. By doing so, 'experts' would never know the difference. Is Comcast using Narus Inc. software? Probably. Would you know? Could you detect it? Obviously not. So how are those consumers to know?

Furthermore, who are those consumers to change to? Verizon - that also can use 'packet skewing' legally to undermine Skype? There is no one else. So where is this free market force that would punish Comcast? Just too many reasons why free market forces do not punish big IP 'packet movers'. It's legal for them to selectively skew packets. And Comcast has bought the software that does packet skewing.

Your assumptions are based upon a theory that you can tell when they are and are not packet skewing. I suggest they may be and UT could not say so, one way or the other. Therefore the assumptions underpinning UT's assumptions is erroneous. Big IP movers can easily manipulate the market. It is legal for them to skew packets - intermittently - and do many other things which experts could not detect - in direct contradiction to what UT posts.

Meanwhile, the poor little consumer (say, someone like me, for example) is sitting here reading all this diatribe and wondering "Why can't these so-called 'service providers' simply compete by seeing who can offer the best service at the lowest price" instead of figuring out ways to screw each other and their customer base.

Like so much of the current technology, there are no directly comparable historical models to serve as a basis to guide legislation or business practices toward a workable solution. I think UT's comment, which I will sum up as "both sides need the other", is the most realistic. Unless one infrastructure/service provider owns sufficent resources to cover the entire globe (or agreements to use another company's resources), then the utility of IP communications, regardless of type, becomes lessened to the point that it stops making sense to use at all. Take away the usefulness of something, and the market dries up.

So how to forecast the future? Simple. Look to see who is contributing the most money and hookers to which political party, and then expect them to end up as a monopoly with free reign to rape the consumer at will.

That just is not true. Start with history of what created the AT&T monopoly to appreciate deja vue. Read Clayton Christensen's "Innovators Dilemma" to appreciate how many different ways this 'conflict' can be resolved.

It always comes down to a bottom line question. What is the purpose of that corporation? Profits? Or is its product the purpose? One well proven historical trend is that when a company has a virtual monopoly, then its purpose changes - from product oriented to profit oriented. The former having customers who are provided innovative services. The latter being companies such as Robert Allen's AT&T (pre- SBC), General Motors, 1970-2000 Xerox, Carly Fiorina's HP, Spindler and Sculley's Apple Computer, Aker's and Cannavino's IBM, etc.

What big IP companies may be doing today has been long and well recorded in history. A long list of government laws and regulations eventually result - that the industry deserves due to becoming profit oriented rather than product oriented.

UT has assumed that market forces will keep broadband providers honest. I wish it were so. Sometimes history says it does. But not always. Actions to subvert small VoIP (and other new technology) services suggests that these large IP companies may become so anti-innovative as to cannibalize on smaller fish (ie Skype) rather than grow and live off of innovation. History of American business repeats that story. Creation of AT&T, as most of us knew it, is a near duplication of what happens when big fish cannibalize little fish rather than compete honestly.

Let me know if you want to place a wager on the Cellar Calendar.

Something like "Jan. 1 2008: major carrier interference is top-5 issue in VOIP industry". If it doesn't come true you have to hit the Paypal jar for $10. If it does, the Cellar tag line is changed to "tw was once again proven correct" for a week.

Who would win if a major carrier tried it and got slapped down not by the market but by Congress?

Me...see the last sentence I wrote about how the consumer gets reamed... :-)

Does this sound like a company that is an IP 'data highway' - or a company that wants control of more 'higher level' services by lobbying (buying) politicans? If UT is correct, then consumers would simply quit Verizon and move to (the only) other broadband provider - Comcast - because Verizon wants more control (profits from) higher level Internet functions.

Verizon and Comcast got independence from legal requirements: opening their networks to CLEC - smaller competitors (ie COVAD). With a duopoloy on broadband services, these companies now want control of content. IP is only data packet traffic. Higher level functions from TCP and above are also known as content. Some examples of content are www, movies on demand, RealAudio, and VoIP. Note how the lowly IP provider now wants control and profits from those who provide higher level services such as Google.

Maybe this is only a trial ballon. But it another puzzle piece along with 'packet skewing'. Little pieces that would explain a larger, overall intent to dominate the business we currently call 'The Internet'.

From Washington Post of 7 Feb 2006: BTW, there is nothing technically complex in these posts from UT and myself. It's layman's language. If difficult for the lurker, then the lurker is only first learning about what was well understood, expected, and published in newspapers five years ago. This is a contraversy that probably caused Powell Jr to resign as FCC Commissioner when even another Republican commissioner did not agree.

It's tempting to think of Verizon and Comcast as the only players if those are the only ones you can think of.

Firstly, most people do not chose between those two, and in certain locations - more all the time - there are more than two choices. For example, Philadelphia is developing its idea of providing 1MB wi-fi to everyone in the city limits. Their partner: Earthlink.

Comcast wasn't a player at all ten years ago, and Verizon was only a baby bell 10 years ago. Today Comcast is hardly a player, capable of providing VOIP to only 16 million homes. You can bet that, in ten years, the rules will have changed completely once again. And if broadband players can automatically get an extra $30 out of providing a clear 30k or so (all that's required to devote to voice) of their 1Meg to devote to voice, there are going to be a lot more broadband players.

More and more people have the capability to reach their office via VPN and include voice over that connection. Are the providers going to mess with those packets? Think those people won't figure it out?

Can nobody call customer service when they have a problem? Will Comcast lie when people ask why they can't get Skype? What will Skype customer service say?

Here's a relevant article.

what the fuck does VOIP stand for? ~freakin nerd lingo....

Voice Over IP (basically telephone over the internet)

Many, if not most places, only have one broadband choice. In a major metropolitan area, Philadelphia, there are two choices. Furthermore, most other options still must use either the cable company or telephone company facilities. The other option that costs significantly more is satellite.

Earthlink is the exception - mesh networking. However the point here is about choices. The point is about how large IP providers can and probably are manipulating the market to self serving and competitively unfair advantages.

Let's take a look at that Earthlink example. Verizon and Comcast are so fearful of this mesh network as to make it illegal in any other Philadelphia town. By PA law (both Verizon and Comcast bought large numbers of PA Congressmen), only Philadelphia can install that Earthlink mesh network. A Philadelphia exemption is only because Philly had already started to install it.

Comcast and Verizon may be so manipulating the market (without consumer 'free market' influence) as to even get an Earthlink mesh network banned in all other PA venues. Is that a big IP provider with no undue influence on the market? Of course not. Just another example of why regulation of big IP providers may be (and most unfortunately) necessary. UT's Earthlink example only again demonstrates how big IP providers may be rigging the market at the expense of consumers - as that above Washington Post article and 'packet skewing' also suggests.

With packet skewing, who would know it was happening? Skype? No. They could only suspect. Is the consumer denied Skype service? Obviously not. My posts never one even suggested it. The IEEE Spectrum article did not even suggest that. The consumer could get Skype. And with packet skewing, then Skype service would be lower quality. With intermittent application of packet skewing, then Skype would only appear to be a cheap and inferior verson of VoIP. And again, even UT could not tell if Comcast was or was not using packet skewing software. For all we know, Comcast is using the packet skewing software they have purchased. Why would they not be using it? No reason to not use it. It's legal.

Bottom line point: 'packet skewing' to selectively undermine quality of Skype VoIP service is legal. FCC said it is legal for both cable and phone (DSL and fiber) companies to 'packet skew' competitor's packets.

There are already some private networks out there who are limited in scope but have a private internet. The problem with a completely unregulated, unrestricted, and unhampered internet is.....who is going to pay for it. Who will buy the huge switches and pay for the fiber optic cables to be pulled everywhere? And even if you did have the resources to build such a network, the government of America may attempt to claim jurisdiction over you because your cables are within the borders of America. Other nations might try the same thing.

The way I see it, the only way this could really be done is to launch about 36 communication sats owned by a consortium or other such group that would not give records to any government, and would not even keep records and would allow completely free access to their internet. This would allow people all over the world to communicate, but even this wouldn't solve everything.

If I were to transmit to a sattelite from within Vietnam, the cops would show up instantly to cart me off.

This is a sticky issue. I don't see how the government of America, or any other nation, can claim to have any legal jurisdiction over the current, or any future internets since they are private property.

The best solution might be to build a consortium of large businesses who refuse to comply with government rules or regulations on their private networks, and who won't track our every move and who would sign a contract agreeing to such.

One thing is certain, whenever there is an opportunity to make a profit, someone steps up to the plate. I'd certainly pay to be on such a network and I'm sure many others would too.

This is a quick way for Verizon and these other businesses to lose money. They are stupid in thinking they've got control of the internet. The internet is fluid and constantly changing.

tw: After Skype hooks up a simple packet sniffer and evaluates the arrival times of different packet numbers during a call, and compares that data to the packets they themselves have generated from the remote location, they will have all the compelling data they need before lunchtime.

radar: you don't need an entire private internet to circumvent this situation. Anyone can order a private circuit to just about any ISP!! In fact single channel ISDN would be plenty for two-way voice. Now how many choices do you have? Maybe hundreds!!

With an extended WiFi setup you could take that circuit yourself and act as ISP for your entire neighborhood. You could even take the packets on Skype's ports and direct them over a small private network, while directing all other traffic to Verizon or whomever else. The routing would be intense to work out, but the equipment would be less than a grand. And you could make money too!

Thank you for making that point, UT. TW's statement didn't sound right to me, but this is not my area of expertise.

But how do the ISPs hook up? Don't they have to go through a wire-owner at some point? ISPs don't generally own the copper or fiber. And they certainly don't own all the wire that your packets go through to get to their destination.

I have to say it again...isn't the customer *already* paying for the services they find on the Internet? I pay to connect, not for what comes to me via that connection. Isn't what is being discussed here a little bit akin to SBC demanding a cut of a contract I am awarded because I made the deal over the phone line for which I am already paying?

Here is a list of backbone providers. Short version:

360networks
AboveNet
Ameritech
AT&T
Btnaccess
Bell Canada
BellSouth
Broadwing
Cogent
Electric Lightwave
Fiber Network Solutions
Genuity
GlobalNAPs
Globix
GT (Canada)
IDT Corporation
Level 3
Multacom
Mzima
Netifice
Oxford Networks
PPL Telcom
Quest (Asia)
Qwest Comm.
SAVVIS
Sprint Wholesale
Telcove
Teleglobe (VSNL)
TeliaSonera
Telstra Inc. (Asia, USA)
Time Warner Telecom
Verio (NTT)
WilTel (Williams Comm.)
XO Comm.
Xspedius

A smart ISP would get a circuit to one of these people. But they might just as well get IP service from someone who got a circuit from these people. Or they could get service from someone who got service from these people. Or they could get multiple services and implement some sort of routing redundancy.

And now the hundreds of leaf nodes become thousands and millions, and the latency penalty of additional routers is still plenty low for voice.

Notice which two names are not on the list.

BTW - I'm a Verizon FIOS customer - and traceroutes to myself show that Verizon is connected via at least three of the above: Level 3, AboveNet, and 360 Networks.

Skype lists its "Carrier Partners" on this page.

Good luck. Packet skewing looks like internet latency. Have you every done packet sniffing on large networks?

Furthermore, intermittent application of packet skewing would make detection using packet sniffers even more difficult if not impossible. Skype customers sometimes get bad service which is enough for them to quit Skype. Meanwhile, while you are looking for packet skewing, the IP provider is using the X technique - that is secret so we cannot define it. How are you going to detect the X technique when you don't even know what to look for? Under current law, the X technique to selectively distort service is also legal.

You claimed that IP providers would just provide basic services because if they did not, then market forces would force them to change. Demonstrated are numerous techniques - technical, legal, and secret - that demonstrate that assumption is seriously flawed. Even demonstrated are trends by big IPs to monopolize more of the internet - even blaming Google for earning profits on a 'free ride'. I don't have your faith that a free market alone will provide a fair market because, already, competitive DSL providers were all but driven out of business AND because Verizon and Comcast even got laws passed to stop all future mesh networks in Pennsylvania.

How do you reconcile that law with your original assumptions? How do you reconcile that Washington Post article that says large IP providers want more control and profits of internet business - even at the expense of Google. I just don't have your faith in their integrity and honesty - especially with the number of times they have already demonstrated intent use their large IP infrastructure and 'purchased politicians' to stifle competition.

It’s called the 'last mile'. Only about 2.5% of backbone fiber was (and probably will be) used is due to limitations created by the 'last mile'. Who are your 'last mile' providers? For dialup, a phone company. For broadband, most only have a phone company and a cable company - or less. UT only has two choices. He can connect via Comcast or he can use Verizon (either DSL or FIOS). No matter who his ISP or backbone provider is, he still must use the 'last mile' infrastructure - Comcast or Verizon.

Earthlink, et al cannot provide a mesh network because it was made illegal in PA. A law passed because those IP providers wanted to respond to consumer demands? I don't think so even though UT disagrees.

So you tell me - who is sitting best in a position of power? The 'last mile' providers 'stuck it' to AT&T. They also stifled 1981 DSL technology for over a decade. They resisted ISDN for how long? They are now vying for more control - not just being IP providers. And they have legal, political, and technical power to do so.

Do you really think these 'powers that be' will not exercise their power? They were the reason why multimedia did not happen in the early 1990s when national providers had installed fiber optic across the nation just for that purpose. The 1996 Communication Act was passed only because the 'last mile' providers (now called cable and telephone companies) would not innovate. And yet we trust them to comply with free market forces as UT claims? I seriously doubt it when their history is to do things despite those free market forces.

We are all at mercy to the 'last mile' providers who have so many options - including 'packet skewing - to manipulate the market, unfairly, to their advantage. In UT's case, they are called Verizon and Comcast. He has no one else to turn to. But still UT claims a consumer forces will make them comply ... when free market forces did not. When we even needed a 1996 Communications Act to make them respond to market demands. Why would they suddenly respond to free market pressure (as UT assumes) when they refused to previously?

You just route the packets you want to see to a place where you can watch them with ease. The only "techniques" they can actually use are introducing latency or dropping packets. Almost every network tool ever written to evaluate broken connections measures those two things in detail over time. (Including the granddaddy of them all: ping.)

The old motel is bypassed by the big highway. In a fit of pique the old motel digs up the entrance/exit ramp next to it. Unfortunately for the motel this dries up the last source of business and fails to hurt the highway one iota. The motel must lean that the highway has more power and the only way to survive is to work with it, not against it.

Your post assumes the latency is always same number in every ping. It is not, as was even demonstrated by web sites such as InternetWeather.com and others who have since taken up that task. That 'always changing' latency makes it simplistic to perform ‘packet skewing’ without detection. When 'packet skewing' is applied intermittently, then it is all but impossible to detect.

Furthermore, 'packet skewing' means pings travel normally whereas VoIP or other type packets are skewed. Just another reason why consumers would cancel Skype service and buy VoIP from the big IP provider.

And then we have techniques X, Y, and Z that are legal. How do you detect them? You don't even know what to look for. And if you detect them, well, so what? It is legal for IP providers to use such techniques. You are making assumptions not even based in technical reality.

UT. Provided are so many reasons legal, political, historical, and technical why IP providers - the 'last mile' providers - can and may manipulate their networks to maximize their products at the expense of competition. They have already done so previously. It was and is legal. Your claim that market forces would prevent this has repeatedly and historically been demonstrated a myth. Again, did we not learn from AT&T? Did we not learn that it took a 1996 Communication Act to get broadband provided? Where were these market forces that made the 1996 Communication Act unnecessary? Where were those market forces that protected AT&T?

Somehow, you still think Comcast and Verizon - your only two providers - will not unfairly manipulate the market using numerous political, legal, and technical techniques? They already have and no one complained? Where is a public up swell because a Philadelphia Earthlink mesh network is not permitted anywhere else in PA? Where is this consumer demand that UT insists will protect the market? Why then should we believe consumer 'free market' selection will keep those IP providers - the 'last mile' providers - honest? UT did not even complain when mesh network service was denied to protect Verizon and Comcast. History contradicts UT's claims. Technical facts demonstrate why even 'packet skewing' can be made all but impossible to detect.

You're over your head and looking bad. But if you're so certain, just make a prediction for the Cellar calendar.

Well if you are going to insult rather than answer technically, then that is proof you have conceded.

But please tell us why those IP providers - the 'last mile' providers - will be honest when so much history says otherwise. You ignore reasons political, technical, legal, and historical when you cannot reply? I suspect you had no idea why the 1996 Communication Act was created - which explains why you pretend I never cited it ... and so many other facts.

Meanwhile, UT, you are fooling only yourself if you think 'packet skewing' and other IP tricks can be reliably proven by 'ping' type testing. You are fooling yourself if you think with only two 'last mile' providers, then market forces will keep them honest.

Even so, at levels in which it would be audible, you have to be losing a fair number of packets. Certainly enough to be subject to statistical analysis.

I would gather an hour's worth of data from point A to point B and then demonstrate what went wrong.

I'd ship other packets from the same point A to the same point B, during that same hour. I'd also ship from point A to point C and from point B to point C and collect that data. Perhaps I'd also ship a different protocol of packets, to see if the protocol made any difference. How about ICMP packets? Good choice, everyone routes them, and every network analysis tool will interpret them, along with the packets used for data transmission of voice. Any latency or packet loss introduced by hardware or most routing problems would affect both protocols. Thus, "ping type" testing - looking at ICMP messages - is a half-decent approach.

Let's say you are Skype. You find that your 'quality of service' using Skype on Comcast is inferior. So what do you do? Do you announce to the world that Comcast is a bad service? Of course not. No advertiser profits from such comments. Spin doctors will say that is a worst you can do. If you announce Skype service is poor on Comcast, then the consumer will use some other VoIP provider.

Will you change IP providers? Who? You only have two choices (in UT's case) - Comcast and Verizon. Others have even less choices. But both are doing things that may degrade Skype quality because - 1) it is legal, 2) they want Skype's customers, and 3) no one can for one minute claim a statistical poorer quality is intentionally due to what Comcast and Verizon are doing.

Yes, you can statistically measure a degradation of IP service - if you know what to look for. So what. That degradation also happens during normal internet operation. Statistical measurement becomes inconclusive if 'packet skewing' is performed intermittently. Furthermore, if you (Skype) complain to Comcast, et al, well, Comcast need not do anything but claim ignorance. You (Skype) have no legal options other than to build your own IP service network - from scratch.

Furthermore, we have only discussed service degradation using packet skewing. What about technique X, Y, and Z? How you measure for degradation by those other methods (X, Y, and Z) which are also legal and that you don't even know exists. Remember you must also prove such degradation is intentional and not due to inferior Skype design. And then how many years will you go about measuring quality of service everywhere? Remember, they can apply service degradation intermittently. You are assuming Skype is a large organization with money to burn on verifying quality of service.

The Baby Bell must provide minimal 'circuit switched' service quality. It’s the law. Unlike IP service providers - the 'last mile' providers - the circuit switched services have specific numerical targets that must be met - as stated in government regulations. IP service providers (ie Comcast and Verizon) are exempt from such standards. UT says they will provide good service anyway because the consumer will blame Comcast and not blame Skype.

UT says they will provide those standards due to consumer 'free market' choices. I say bull. IP providers are not required to, the competition does not exist, and manipulating those IP services for self serving gain is too easy, too difficult to detect, and too profitable. Furthermore the big IP service providers have already demonstrated that they will do such tricks to benefit their company at the expense of potential competition. Trying to prove they are doing so - even statistically - got those other victims squat. Why do you think you - Skype - doing a massive statistical analysis will be any bit more successful?

Even if you statistically detect service degradation, then what are you (Skype) going to do? Sue? Good luck. Consumers meanwhile will simply take the easy way out. Comcast and Verizon provide reliable VoIP service. Since consumers have even less understanding of what I have posted - the technicals - then they will simply shift to Comcast and Verizon for more reliable service.

But UT says those consumers will leave Comcast and Verizon instead - while still using Skype. Why would they? They - like some here - don't even understand these simple technical explanations. The consumer will first abandon Skype long before they will reread (to finally comprehend) what I have posted here. Doing a statistical analysis would cost too much, hopes you know what to look for, can identify such problems as intentional verses normal internet variations, AND assumes the results of that analysis will mean something to the consumer. Good luck meeting all those points.

How many times did I show a statistical analysis would provide little useful information? Eight? Fifteen? I lost count.

UT - did you read the IEEE Spectrum article? Even simple packet skewing software will identify different packets from different type of VoIP providers; skewing only ones that an IP provider wants to degrade; leave all others undisturbed. While VoIP packets are skewed, those ICMP packets remain totally unaffected. Why would you even bring up ICMP which is not affected by 'packet skewing'? But then you knew that. So why are you trying to confuse others with ICMP? If I did not know better, I would suggest you don't understand the many services that are carried by IP networks. That is what your latest posts imply. Therefore I can only conclude you are trying to confuse others with irrelevant talk of ICMP.

Furthermore you only reply (partially) to technical facts. You completely ignore the legal, political, and historical aspects. I don't for one minute believe consumer 'free market' attitudes will protect Skype and other tiny companies from legal IP data manipulation. For it that was true, then AT&T and Covad would not have their problems even with regulated Baby Bells. Just one of maybe 20+ previous points I made. Point that you ignore to instead discuss irrelevant ICMP. Somehow you claim IP providers will be very responsive to consumer demands - even without laws requiring it. Your proof? Some irrelevant comment about ICMP.

So suggest a wager on the Cellar calendar, if you are so certain about how it will go.

It's not that hard or expensive, if one knows more than you do about network administration.

But, if you recall, I also suggested that a high price of entry would attract other competition. What if Google introduced a voice communication service?

Well as Douglas Adams used to say, you don't have to tax your imagination to hard, because Google HAS introduced a voice communication service.

If you would have been able to comprehend my post, you would have understood that this was exactly my point. I would send both VoIP packets and ICMP packets, and then compare the two; since as I noted, a hardware or routing problem would affect both. If only the VoIP packets were affected, I would know the source of the problem, right? Ya follow buddy?

UT - again you are reading what I did not post. I predicted no specifics with certainty. I defined the big picture; so many ways that consumer choices would not force big IP providers to compete fairly? What is the benchmark - the exact wording - of a bet that is consistent with these 'big picture' trends? Do we bet on Skype going backrupt? I don't predict that. Do we bet that Congress forces regulation on the IP providers? Then state exactly what that law says. Do we bet on whether Comcast used 'packet skewing' software they have purchased? Even if they were, how would we ever know? Exactly what, from so many points and trends cited, do we bet on?

Clearly I did not say something specifically would happen. I stated the so many options that IP providers have because consumer 'free market' choices are just not that influential. But you tell me. In defining a big picture and by not listing a single specific prediction, what do we bet on?

Let's say Google does provide a VoIP service. Everyone is still stuck with the most famous part of every communication network - whether it is packet switched or circuit switched. You are stuck with those same two big IP providers - Comcast or Verizon - even if using Google VoIP. Those 'last mile' providers have so much power as to even stick it to long distance companies and to upstart DSL providers.