An executive from an RBOC sounds off on Internet applications not paying their fair share:
“We have to make sure that they [application providers] don’t sit on our network and chew up bandwidth,” Seidenberg said. “We need to pay for the pipe.”
These are the words of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg at CES according to this article from TechWeb.
The article continues…
“We would not do that [block specific applications], and it shouldn’t be done,” said [Executive Vice President for Public Affairs] Tauke, who said that Verizon is actually in favor of codifying so-called “network neutrality” rules, as long as there are provisions for parallel private networks, like Verizon’s nascent fiber-based television services. At CES, Verizon announced plans for an online gaming network that would also likely be segmented away from the “open” Internet, so that Verizon could better control the performance of the network.
The paralell network mentioned by Tauke could reflect a similar concept to how cable companies today seperate out the delivery of television content and broadband Internet. The benefit of this is that it would ensure the throughput of both services. Cable television is not delivered over the same layer 2 network that delivers broadband cable Internet, and RBOCs offering television services should certainly be free to deliver their television service in a similar manner.
I’m still a little concerned about the comments that application providers “chewing up bandwidth.” My major problem with comments like this is that they continue to ignore the fact that each customer pays for their broadband service. Likewise application providers pay for their connections to the Internet. In each instance, each customer can only be expected to get what they pay for, an amount which is hopefully communicated upfront in terms of a bandiwdth capacity or amount of traffic I can download. If I purchase a certain broadband capacity from my cable company or RBOC I should be able to fill up my alloted capacity with whatever it is that I want. Presumably this also gives me a claim to some (very small) percentage of the total capacity of the broadband provider’s backbone network. If it all comes from Google, Yahoo, or AOL then who is to complain about that? If my net usage causes a problem for other subscribers then it is up to the broadband provider to throttle back my capacity for all applications and services, not to do so discriminately based on who has paid a premium. Of course all of this throttling should be done in a transparent manner, as well.
