BBC Trust Vice Chairman on net neutrality | Hacker News Reader

BBC Trust Vice Chairman on net neutrality

bbc.co.uk

50 pointsmsdi32 comments

While I applaud their efforts, it's not like the BBC is unbiased. iPlayer benefits massively from 'net neutrality'. I recall speaking to an ISP who mentioned that 90% of their traffic during the olympics was iPlayer traffic.

I'm completely for net neutrality but I don't think it has addressed the potential for a tragedy of the commons.

And that's the fundamental disconnect. The BBC is not getting a free ride. They are paying for the bandwidth they use - through their own ISP & CDN bills.

Granted, it's probably not the same provider, however why should that matter? They're paying to get that bandwidth somehow. They shouldn't have to pay even more to every little provider so their traffic is not deprioritized.

If the ISP needs more money, they should charge their users more. They're the ones using the bandwidth - not the BBC.

Not only that, but no ISP customer can ever download more from iPlayer or any other service than they have already paid for with their ISP subscription, or use more bandwidth than they were promised when they signed up.

On the one hand, ISP's offer "50Mb broadband", on the other they get the vapours when people actually use it.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this and I agree with you. The problem here is the ISP pricing models. As part of their marketing, they create 'uncapped' tariffs based on a business model that says that most users won't download a great deal of data. iPlayer breaks that model but what it should mean is that ISPs re-evaluate their pricing plans rather than creating a tiered internet which has the incentives in all the wrong places.

Amusingly, some ISPs do quite well out of iPlayer. Plusnet has a fantastically cheap capped deal (6.95, which I suspect is a loss leader) that users almost immediately exceed by switching on iPlayer.

Exactly. Requiring content providers like the BBC to subsidise ISPs because of their popularity is like asking Robinsons to pay Yorkshire Water because people are making so much of their orange squash.

You can see it as 90% of their traffic being caused by iPlayer, or as 90% of their business being due to the content provided (at no cost to them) by iPlayer.

An exaggeration, of course. But the principle stands. If (eg) streaming video were not so popular, far fewer people would pay for home internet access, and far fewer would pay a premium for 'high speed'.

ISPs are in business because they provide a means to reach content which those ISPs do not have to pay for the cost of producing. The notion that they should be paid by content providers so that they can charge content consumers to access that content is... nonsensical.

The BBC peers with everyone. How much of that 90% was unpeered traffic?

I believe that the cost is in BT Central Pipes traffic to the ADSL tail, which doesn't benefit from peering agreements.

There are other possibile outcomes to tiered access that are not being discussed. Offering tiered service to content publishers does not mean that traffic from those publishers must be prioritized for all consumers. Specifically, tiered publisher access can subsidize a new level of "subsidized" internet service, with price Y that is lower than the "neutral service" price X. More households will be able to access the internet as a result. Those households that prefer to continue receiving all publisher content in a "neutral" way may continue to do so (at the same price X).

Creative consumer education (as implied by Ofcom) can assist in this. ISPs are incentivized to do this because they can reach more consumers this way, ultimately increasing their bottom line. ISPs that do not pair prioritized publisher service with subsidized consumer service (as described above) will whither in the face of competition from ISPs that do.

Regulation cannot be considered without acknowledgement of the potential to stifle innovation in the internet service business and related technologies.

Can you give some examples of where this has worked? (excluding models which require the consumer to buy other stuff with the money they saved)

I'm unaware of any ISP offering priority transport in any form, including the consumer subsidy model I've described above. But if regulations were put in place, it would be illegal even to experiment with business models such as this.

What about in other industries?

To generalize this to other industries, the subsidy model I detailed can be described simply as offering reduced service quality at a reduced cost. This is a universal strategy of marketing.

Side point:

"Four out of five people think that internet access is a fundamental right, according to a recent World Service poll in 26 different countries."

I'm all for net neutrality, ISP competition, etc, but this "right" makes no sense to me. Operating an ISP costs money. Why is anyone entitled to an ISP's services without paying for them?

I think you're reading that incorrectly; you seem to be interpreting it as "free as in beer" rather than "free as in speech". Rather, the idea that the government can "ban" people from using the internet is something that should not be allowed, because access to the internet is a fundamental requirement for fully living in today's society.

A bit like freedom of the press. Nobody suggests that means that newspapers or printing presses should be free.

I'm not sure that's a meaningful way to understand rights.

All rights depend on restricting "freedoms". Saying someone has the right to food entails the belief that society should be willing to do some form of redistribution to ensure that food is available to all.

But even the 'libertarian' notion of freedom to do whatever you wish provided it doesn't infringe on someone else's equivalent right to freedom is based on limiting or restricting to guarantee a right which is deemed to be positive. It would be as valid to declare that one has the right to do whatever one wishes, even it oppresses someone else - because the oppressed would also have the same right, even if they were prevented from expressing it.

But I digress. The short answer is that your question belongs to the same category as "Why is anyone entitled to education without paying for a teacher's time?" or "Why is anyone entitled to food without growing it?" or "Why is anyone entitled to shelter without building it?" or even "Why is anyone entitled to restrict my right to build a house wherever I want?". In all cases, the answer is "because we (as a society) say so and agree to abide by certain conventions, potentially at an apparent cost to some".

You could say the same about drinking water. Fundamental rights don't necessarily come free of charge.

> Operating an ISP costs money. Why is anyone entitled to an ISP's services without paying for them?

I think that "right" is the wrong way to express the idea, because it leads down a path to arguing over the metaphysics of rights instead of all the important practical considerations. Internet access is becoming necessary in the same way as transportation is necessary and society needs to accommodate that fact.

Among other things, that means that we have a vested interest in making sure that there's a healthy marketplace, that everyone can get connections at a decent speed, and that you can't just arbitrarily get kicked offline forever.

Many systems are migrating to the net, for example paying bills for utilities or other governmental (uk) facilities. If the three strikes legislation were in action and someone was cut off, they stand to lose a lot more than just their internet connection. Handling my virgin broadband connection using the ebill site rather than having letters sent every month saves me £5 ($8) per month.

As a company director in the UK, I am legally responsible for making sure that the company meets its legal and regulatory obligations. Some of those obligations involve filing regular returns with HM Revenue & Customs, Companies House, etc. Some of those filings must now be made using on-line systems.

As a citizen in the UK, I am also legally responsible for providing various information to government departments and renewing various statutory services and licences from time to time: filing a personal tax return, driving licence, TV licence, electoral registration, etc. Once again, much of this is now done on-line, though I don't think any of the above are on-line only yet.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as putting Internet access on the level of "fundamental human right". As someone concerned about the recent erosion of far too many genuinely fundamental rights in far too many places, that seems like a loss of perspective. But you can't be asking people to file legal stuff on-line one minute, evangelising about high-speed nationwide broadband as an engine for getting the economy moving again the next minute, and then threatening to cut people off from the Internet based on... less than robust arguments made in some extra-judicial process, let's say. That just doesn't make any sense at all.

You're right, it doesn't make any sense to call it a fundamental right on that basis, but would you not say that by filling out these forms or by using the Internet in other ways you are more efficient than if you could not use it at all? If this is true, would this not then put you at a significant commercial disadvantage without the internet against your competitors?

Thanks for putting this case so clearly. Agreed.

AFAIK, no one has ever suggested that the phone company is entitled to a percentage of the money that a biz makes by using the phone. Instead, phone companies have to make do with biz charges that are the same for all biz and based solely on usage and installed equipment.

So, it's unclear why ISPs should be any different.

I've often hoped that Google would do a "day without google" for ISPs that felt that they were entitled to a cut. I think that ISPs would feel the pain long before Google and I'm optimistic enough to think that the lesson would not have to be taught many times.

This is the dark side of all the geeks saying "the Internet isn't like telephones" and "don't regulate the Internet" for so many years.

> AFAIK, no one has ever suggested that the phone company is entitled to a percentage of the money that a biz makes by using the phone. Instead, phone companies have to make do with biz charges that are the same for all biz and based solely on usage and installed equipment.

Look up 'premium-rate telephone numbers', in which the phone company and the line-leasing business enter a revenue sharing agreement.

Now is it unclear why ISPs should be any different?

'premium-rate telephone numbers', aka 976-porn and 1-900-more-porn are for biz that use the phone company as a billing/collections agent.

This is pretty much the exact opposite - the ISPs are asking the biz to be their billing/collections agent.

I have no problems with an ISP offering to do billing for internet companies that wanted it, or offering to give some of the money that they collect from their customers to internet-based biz for services rendered. However, that's the opposite of what they're proposing.

Is there a UK body similar to the eff that is fighting these kinds of battles?

You’re looking for the Open Rights Group ( http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ )

In a similar vein: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk

I'm not aware that Liberty have expressed a formal opinion on net neutrality or the various recent suggestions that Internet access should now be considered a fundamental human right, though if anyone has seen something relevant then I would be interested to read it.

I suspect Liberty are more concerned right now with the various mass Internet snooping provisions that seem to keep cropping up. Net neutrality seems a little on the commercial side and perhaps a little below the radar of an organisation that is campaigning against things on the level of torture, detention without trial, freedom to protest peacefully, etc.

There's also European Digital Rights: http://www.edri.org/

It's going to get noticed if you've got the BBC Trust, which is potentially a very influential organisation, pitching in. This article seems like exactly the kind of intelligent, rational contribution this debate needs.

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