Monday, February 12, 2007
Would NN Tie the Telcos' Hands? No!
Thomas, in a comment on a post in this blog, A non-remedy for Net Neutrality Violations, asks, "Wouldn’t net neutrality tie the hands of ISPs to deal with the coming video revolution. . . ?"
Answer: No. ISPs -- Internet Service Providers like Yahoo and Earthlink -- would be advantaged by NN. They welcome it. They would have access to the same dumb pipes that Google has access to, and this access would be entirely non-discriminatory under Network Neutrality.
Maybe Thomas is confusing ISPs with Internet Access Providers, the dumb pipe (Internet access) owners. Would *they* have their hands tied by NN?
Answer: No. The dumb pipe guys own two key assets. The first is the right-of-way. The second is the existing wire or fiber to homes and businesses. Once these two are in place, over 90% of the buildout expense is taken care of. With wire, 30 Mbit/s DSL is doable today, you just re-equip the endpoints. With cable, DOCSIS 3.0 promises 100 Mbit/s. With fiber, there is no upper limit, Verizon FIOS is already in trials at 100 Mbit/s, and FIOS is not even an optimal architecture.
Video here we come!
Transmission capability, the ability to jam bits down a fiber, a wire or through the air, is growing faster than Moore's Law, i.e., doubling about every 12 months. Sometimes this is called Gilder's Law. One gig, ten gig, 100 gig . . . the FTTH trajectory is clear. No hands are tied.
If the telcos would follow Gilder's Law, they'd be providing pipes that were twice as fast every year, for exactly the same money. That is, capex in year N+1 would be level, while speed would double. Or, capex in year N+1 would be halved while speed stays the same. And if speed stays the same, if customers are not getting rate cuts, we're being ripped off.
All of the above assumes neutral pipes, which has been the case, with a few exceptions, since the beginning of communications networks.
The telcos and the cablecos are in the catbird seat. They have the wires, they have the rights of way. All they need to do is light them faster and faster as technology improves.
Let's not confuse their damaging desire for the increased profits of Net Discrimination with innovation. Or their envy of Google's market cap for lack of incentive. They don't need no stinkin Net Discrimination to provide fat enough pipes to handle the video revolution.
Answer: No. ISPs -- Internet Service Providers like Yahoo and Earthlink -- would be advantaged by NN. They welcome it. They would have access to the same dumb pipes that Google has access to, and this access would be entirely non-discriminatory under Network Neutrality.
Maybe Thomas is confusing ISPs with Internet Access Providers, the dumb pipe (Internet access) owners. Would *they* have their hands tied by NN?
Answer: No. The dumb pipe guys own two key assets. The first is the right-of-way. The second is the existing wire or fiber to homes and businesses. Once these two are in place, over 90% of the buildout expense is taken care of. With wire, 30 Mbit/s DSL is doable today, you just re-equip the endpoints. With cable, DOCSIS 3.0 promises 100 Mbit/s. With fiber, there is no upper limit, Verizon FIOS is already in trials at 100 Mbit/s, and FIOS is not even an optimal architecture.
Video here we come!
Transmission capability, the ability to jam bits down a fiber, a wire or through the air, is growing faster than Moore's Law, i.e., doubling about every 12 months. Sometimes this is called Gilder's Law. One gig, ten gig, 100 gig . . . the FTTH trajectory is clear. No hands are tied.
If the telcos would follow Gilder's Law, they'd be providing pipes that were twice as fast every year, for exactly the same money. That is, capex in year N+1 would be level, while speed would double. Or, capex in year N+1 would be halved while speed stays the same. And if speed stays the same, if customers are not getting rate cuts, we're being ripped off.
All of the above assumes neutral pipes, which has been the case, with a few exceptions, since the beginning of communications networks.
The telcos and the cablecos are in the catbird seat. They have the wires, they have the rights of way. All they need to do is light them faster and faster as technology improves.
Let's not confuse their damaging desire for the increased profits of Net Discrimination with innovation. Or their envy of Google's market cap for lack of incentive. They don't need no stinkin Net Discrimination to provide fat enough pipes to handle the video revolution.
Technorati Tags: Cableco, DSL, FIOS, GeorgeGilder, NetworkNeutrality, Telco
Comments:
I'd like to know, David, what your point of view is on encouraging carriers, as the next generation of build-out happens, to make damned sure they can handle IP multicast right to the customer concentrators?
Certainly that won't make anyone any money.
Is there another approach to making it happen, short of regulation?
Certainly that won't make anyone any money.
Is there another approach to making it happen, short of regulation?
baylink:
Now look who's calling for government intervention.
If it is not profitable for carriers to give us the broadband we need, they shouldn't do it. And the customers -- we citizens -- will build it ourselves or get it from other more efficient providers.
The government should not "encourage carriers" (baylink's words) to do anything. The free market and "damned sure" (baylink's words) aren't compatable.
The government should simply continue the neutrality regime in place from 1200 AD through 2005, under which the Internet developed, and let Moore's Law and Gilder's Law do the rest.
Really! Repealing network neutrality as a form of corporate welfare? You're a parody of what you're mocking.
Now look who's calling for government intervention.
If it is not profitable for carriers to give us the broadband we need, they shouldn't do it. And the customers -- we citizens -- will build it ourselves or get it from other more efficient providers.
The government should not "encourage carriers" (baylink's words) to do anything. The free market and "damned sure" (baylink's words) aren't compatable.
The government should simply continue the neutrality regime in place from 1200 AD through 2005, under which the Internet developed, and let Moore's Law and Gilder's Law do the rest.
Really! Repealing network neutrality as a form of corporate welfare? You're a parody of what you're mocking.
Is transit pricing following Gilder's Law? It does no good to build 100Mbps last-mile pipes if you don't have or can't afford transit to back it up.
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