Verizon's diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view

[Renew Deal]

Think of all the things that tick you off about cable TV. Along with brainless programming and crummy customer service, the very worst aspect of it is forced bundling. You can't pay just for the couple of dozen channels you actually watch. Instead, you have to pay for a couple of hundred channels, because the good stuff is scattered among a number of overstuffed packages.

Now, imagine that the Internet worked that way. You'd hate it, of course. But that's the direction that Verizon, with the support of many wired and wireless carriers, would like to push the Web. That's not hypothetical. The country's No. 1 carrier is fighting in court to end the Federal Communications Commission's policy of Net neutrality, a move that would open the gates to a whole new -- and wholly bad -- economic model on the Web.

As it stands now, you pay your Internet service provider and go wherever you want on the Web. Packets of bits are just packets and have to be treated equally. That's the essence of Net neutrality. But Verizon's plan, which the company has outlined during hearings in federal court and before Congress, would change that. Verizon and its allies would like to charge websites that carry popular content for the privilege of moving their packets to your connected device. Again, that's not hypothetical.

ESPN, for example, is in negotiations with at least one major cellular carrier to pay to exempt its content from subscribers' cellular data caps. And what's wrong with that? Well, ESPN is big and rich and can pay for that exemption, but other content providers -- think of your local jazz station that streams audio -- couldn't afford it and would be out of business. Or, they'd make you pay to visit their websites. Indeed, if that system had been in place 10 years ago, fledglings like Google or YouTube or Facebook might never have gotten out of the nest.
<snip>

http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/verizons-diabolical-plan-turn-the-web-pay-view-226662

[Blue_Tires]

1. Years ago, a bunch of DUers said this was going to be the end result

when the telecoms won that court case and got permission to "tier" their service...

And Verizon's "basic" service has gotten noticably shittier with each passing year...

[Xyzse]

7. I complained about that years ago as well in a different site

I wasn't a member of DU yet at the time. Always thought it was a bad idea and it is still going on.

Sadly, I don't see a chance of America doing something that countries in Europe do for an internet connection.

Our internet is slow in comparison to many of the developed world. I think we're at the 30s in ranking at the moment.
Current providers are stifling innovation through their bad service. They want to charge more while not really investing it towards infrastructure for better service.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Yeah, we pay way more than most other nations and our level of service

is on par with developing nations...

[Xyzse]

14. It's pretty sad

Reminds me of our health care.
Whoops... I should shut my mouth.

[Berlin Expat]

22. I'm at

100 Mbps for the equivalent of $25.00 per month.

In the Czech Republic; company is called Poda.

[Treant]

26. I hate you

Not really, of course, but I hate that you get that.

I pay $55 per month for 1.5 Mbps.

So you pay $0.25 per Mbps and get access 67 times faster than I do.

I pay $36.67 per Mbps.

[Berlin Expat]

32. In my city, we

have several companies to choose from; I went with Poda simply the apartment building was wired by them, and it just makes life easier.

I could have chosen from Poda, O2, Vodafone, a smaller ISP called OVANet, and UPC, a cable TV/internet/VOIP provider.

O2 and Vodafone have caps on their services, but the other three, including Poda, are all unlimited internet. UPC is probably the most expensive at $33 per month for unlimited internet at 100 Mbps.

[sulphurdunn]

29. That's how monopolistic

capitalism works. If you goal is nothing other than the maximization of profit, why wouldn't you? Fiduciary laws needs to change as well as ownership rules.

[Xyzse]

31. I can agree with this

[LibertyLover]

12. So has their service

and their customer service just plain sucks.

[SecularMotion]

2. Please take the time to watch and share this video

[Flatulo]

16. Great video, thanks for posting. Really pulls the curtains back on what these

corps are trying to do.

[yuiyoshida]

24. That was awesome..

thanks for sharing it. I posted it on Twitter.

[99th_Monkey]

25. Very informative. I watched it yesterday. nt

[Hissyspit]

38. "Video is Currently Unavailable"

[blackspade]

42. Very interesting!

Thanks!

[ananda]

3. Damm, that IS diabolical!

..

[upaloopa]

4. So what's to keep some providers from keeping things as they are.

Wouldn't they be more popular? I know I am going to drop Verizon as soon as they get their way.

[n2doc]

6. Many areas have little or no choices in ISP's

Here in my are of Savannah, we have comcast or ATT. Period. The only other option is to get a cellular hotspot, and there in is ATT, Verizon, or T-mobile.

[Blue_Tires]

8. incredible profits?

[warrior1]

5. aren't we paying right now?

[el_bryanto]

9. We are paying for internet access

And you can pay for various internet services.

But this is different. Imagine the web as a library/bookstore. Right now you can go anywhere in the bookstore you want. You might have to buy something to get access once you get there, but you can go around. And of course most of the web is basically free.

What Verizon wants to do is to charge internet providers to allow customers easy access to them. and they want to charge customers to give them easy access to what they want. It is as if they want to put up little velvet ropes all over the store keeping the customers in the lobby - if a customer wants to go to, say Democratic Underground - either Skinner would have to pay a bit to make it accessible, or we would have to pay to have the power to get there.

That's not a great example I suppose, but that's how I understand this issue.

Bryant

[Flatulo]

18. If you haven't already, watch the video in post #2. It explains the issue very nicely,

with a good dose of humor and wit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. You pay for level playing field. Verizon wants to tilt it toward big business, big media, big money.

Squeeze the blogs and interesting stuff off the web because they can't pay what will amount to surcharges.

Imagine if DU had to pay for all the videos and pictures. It and many other sites would starve.

[Jesus Malverde]

11. Just reading about the new 4k TV's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution

According to Sony, the 4K movie titles will each take up 45 to 60 gigabytes, allowing users download and store up to 50 movies on the company’s FMP-X1 4K set-top. Sony’s using an encoding system from startup Eye IO to compress the video, but has declined to specify the compression rate.

The relatively hefty file sizes mean that users may quickly exceed bandwidth-usage restrictions set by many broadband providers, including AT&T U-verse, Cox Communications and Charter Communications. For example, AT&T’s top limit for U-verse Internet is 250 gigabytes per month — meaning consumers could hit the limit by accessing just a half-dozen 4K titles, and pay extra for anything over that. Comcast also is testing usage-based bandwidth pricing in several markets, with overage charges for customers who exceed certain thresholds.
http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/sony-4k-tv-internet-video-service-will-bump-into-bandwidth-caps-1200598969/

[Dash87]

17. Many countries won't have a problem with that. It's the US.

Eventually, given out infrastructure, our connections will be too slow for technology.

Connections in Korea are already multiple times faster than ours (like 50x or more - I forget).

[Flatulo]

19. Charter already caps at 200Gbytes, even for their Ultimate Internet package, which is over $100.

Their basic package caps at 50.

[2banon]

13. k&r n/t

:thanks:

[Dash87]

15. This is the end result of the anti-competitive nature of telecoms these days.

In many (or most) places, there's only one telecom choice (along with maybe another token choice thrown in that nobody uses because it sucks). As a result, companies like Verizon or Comcast can do whatever they want.

It's also why we have a 3rd world infrastructure and are going to soon be surpassed in Internet speeds by even 3rd world countries. There's no incentive to do anything anymore. It's basically all of the crappy effects of Soviet-style company monopolies but they aren't controlled by the government.

[Blue_Tires]

21. Which is why all the anti-socialist hysteria is this country amuses me...

Corporate America practices socialism far, far better than the rest of us could ever dream...

[RedCappedBandit]

39. ...how so?

I'm not following

[blackspade]

23. Well, I can always just go back to using the 'net for e-mail.

If they want to kill their own business model, have at it.
This is so stupidly short-sighted it's not even funny.
This will only boost local businesses in metro areas.
However, The folks that will suffer will be those without viable local retailers.

[Generic Other]

30. I remember only viewing content from AOL back in the 90s

I hung out with the poets there. Then they started censoring content. That was when I discovered the internet even existed, a whole world beyond AOL. Like it was some well-kept secret back then.

[backscatter712]

27. What the Internet will look like once net neutrality is abolished...

[ancianita]

28. So who can pressure the FCC to maintain net neutrality? Is this seen as a David v. Goliath battle?

[woo me with science]

33. This is deadly serious: corporate control of the internet,

and not just because of the consumer's nightmare of expensive and severely limited packaged content that it'll bring:

The job of these providers is to offer access to the complete internet, period. Ceding them any control over content or access to content *will* lead to censorship and tyranny.

We will lose our fundamental freedom to access the world and each other unfiltered by a corporate agenda. Corporate CEO's will offer us exactly what they want us to see and experience, and they will leave out what they don't want us to have access to. And we can kiss goodbye any chance of using the internet as maybe our last remaining tool to educate and organize together against the corporate exploitation of all of us and the corporate corruption of our government that is destroying this country.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

43. 'Zactly n/t

[NightWatcher]

34. I'm growing sick of the net anyway. Start charging more $ and I'll

just unplug and read a book in peace and quiet.

[Cryptoad]

35. Funnny,,,

that most of yall want the Internet to remain public but you want what travels across it to be private....... make up your minds!

[truedelphi]

40. In reply 2, there is a very decent video, quite humorously done,

That explains what is at stake.

Do you really want to have an internet that is only big corporations spouting off about how great their products are?

Or where for Earl G and Skinner to have DU up and running, they need some $ 200,000 a month to do so?

Now in their case it might be possible - there are close to 200K users here, so if everyone paid a dollar a month, it could still be up and running.

But then, with regards to other sites, you wouldn't have your favorite blogs about parenting, or crayfishing, or white water rafting, or the YouTubes that teach you how to play the refrain for "Stairway to Heaven." If every site costs a minimum of an exorbitant amount, you can easily see that the internet would soon be nothing but Norwegian Cruise Lines, Disney Land and the Mainsteam News.

[marew]

36. Verizon! Don't get me started!

About 10 years ago I had Verizon for my phone- back when we had to pay extra for long distance. These long distance calls I never made began appearing on my bill- I live alone. So I had to keep calling to get them removed. After 6 months of doing this I said enough is enough! They just could not understand why I thought it was a problem to call them EVERY MONTH to get long distance calls I did not make removed from my bill!
I will never due business with them again!

[jmowreader]

37. That they want editorial control is the real issue

If I want filtering like that, there are hundreds of Xtian ISPs.

[woo me with science]

41. kick