[GRLUG] NOT LINUX - net neutrality

[Bob Kline]

To constrain the conversation
a little bit, I'd be talking about
home service here.  Others might
be talking about their place of work,
where the cost picture can be yet
different.

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And of course few ISPs are
> > truly independent of the big
> > players, who own the backbones.
>
> Who do you define as the big players? Comcast and AT&T?
>
> What about XO? Hurricane Electric? Global Crossings?
>

Big players own fiber backbones.  AT&T.
Comcast.  Verizon.  Probably other ex-BOCs.
Don't know about Global Crossings - seems it
had some problems a while back.  Overextended?
Corruption?  A big player could be Google if it
decides to go for it.

Any company that could lay a set of nation
wide fibers if it chose to, as well as local
distribution.


>
> The majority of public complaints I hear about are about tier 2 ISPs
> with a bent towards consumer services. Those are the ones people are
> calling the "big players." They're not the ones who control the bulk
> of the backbone.
>
> My VPS provider is shortly getting a 1Gb/s unmetered pipe from
> Hurricane Electric for $1k/mo. That's considered cheap.
>

How extensive is it?  Nation wide, with
access to the home?  Many big companies
have inter company networks.  To me that
is not an ISP.   $1K a month is not out of
the question if it has the same range of
access that Comcast now has.

>
> > Those have to be paid for too.
> > Odd however that Google puts a
> > 1Gbps system in Kansas, and doesn't
> > seem to worry about the cost.  In fact
> > does so as a test case should Internet
> > neutrality, which it depends on, totally
> > breaks down.
> > And there are towns like Lafayette, LA,
> > which have their own fiber Internet, and
> > charge $58 a month for 50 Mbps - full
> > duplex!
> > Yes, they too use the same backbones
> > as everyone else.  But there's room to
> > believe there's something wrong with the
> > current price picture.
>
> I recall that conversation. They've mortgaged their public utilities
> infrastructure over the next thirty years to get it. In 20 years,
> that'll look like a terrible investment, as everyone else will be
> beyond that, and doesn't still have ten years of a mortgage to pay
> off.
>

Beyond what?  Seems to me a fiber to
the home system is about as long term
as one can imagine right now.

>
> > And remember that
> > ISPs are often monopolies - at least the
> > wire and fiber parts.
>
> For existing infrastructure. They still sell leased lines. And you can
> still get your own copper and fiber. But then we're talking money
> again. So you buy from someone (say, an office building owner. Or a
> data center.) who can split the cost across dozens of customers. Heck,
> there's someone in Grandville who probably has the capacity to do that
> for Grandville's downtown area.
>
>
> Of course in a business where the
technology advances quickly the decision
about when to go in is always a gamble.

No solution to that.  Wait for a PC to
become cheap enough and you can just
burn up heartbeats waiting.  Other factors
apply.

   -- Bob

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