Re: why strict Net neutrality works best: simple beats complex

One fundamental question that I've not seen being discussed enough (or at
all) in this net-neutrality discussion is the viability and attractiveness
of pure-play data business (i.e. data-only bit-pipe operators).
If the ecosystem cannot attract and permit such "connectivity utilities" to
flourish, we need to introspect on the reasons. It might be the question of
real economic viability of such services considering input costs, and
prevailing prices (driven by competitive pressures), or it could be a
question of artificially created (as in induced) unfavorable business
circumstances (s.a. excessive regulation that create uneven playing field),
or a mix. The fact that there are few reasonably good, regional pure-play
data bit-pipe providers (ISPs) exists, gives me some hope that, it is
perhaps not a question of viability. Now, in an ideal world of free-market
economics, we should see the pure-play data ISPs making significant gains
due to the churn, caused by anti net-neutrality moves of mobile
communication service providers. Clearly, this isn't happening yet, at
least not enough to get the mobile biggies worried, so one might wonder,
why ? Also, these observations are perhaps more pertinent to urban centers
with high internet/computer/mobile penetration, and the bigger question is
viability and attractiveness of such business in areas with sparse
population, difficult terrain, low smartphone/computers and internet
penetration. However, this is where government could have an important role
to play, although the question of efficiency and efficacy come back.

On the other hand, we see the mobile biggies gladly embrace unlicensed RF
bands gladly s.a. for carrier WiFi, in many ways infringing upon what
should have been sort of "public property", where they are "sort of"
over-the-top. Now how is this angle related to Net Neutrality, one might
ask ? The relation in my view, is based on the transitive property of the
argument brought forward by mobile telcos, against free-riding OTT players.
It is the same "rare" and "precious" spectrum that they shall be seen as
squatting on, preventing others from offering data connectivity services,
at lower price thanks to new business models, legacy baggage-free
operations leading to better efficiencies.

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 7:47 PM, ken <[email protected]> wrote:

>  Who pays the cost? Isn't this one of the most important questions which
> needs to be addressed?
>
> What we have is one revenue source to draw from. The fact is, we are all
> going to pay for this infrastructure, directly or indirectly. The two
> questions we need to examine are: How do we apportion the cost for services
> to allow for the most people to benefit and how many different profit
> centers will we allow to skim money off of the top?
>
> Specifically, a massive business (Google and Facebook being two examples)
> would pay exponentially more than an end user who does light surfing and
> voice. A large, online retailer would pay somewhat less than the
> aforementioned two but still their connectivity costs would be a
> significant portion of their overall business expenses, as it should be.
> This is in line with the costs associated with having a storefront in a
> desirable, well trafficked location.
>
> If we were to look at the net in any given area, what we would see is a
> varying mixture of government, business, and end users who each use a
> different percentage of traffic with each paying a corresponding share.
>
> While it would seem that I am suggesting we should charge by the bit,
> doing so then puts us back into a mode where the cost to apportion billing
> likely exceeds the cost to operate the network.
>
> Another avenue we could explore is to look at the perceive valued of each
> service carried to the end user and assign billing along those lines. This
> would still leave businesses who leverage the net paying a healthy
> proportion of the total cost which is similar to how we bill today.
>
> Drilling down, video (television) is a significant percentage of all
> traffic here even though it is not sensitive to jitter. And while this
> might not hold true universally, this one service generates a lot of
> revenue between subscriber fees, advertising as well as product placement.
> Premium (advertising free) service also contribute to the whole. A little
> lower down the scale is what we consider "Internet traffic" which also
> generates a substantial amount of revenue here. If we look at voice, while
> revenue is generated from this traffic, I see this service as eventually
> moving towards an included for free model as the traffic generated is quite
> low, with the understanding that it does need to be low latency/jitter.
>
> Sorry or the length.
>
> Ken DiPietro
> Cumberland MD
>
>
> On 05/19/2015 09:27 AM, Kiritkumar Lathia wrote:
>
>  one solution (eg Ruwanda) is all (internet backbone) infrastructures are
> built by government from local taxes. do you propose this so that all
> infrastructures are owned by government from public funds and then all
> service providers including OTT "travel" free?
> On May 19, 2015 3:13 PM, "Kiritkumar Lathia" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> quick reply:
>> a) is a reality in IPv6!
>> b) who is exactly funding infrastructures ? and how do they justify the
>> investment? how do they get ROI?
>>
>
>
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-- 
regards,
Banibrata
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdutta
http://twitter.com/edgeliving

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