[ NNSquad ] Re: "Once Upon a Time" - Understanding Bandwidth Caps

[Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com>]

   [ Since I framed my "Once Upon a Time" Bandwidth Caps posting in
     terms of a dark folk tale, it seems only fair that Brett offers
     a much more fantastical piece in reply.  With all the
     "competition" that Brett keeps talking about, why is it, I
     wonder, that just a few giant ISPs control the overwhelming bulk
     of U.S. Internet users, and all the thousands of little guys
     split the relatively small remainder -- like trying to prod
     Godzilla in the toe with tiny little blunt toothpicks.

         -- Lauren Weinstein
            NNSquad Moderator ]



Lauren:

Please allow me, for the list, to point out some flaws in your 
analogy/allegory.

Firstly, ISPs are not monopolies. Satellite Internet is available 
in virtually all of the continental US, and EV-DO/3G is available 
in at least 99% of it. WISPs cover more than a million square miles 
of the US, including every major metropolitan area. (See

http://bennett.com/blog/2009/02/thought-you-had-no-alternatives-for-broadband/

for a map which shows the coverage of about 1/3 of the nation's 
WISPs.) And more than 95% of the nation's population is also served 
by both a cable company and a telephone company.

My personal mission, as an ISP, is to bring faster speeds and more 
cost-effective service to broadband users (again, satellite and 
EV-DO are ubiquitous, so vanishingly few if any locations can 
credibly claim to be unserved). Due to competition and consumer 
expectations (few consumers will pay more than $40 per month for 
broadband), no one is "making a killing" in this business. However, 
it's reasonable to expect to make a fair, living wage from this 
knuckle-busting, brain-twisting effort (which requires one to be an 
athletic geek -- climbing roofs, erecting towers, building cabinets 
full of microwave and networking equipment, probing the unlicensed 
radio spectrum for the least noisy frequencies, and hacking on BSD 
UNIX all in a single day).

Secondly, ISPs are not analogous to an evil corporation which comes 
in out of the blue and builds a "toll bridge to nowhere." That 
makes no economic sense, just as the much protested "bridge to 
nowhere" in Alaska made no economic sense. Nor can they get away 
with onerous business practices due to ubiquitous competition.

Thirdly, ISPs have no interest in spying on their customers. In 
fact, privacy is a selling point -- one of the reasons why our ISP 
operates Web proxies and NAT routers to make it difficult for 
anyone on the Internet to intercept an individual user's traffic. 
If they do, users will leave for competitors. Yes, we do need to 
manage traffic due to high backbone bandwidth costs, but we do so 
in reasonable, open, and honest ways.

In short, it is not only fallacious but harmful to conjure up a 
crisis where none exists. Regulation of ISPs would harm consumers 
by squelching competition and innovation, raising prices, and 
degrading quality of service.

I might add that the mere threat of regulation has already harmed 
our own small, rural ISP. After the Comcast decision, our investors 
became unwilling to invest more money in our business, since they 
did not wish to invest in a heavy regulated industry where 
innovation would be limited and conformance to government rules 
would introduce disproportionately high overhead for small and 
competitive providers. As a result, several of our investors asked 
immediately to be bought out. The money to do so ate into the 
stream of money we were reinvesting in building out infrastructure, 
hobbling our efforts to build out to new areas. We've had to tell 
potential customers whom we expected to serve by now that it will 
be another year before it will be possible ot reach them.

The inclusion of stealth "network neutrality" regulation in the 
ARRA further discouraged them, because it meant that if we accepted 
any of the money we would be at a disadvantage relative to other 
companies which had enough capital not to need it. This killed all 
further third party investment in our company.

Bottom line: I am now in the process of buying out all of our 
remaining investors. To do this, I must stop drawing a salary from 
the business (taking a personal financial hit in the process and 
working 7 days a week for no pay) and will cut back on expansion -- 
exactly the opposite of the intent of the ARRA. The only light at 
the end of the tunnel is that, in the end, I will be less 
susceptible to the whims of those who -- whether because they are 
misguided or because they seek personal gain (the Washington 
lawyers and lobbyists who are crusading for "network neutrality" 
clearly fall into the latter category), are harming this country's 
thousands of honest, hard working independent ISPs as well as the 
customers they serve and wish to serve.

--Brett Glass