DISQUS

Tim Lee · 2 years ago

Wouldn't another solution simply be for Comcast to make its bandwidth caps explicit? i.e. you pay $40/month for a up to 100 GB/month in downloads (say) and some higher price for truly unlimited bandwidth. Or maybe you'd pay a flat rate up to some reasonable cap, and then a per-GB rate for usage above the cap. Then it would be up to the user to decide if Joost's increased bandwidth demands are worth the cost.

Andrew Grossman · 2 years ago

Tim -

I'm skeptical. Don't today's more-or-less all-you-can-eat plans reflect revealed consumer preferences? Keep in mind that most users go nowhere near the caps and so pay for more than they use.

And there is also the matter of social norms (more broadly, transaction costs of marginal pricing). Users might well feel that TV is something that ought to fit within the bounds of the "standard" plan, no matter how much bandwidth that takes.

Due to the endowment effect, they'll be reluctant to give up what they already have--virtually unlimited bandwidth, even if they're not using it all--and so the impact of something like Joost will be felt in more subtle ways: degraded service (especially by clever traffic shaping) and faster price increases. Everyone pays.

So could Comcast or any other consumer provider charge for bandwidth on a marginal basis? Yes. Is this likely to happen? Probably not.

jeff · 2 years ago

Please do not confuse bandwidth with Net Neutrality. What you are discussing here is just bandwidth. We already have tiered pricing for bandwith (a dedicated T3 costs more than a DSL line) and that works fine. If someone wants to run Joost 24/7, they can pay a little more for the extra bandwidth.

Net Neutrality is about preventing ISPs and all the middle-man routers giving preferential treatment to certain network data based on nearly arbitrary rules that include business deals, what they like/don't like, and other BS. Net Neutrality must be upheld at all costs. If we lose Net Netrality, the data and services on the internet will be controlled, similarly to how data is controlled on cell phone networks. All you need to do is look at the $15/month fee to download 20 youtube videos on cingular to see how much that sucks.

Bandwidth != Net Neutrality. Please don't confuse people, there's too much at stake with Net Neutrality to add confusion to the mix.

Mark Tomin · 2 years ago

I agree with jeff. Not everyone is going to be using Joost and users can always close the background application to preserve the bandwidth. What really should be done is an update of U.S. Internet networks up to world's standards. U.S. Internet providers (Comcast, for example) are experiencing enormous growth but yet prices keep increasing and speeds decreasing. It just seems simpler and cheaper to change the law.

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Hashi · 2 years ago

This Joost service sounds really attractive. It also seems inevitable, as ad-supported shows migrate to the web. There's a pretty well-informed essay on the shift on M. 3.0 (link). I buy this idea much more than a model on which we all buy individual shows.

I'll miss my TiVO.

Hashi

Jason · 2 years ago

Re: Net Neutrality & Joost:

What happens when YouTube or Joost start using technologies like Rivulet? Since technologies like these can pretty much obtain as much bandwidth as they need at the expense of others, those video providers simply get whatever they need up until a point. I think the net neutrality people simply don't understand how difficult it is for the ISPs to even try and keep their networks "fair". Since Rivulet just got a huge amount of funding from Menlo Ventures, and they're rumored to be in discussions with YouTube/Google to use they're technology, I think all bets are off when it comes to net neutrality and how the ISPs can enforce it even if they wanted to.

Jeremy · 2 years ago

@Jason:

Joost is already starting to use "Rivulet-like" packet shaping techniques... These approaches basically are not playing byt the rules and taking an advantage of a "bug" in the queue management systems' interaction with TCP. The question is going to become what technologies the ISPs are going to be allowed to deploy in the context of Net Neutrality. If they can't legally throttle Joost or Rivulet-based YouTube traffic because of net neutrality, then they're SOL! Video will simply overwhelm their networks. Technically, they've got the same problem -- particularly with Joost. The packet inspection boxes simply don't work with "stealthy" applications like Joost and Skype. So, if I were an ISP today, I'd be looking for a solution that can throttle back both P2P video traffic and any other traffic that doesn't play by the rules...