Friday, October 03, 2008
Net neutrality down under
An article on CNet quotes three of Australia's biggest ISPs as saying that net neutrality is a US problem, based on a business model that delivers flat-rate internet. According to Simon Hackett, managing director of ISP Internode, the problem with an unlimited-access plan, is that it "devalues what a megabyte is worth."Telstra Media's group managing director Justin Milne said that the problem for US telcos is that they have to expand their networks, but they are not getting paid any more money.
American ISPs are thus faced with a choice as to whom to charge in order to build out their networks to accommodate the increased traffic.As I mentioned on Sunday, the NDP's platform wants it both ways: flat rate for consumers and net neutrality regulations. By logical inference, the NDP's platform leaves only one choice: no new funding for network upgrades.
The first choice is to absorb the costs themselves, the status quo to date, which is less than desirable as a business model. The second choice is to cease to offer unlimited plans, which passes the cost of excessive bandwidth use onto those users that consume the most.
Telstra's Milne says:
You can't just keep on building these networks forever for free. You can build them bigger and bigger and bigger, but somebody has to pay for it. There has to be a business model by which the network is paid for.Down under, they don't seem to share the NDP's kind of upside down logic.
Technorati Tags:
broadband, internet, net neutrality, Australia
Posted by Mark Goldberg @ 10/03/2008 06:56:00 AM 
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Indeed, Milne has it right.
Networks have kept expanding to meet demand and for the last six years, the broadband demand curve has pointed in one direction - up, and steeply so.
And the entity that has to pay for that is the underlying network provider, a cost we need to recover in some manner.
It's a dicey question that every network is dealing with in their own way.
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Networks have kept expanding to meet demand and for the last six years, the broadband demand curve has pointed in one direction - up, and steeply so.
And the entity that has to pay for that is the underlying network provider, a cost we need to recover in some manner.
It's a dicey question that every network is dealing with in their own way.
Posted by 
: 1:48 PM, October 03, 2008
: 1:48 PM, October 03, 2008 << Home
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