How Internet metering changes everything

Bigger, better, faster, more — those have been the main tenets of networking since the first IMP (Interface Message Processor) spat out the first packet. Just look how far we’ve come: from the text-centric 9600-baud UUCP connections through 10Base-2 and 10Base-T Ethernet through switched 100Mbit, gigabit, 10G, 40G, and 100G. The bandwidth limitations of fiber optics have yet to be determined, and last year, research teams cracked 100 terabits in the lab.

The science of internetworking does not slow down. It does not go backward — well, unless you’re a major ISP in the United States. Then, apparently, your networking technology remains frozen in time, and you’re forced to pull out all of the stops to conserve bandwidth. That’s presumably why this dark cloud of tiered and metered Internet access continues to hang over our heads.

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For years now, big ISPs have been playing games with “trial runs” of metered and tiered Internet in some of their service areas. Generally, they will choose an area lacking any reasonable alternative for broadband Internet, because the affected customers would more than likely jump ship to the competition — if it existed. We’re asked to believe these steps are necessary to alleviate the skyrocketing costs associated with serving more customers, yet all the while networking vendors have been producing equipment that has been increasing available core bandwidth exponentially, in many cases using the already-present fiber plant. You’d think that when a big ISP can deliver 40Gb to a service area over the same eight strands of fiber that previously carried 4Gb, that bandwidth would be getting cheaper, not more expensive.

Almost a year and a half ago, I made fun of Canada in a post that may have sailed over the line of allowable whimsy. The CRTC has backed away from the legislation that would have turned Canada into a metered Internet wasteland, yet provided a goldmine for Canadian ISPs. Good for you, Canada. Now work on that science thing.

Sadly, we here in the States may fail where Canada has succeeded. Although the cost, bit for bit, of long-distance bandwidth delivery has never been lower, the big ISPs are still claiming poverty and wringing their hands about “bandwidth hogs” and the uptick in video streaming services, all the while sending much of that data across data paths constructed through subsidies and grants from the U.S. government. What a truly desperate scenario, indeed — falling costs to deliver a gigabyte of data end to end, and increasing retail prices at the same time. Woe be unto the ISPs. Yet Google is able to drop gigabit fiber connections to residences in Kansas City — and Time Warner is freaking out about it.

The fact is that metered Internet service has very little to do with conserving bandwidth. The carriers don’t really care that much about usage in the long run. In truth, most of the big ISPs have figured out that they don’t want to be just ISPs anymore. They aren’t satisfied making a very significant profit carrying the data from one place to another. They also want to be content providers and get paid all the way around, much to the detriment of everyone.

This is why services like Netflix and YouTube drive the ISPs crazy. It’s not just that these services require more bandwidth than Facebook and Twitter. It’s because they are delivering a product to the user that the ISP thinks it should be getting paid to provide — using the ISP’s own network to do it! The sheer temerity of these companies! How dare they offer a better mousetrap and utilize network connections that are already paid for on both ends! And the users of those services, well, they clearly need to have their thinking adjusted.

And that — adjusting your thinking — is precisely what the big ISPs are aiming for. They want you to consciously think about the bandwidth you’re consuming whenever you access the Internet and to begin self-limiting your Internet and entertainment choices. This will ultimately lead to the ISPs offering their own on-demand entertainment that does not affect your Internet usage meter even though it runs over the same pipes, using the same protocols. Rather than fire up Netflix and watch a movie, you will think twice because that movie will take a chunk out of your bandwidth allotment for the month — and direct more money into the pockets of the carrier, rather than the competition.

But it’s not just entertainment at stake here. Besides the burgeoning consumer market for Internet-connected devices throughout the household, there are plenty of uses for the Internet besides TV shows and movies. Rather than peruse media-rich websites that provide valuable content, metered Internet users may skip those entirely. Rather than allowing their child to download ISO images of a Linux distribution and learn about computers and programming, they’ll punish them for “using too much Internet.” Rather than using Pandora, Spotify, or iTunes Streaming, they’ll sign up for the ISP’s poorly designed alternative because it won’t count against their cap. Rather than sign up with a cloud-based consumer backup company, the metered user will sign up for the one offered by their ISP because it won’t count against the meter. Rather than burn valuable bytes on software updates and security patches, they’ll turn all those updates off.

And those are just the impacts of metering. In the case of tiering, none of those things may be available at all. A tiered user’s ISP will essentially send customers through a time warp back to using AOL in 1995. The Internet will largely cease to exist for those people.

No, the ISPs aren’t really worried about bandwidth hogs. They’re worried only about their own monopolies — that they’re not monopolistic enough. Their ultimate goal is to turn the Internet into cable TV, with themselves at the center, getting paid coming and going. They want the whole pie, and it would be a wholesale disaster if we were to give it to them.

This story, “How Internet metering changes everything,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Paul Venezia’s The Deep End blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.