But customers are already paying for 'unlimited internet' -- or for some amount of data up to a cap. You're suggesting that we should double charge the providers that the customers want to access, as well?
I mean, How could they? I'm an IT professional, read a fair bit, and know a random smattering of networking terms from MPLS to T1 to DSL to SMTP to FTP, setup my own VLANs and Access Points at home, but I didn't know what "DIA" is. Saying that "ISP customer would not confuse DIA for regular bandwidth" seems like an incongruous sentence.
>>And the fine print for most ISPs explains what "unlimited bandwidth" generally means.
Be that as it may be, I pay some amount of money for some amount of service, whether spelled out clearly or heinously. I agree that narrative "Netflix is pushing data onto poor helpless ISPs" is disingenuous at best, and double-dipping by any definition.
> But given the state of the market, I don't know a _single_ ISP or customer that would confuse DIA for regular bandwidth.
You brought up DIA. I didn't see anyone else comment on it.
IMO the solution has to come from the FTC. The US has neglected to regulate telecoms in the name of innovation for a long time, but now so much of everyday life happens atop telecom companies that I think it's imperative they regulate properly. This includes term sheets showing exactly what internet service is being offered and maybe just doing away with the term "unlimited internet" altogether.
see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10645577
Also, does the ISP who wrote that linked article, Hetzner, still support net neutrality? I can't find anything else in English about it since the linked article from 2015 (archive [1], and new link [2]), but maybe that's because other content hasn't been translated.
> Hetzner Online stands for high-performance and high capacity Internet. In the last few years, our network infrastructure has expanded little by little in order to provide our customers with optimal performance. Currently, about two-thirds of our network traffic is directly exchanged with cost-neutral peerings of various partners. Among them are privat peerings with large network operators.
> For this reason, we have been increasingly concerned with DSL and cable providers who have no open peering policy themselves but are also not connected to other Tier-1 carriers with sufficient capacities. During the peak traffic period of 7 pm to 10 pm in particular, the concerned DSL and cable providers hit their capacity limits and thereby impede the fluent data stream between individual networks. This has lead to increasing complaints from the providers' customers because the customers cannot access their servers with the level of performance that they are used to having from Hetzner Online.
> These customers already paid for comprehensive and quick access to the Internet with their monthly DSL and cable fees. However, providers are no longer satisfied with just this source of profit. They now also want to collect revenue by charging large content providers fees for access to their network. For this reason, interfaces are being operated at their highest capacity -- to make paid access to the DSL and cable providers' networks attractive for content providers. The end consumer is then forced to pay double for unlimited access to the Internet. We at Hetzner Online do not support such policies and declare our support for full net neutrality.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150906025055/http://wiki.hetzn... (archive b/c the OP link is no longer accessible)
[2] https://www.hetzner.com/presse-berichte/2015/01/156830 (article appears to have been amended)
They do, but had to relent on holding Telekom accountable because customers threatened to leave as their end-customers from Telekom complained that the services were not reachable or low-performant.
In the end, IMO it's safe to say that Telekom abused their customers to bully Hetzner into paying.
After years and years of appalling DSL speeds (think < 5 Mbits/s) and no alternative except Vodafone LTE @ 50 euros/month for 10 GB of data, the (local?) government came up with subsidies for the first provider bringing glass-fiber to local towns. Ha! At once, they were all rushing to lay down fibers..
But, the subsidies were only for connections up to the local relays, not for bring glass fiber to the local customers. So once the scramble to the relays was finished, nothing else was done.
Two years down the line, slowly, you can start paying (1500 euros) for a connection to your door that should come in the coming months. And the breath-taking connection speed of 100 Mbits symmetric. Which, granted, is a good improvement for casual browsing, but not quite good enough for businesses.