[133809] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schultze)
Fri Dec 17 12:07:18 2010
From: Steve Schultze <sjs@Princeton.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <4D0B93DE.7020201@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 12:07:13 -0500
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 17, 2010, at 11:46 AM, Dave Temkin wrote:
> George Bonser wrote:
>>> What I think George's
>>> comment
>>> does not completely appreciate is that (ideally) cities are imposing
>>> such requirements at the behest of and for the benefit of the =
(local)
>>> public, whereas private constraints on local access are (by design)
>>> motivated by profit.
>>> =20
>>=20
>> I wasn't really talking about franchise agreements as those are
>> different and in many cases stipulate things like there can be no
>> monopoly, etc.
>>=20
>> What I was talking about was what if a city simply decided to charge =
an
>> Internet provider an "access fee" to the city's people. An "eyeball
>> fee". The city says, "hey, you are making millions selling ads that
>> these people view and the more eyeballs you have the more money you
>> make, so we are going to charge you for those eyeballs". Which is
>> basically what Comcast is doing ... charging content networks for =
access
>> to eyeballs. What if they themselves got charged for the same thing.
>> Would they think that is "fair"? And what if the city had its own
>> community high speed internet that paid no such charge?
>>=20
>=20
> They do already. It's called HBO, Showtime, HDNet Sports, etc. - =
they get charged per eyeball for those networks, and so they pass the =
charge on per eyeball to the customer.
>=20
> Nothing is new here.
Sure, the content providers charge Comcast per eyeball, but localities =
do not.
Part of nearly every franchise agreement is a percentage of gross =
revenue from video services that is paid to the city. In recent years =
the FCC has capped this at 5% and subsequently introduced further =
constraints on what counts and how it is collected. Cities typically use =
these funds to support public resources related to video (public, =
educational, and governmental video channels, equipment, and networks). =
However, I think they have the freedom to use it to fill potholes if =
they so choose.
None of this implicates the revenues from broadband service, because the =
2002 Cable Modem Order removed those from the purview of localities. =
What about bundled "triple-play" style services? This is a mess, and I =
believe someone has to arbitrate what the percentages are. What about =
people playing video over their internet connection? Not included. As =
you can see, if the regulatory dichotomy between video and broadband =
services ever made sense, it clearly doesn't today.
George's concern about a last-mile provider competing with municipal =
broadband parallels the most common argument made against such efforts: =
Although private companies do not have to pay any local fees that =
municipal broadband does not have to pay, the companies argue that =
municipal efforts have the unfair advantage of being built on taxpayer =
support and existing outside of the competitive marketplace. Of course =
if the "competitive marketplace" is a natural near-monopoly, these =
arguments are less compelling.=
