Net Netrality Redux: COX Service Provider Launches "Elite Gamer" Fastlane Add-on Service

[Assimilator]

... the hole backbone was therefore rebuilt with fiber infrastructure during the 90’s.

This is how it should be done. If you make a internet access a utility like electricity and water, then it becomes mandatory for everyone to have internet access - in other words, exactly what Net Neutrality intends to achieve. It also allows you to have a government company that is responsible for building out and maintaining the network, which creates guaranteed jobs - ISPs can only rent parts of said network.

Alowing ISPs to build and own their own parts of the fibre network is a nice idea, but the problem is that they're never going to make provision for getting fibre to rural communities, because it isn't cost-effective. If you make internet access a utility, and require providers to set aside money to ensure rural communities are connected, then nobody gets left out. Fees overall will be higher, because the urban areas essentially end cup subsidising the rural ones, but that's the tradeoff you make for equal access.

As for Cox's "fast lane" service, it's not even snake oil, it's worse: they are essentially deprioritising gaming traffic for no other reason than they can, then charging people to get back to normal priority. Net Neutrality will prevent that too.

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah, been there. I have tried to "vote" my interests, but in a democracy, stupidity wins. Because they are many. Corruption wins. Because they have more money.
So the result was that, after I spent 5 extra years of my life in a prison called university, I was supposed to work hard and make lots of money. So politicians can take a big chunk of my money to give it away as bribe to fellow voters that were to lazy or too stupid to go further than a high school or aquire some useful skills.
So I moved in a country that I thought it represents the last basion of the free enterprise and freedom. Left everyone that I love, that I knew behind.

Now the free loaders are coming here too. Because politicians know that stupid, welfare-dependent voters are easier to bribe/convince... The free-loaders are electing more and more politicians in their image. Until this country runs out of other people money, like the one they just left. And what locusts do next? Move to the next green pasture.
Until there are no more green pastures left, and locusts will die - of hunger, or fighting for the last scrapes of food. Together with their host.

Nice dystopian world view. Can't say I share it and yes, I've worked a day in my life too.

Beyond that this is OT I'm afraid.

 

[Assimilator]

Nice dystopian world view. Can't say I share it and yes, I've worked a day in my life too.

Beyond that this is OT I'm afraid.

Standard brainwashed mindset of a very specific subset of the American population - it's so much easier for them to blame Other People for all their problems, than ever consider that their so-called utopia maybe isn't perfect. Why bother doing the hard work of thinking, when you can just do what your so-called leaders tell you?

 

[Final_Fighter]

Blood, tyrants, debt? Eh? What? You went into rant zone, dude.
You often do not even have more than one ISP in whatever location, because any newcomer is blocked due to absurd rules made by lobying, and then the sole provider does whatever they want and people swallow it, because there is no alternative. Again, because no one can come in.
The company I work in has business in USA. Oh, AT&T, go die in a dumpster fire.

its not a rant. that infrastructure just did not come out of nowhere. it would not be there if the u.s. did not intervene and attempt to give those people a better life than what they could wish for under a communist regime. north korea looks like its doing pretty good doenst it.

the last part of your quote can be explained by the fact the U.S. does not fully embrace socialism. if a cable company pays to put up infrastructure it is believed to be their property and they are entitled to be the sole benefactor. other countrys are not like this so you can get cheaper internet, that is as long as society keeps chugging along.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Charter/Spectrum East Coast is doubling it's basic speed to 200mbps/ no cap/no speed cap/ and Cox is charging for decent Ping for gamers?
The only reason Charter/Spectrum is doing what they are doing is because the New York AG put the screws to em...
Some state AG needs to do the same to Cocks to end this BS.

 

[remixedcat]

hubby worked for them and they had the worst customer management software known to man. terrible company

 

[Slizzo]

I heard from someone few days ago that there is no cap for Gig...maybe call their support or retention?

That isn't offered in my area, never was. They had certain areas that had no data caps, but they rescinded that quite a while ago.

Also, they used to offer fiber in a couple areas as well, that may be what you're thinking of.

 

[dj-electric]

Cox is doing something other ISPs have done since the 90s pretty much

 

[Agentbb007]

Sounds exactly like wtfast, some gamers might get a better route to servers and see better pings others no difference. As long as they aren’t intentionally giving other gamers who don’t pay the premium bad routes to force higher pings I have no issue with it.
Maybe they will have some dedicated routers for this service or even partner with Amazon Web Services to have some low hop routes. Seems like a good service offering to me. High frequency stock traders have been playing and paying for this low latency network game for years.

 

[hojnikb]

:laughs in gigabit internet + landline for $14.59/mo:

On a serious note tho... This is a bad thing especially where the bandwidth is almost saturated as it means they are throttling everybody else who does not subscribe tho this "service".

Romania?

 

[Easy Rhino]

What's wrong with a company offering a service like this? You certainly don't have to pay for it.

 

[EatingDirt]

What's wrong with a company offering a service like this? You certainly don't have to pay for it.

What happens if the company then decides they now have a gaming service, so they can cheap out on their standard service and increase the latency? Standard users won't complain, because latency really isn't a huge issue when browsing the internet. However, the gamers on a standard service would see a severe reduction in quality, essentially forcing them into paying the extra money, or moving elsewhere, and moving elsewhere might not even be a solution if other ISP's with little-to-no competition(most places in the US) also decide to implement this type service.

So, do you understand how this can become an issue?

 

[ghazi]

I had both Cox and FIOS as providers, with rates all the way up to "Giga".
All I want to say that the symmetrical nature of the fiber is something that cannot give up anymore. No need for "special" lanes because all the return lanes are fast and dedicated.
Cable internet has to deal with the inherent asymmetry of the technology plus sharing the paths. Personally I think is just fine that whomever need low latency to pay a premium. Pay your own share, stop whining that others should pay for that.
Same with the data caps. Not everyone streams 4K HDR, why should they pay for it? To make it cheaper for the ones that stream 4K HDR?

You don't like it, fine, get fiber. Or move somewhere else, if fiber isn't available. Parents always move in better school districts and pay a premium on housing. Twitch gamers can do the same to live in areas with fiber/FiOS.
Complaining about tiered pricing is like buying a Chevy Spark and complying that the "cheap", "greedy", GM won't give you a Corvette ZR1. As in they are not speed "neutral".

For me, at this point, a "lowly" 150/150MBps is plenty fast for the whole house.

This post is absurd and demonstrates both a lack of knowledge of how the internet works and a lack of critical inquiry. Can you please explain to me how much money it costs your ISP to send an upstream packet. How much it costs your ISP to stream 8 hours of 4K HDR video. It costs them practically nothing. To expand upon your dimwitted analogy, it's like buying a ZR1 over a Spark and then complaining about fuel economy. Very dumb. The ZR1 itself -- for example, the engine -- is what costs more to make. This type of nonsense involves no new infrastructure investments. It's an artificial segmentation and a way to cheat you out of your money. You can guarantee that QoS "improvements" on the overpriced line are going to result in regressions on the standard line that everyone already pays for. I suppose you like being taken advantage of?

 

[SoNic67]

Can you please explain to me how much money it costs your ISP to send an upstream packet.

It is absolutely not free, regardless if you think insults are arguments.

1. Being a limited SUPPLY (the bandwidth), it's normal that the DEMAND will dictate the price. Even in socialist countries you can't get around the supply/demand natural law. Only a uneducated person thinks that manufacturing cost is equal to sale price.

2. Also, Economy 101 would tell you that there are two kind of costs associated with every production process. For internet distribution is mostly overhead costs, both administrative (employees don't work for free) and manufacturing (yes the equipment is not free, capital borrowed is not free, depreciation of infrastructure and utilities are not free, taxes, etc).
First read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_(business)

And then this:
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/vz/financials?query=balance-sheet

 

[ghazi]

It is absolutely not free, regardless if you think insults are arguments.
Economy 101 would tell you that there are two kind of costs associated with every process. For internet distribution is mostly overhead costs, both administrative (employees don't work for free) and manufacturing (yes the equipment is not free, capital borrowed is not free, maintaining infrastructure and utilities are not free, taxes, etc).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_(business)

And how much of these overhead costs are impacted by what customers are doing with the service, rather than being inherently necessary for the service to be provided to them?

Edit to account for yours:

1. Being a limited SUPPLY (the bandwidth), it's normal that the DEMAND will dictate the price. Even in socialist countries you can't get around the supply/demand natural law. Only a uneducated person thinks that manufacturing cost is equal to sale price.

Yes, that along with infrastructure costs is why you pay more for a higher speed rate. How do QoS and "fast lanes" (i.e. artificially limited speeds/worsened latencies unless you pay extra) relate to bandwidth limitations anyhow? Is your implication that gaming puts a particular strain on the ISP's infrastructure that could possibly cause a bandwidth "shortage," and that this somehow remedies the issue? Because, in my experience in NY at least, that is not the case.

 

[Easy Rhino]

What happens if the company then decides they now have a gaming service, so they can cheap out on their standard service and increase the latency? Standard users won't complain, because latency really isn't a huge issue when browsing the internet. However, the gamers on a standard service would see a severe reduction in quality, essentially forcing them into paying the extra money, or moving elsewhere, and moving elsewhere might not even be a solution if other ISP's with little-to-no competition(most places in the US) also decide to implement this type service.

So, do you understand how this can become an issue?

I'm not seeing anything wrong with this. Cox can choose to build out fast lanes in whatever manner they believe will make them the most money. It is their business. You can find another provider if it bothers you.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I had both Cox and FIOS as providers, with rates all the way up to "Giga".
All I want to say that the symmetrical nature of the fiber is something that cannot give up anymore. No need for "special" lanes because all the return lanes are fast and dedicated.
Cable internet has to deal with the inherent asymmetry of the technology plus sharing the paths. Personally I think is just fine that whomever need low latency to pay a premium. Pay your own share, stop whining that others should pay for that.
Same with the data caps. Not everyone streams 4K HDR, why should they pay for it? To make it cheaper for the ones that stream 4K HDR?

You don't like it, fine, get fiber. Or move somewhere else, if fiber isn't available. Parents always move in better school districts and pay a premium on housing. Twitch gamers can do the same to live in areas with fiber/FiOS.
Complaining about tiered pricing is like buying a Chevy Spark and complying that the "cheap", "greedy", GM won't give you a Corvette ZR1. As in they are not speed "neutral".

For me, at this point, a "lowly" 150/150MBps is plenty fast for the whole house.

Must be nice i pay $45 a month currently for 7 down 2 up that they can't even maintain 3.5 / 1 on a regular basis. No other options available. I got no problem paying for net access, What i hate is paying for terrible service. Example, I used to have TWC / Spectrum, While i got my advertised speeds i noticed something quite interesting when i bought my own modem, my ping went down across the board. Same speeds pegged at the time to 100 mbps down but seeing ping on average over a week drop from 45-50 down to 25-30 from a modem switch was quite interesting.

Now stuck with DSL, where the local company has a cabinet for DSL literally 100 feet from me, Because of reasons they bought the land from my grandmother years ago put the cabinet in to do a build out and then never finished it. Even the companies employees asked why? it makes no sense. Maybe in your area its a bit different but in Maine, the ISPs will nickel and dime you, provide shit service and typically just blow smoke up everyones ass.

In my state no service providers compete at all zero zip nada,

You have Consolidated communications for old school DLS, then Comcast and Spectrum, the latter two have commitment contracts with each town. So Comcast will service one town while the next is Spectrum it is a potchmarked map of bs where no customers typically get what they pay for. Network outages are extremely common with Spectrum being the worst. Usually i get routed via a secondary site as the main goes down often. Said secondary tends to route me via Toronto to a lovely packet loss of 25-30%.

Again with Consolidated and there shit service no other alternatives. But no worries my tax dollars will go to comcast / spectrum to build out more fiber in the bigger towns they already serve lol. My favorite is Spectrum services my road. 1000 feet up the road is where the service ends. 3000 ft the other way is where their service also ends. so one stretch of straight road 4000ft long with about 40 homes = screwed lol.

Internet speeds and quality of service vary wildly across the US. When i was in Florida speeds were fast, ping was low and my service never went out unless there was a power outage. Ah well just means I can expect more optional addons they can't actually provide in the near future.

 

[king of swag187]

Hilarious! Let the price gouging begin!

 

[Divide Overflow]

How much for a US package that doesn't route my data traffic thru China?

 

[R-T-B]

What's wrong with a company offering a service like this? You certainly don't have to pay for it.

To sum up the net neutrality arguement in a nutshell, what incentive will there be to work on the main grid when it is clear they can make more letting it stagnate and opening seperate "fast lanes" like this?

Romania?

Romania actually has decent net infrastructure IIRC. Sad how far we (the US) have fallen.

 

[remixedcat]

There literally is. Each cable company has an exclusive area, they don’t overlap, and some also have slower phone company internet coverage you can opt for.

wierdly my area has both cas cable and suddenlink

 

[rtwjunkie]

wierdly my area has both cas cable and suddenlink

I think that is great, but you know that’s a rarity, right?

I have spectrum, but on the other side of the lake in New Orleans, it is Cox. Both areas can mostly get at&T dsl ( although not all, depends on how rural you live), but I don’t consider their much slower speeds to be competition.

 

[SoNic67]

...Maine

Sorry, you said everything right there. Competition works... when politicians don't get in the way. I won't say what party, but it can be found on wiki. We have the politicians that we elect. You feel you have different needs from your neighbors... maybe is time to move.

Romania actually has decent net infrastructure IIRC. Sad how far we (the US) have fallen.

Helps that the urban areas are dense. In 80's the communists demolish large swaths of houses to build blocks in that place. So, early in the 90's, when capitalism started to flourish, it was very cheap to wire a lot of customers with cheap labor rates (wasn't part of EU yet).
Also there was a lack of IP law, so everyone wanted fast Internet to download games and videos... wild west times.

 

[R-T-B]

Helps that the urban areas are dense. In 80's the communists demolish large swaths of houses to build blocks in that place. So, early in the 90's, when capitalism started to flourish, it was very cheap to wire a lot of customers with cheap labor rates (wasn't part of EU yet).

I agree that geography and the nature of how America is laid out presents unique challenges vs Europe: said so earlier. Still, the situation in europe is much better than only geography/city layout can account for.

 

[remixedcat]

I think that is great, but you know that’s a rarity, right?

I have spectrum, but on the other side of the lake in New Orleans, it is Cox. Both areas can mostly get at&T dsl ( although not all, depends on how rural you live), but I don’t consider their much slower speeds to be competition.

Yeah it's good. We also have DSL here but all of it is contract only. We have a wireless provider as well outside the typical cell cos big it's 200/mo or something..