Mark Cuban is frequently painted as provocative and adversarial. He’s a big personality, but he’s also smart and savvy. Cuban is also one of the more outspoken critics of net neutrality, laying out his arguments in this interview with the Washington Post.
At the heart of his side of the debate is the concept of fast lanes:
People like to use movies and TV shows as a reference to issues that could occur on the Internet. [But] the real issue is that there will be many applications that we can’t foresee today. [And] we need those applications to not just have priority, but guaranteed quality of service.
I want certain medical apps that need the Internet to be able to get the bandwidth they need. There will be apps that doctors will carry on 5G networks that allow them to get live video from accident scenes and provide guidance. There will be machine vision apps that usage huge amounts of bandwidth. I want them to have fast lanes.
I think this is a point, worthy of consideration. The question is, does data need fast lanes? Or is the answer to upgrade the infrastructure with pipes big enough so that all data can move faster.
Interesting, but I think “certain kinds of services should receive priority for the public interest” is an entirely different conversation than “certain companies must pay for priority access”.
The issue isn’t really “net neutrality”, the problem is that the only serious choice for broadband internet access for the vast majority of Americans comes from legal monopolies that routinely abuse their customers. No one, AT ALL, thinks more government regulation is the answer, but the fact that so many reasonable people are calling for it just shows how BAD the Comcasts and TimeWarners of America have made the situation.
If the choice is more government control or more Comcast control, I pick government, at least I can vote and have a semblance of say in the process!
Surely the entire point of Net Neutrality is that EVERY application and service will have access to the fastest available connection and throughput. If you’ve built a pipe, the only way to ensure “faster speed” for a particular kind of data is to artificially slow all the OTHER kind of data (which requires spying on what kinds of packets everyone is sending and receiving, of course).
“No one, AT ALL, thinks more government regulation is the answer”
That’s a pretty big assumption. I’d bet there are plenty of people who want exactly that. I personally don’t think regulation itself is a problem. The hard part is getting the regulation right. There should be some sort of checks on these companies unless they prove that they have their customers’ best interests in mind.
That aside, I generally agree with what you are saying.
It’s really easy for a guy who made billions on a “fast and free internet”, and now invests in companies internet application companies, to say that pay-to-play internet fast lanes are OK and even needed for the next generation of apps. He’s got the deep-pockets to buy his startups as much Comcast/TW access as he’d like. I’d love to ask Mark Cuban if broadcast.com would have been possible if those ‘fast lanes’ were only available for a, substantial, fee?
Well, of course the entertainment and telecommunications lobbyists want more regulation, but they’re probably the only ones. And let’s be serious, even those guys don’t think it’s the “answer.” It’s just the driver of a lot of big paydays for them. Which as far as they’re concerned is even better than an answer.
And anyone who’s seen an Emergency Room bill, well—bills, since you get one from the hospital, the ER doc, the radiologist, and the ambulance company, can’t wait to see the charge for the ‘out of network’ 5G “remote visualization” fee since your PPO only covers the Comcast “fast lane” while the hospital used TW.
Net neutrality doesn’t say that you can’t have fast lanes. Net neutrality says that no network packet should be discriminated against or slowed down. that is a subtle distinction.
Inevitably, there will be faster services that get charged a premium price for delivery. NN argues that faster services should not slow down or block (discriminate against other services).
The cable guys are protecting themselves.
This whole argument stems from the Internet turning into a streaming entertainment platform. Netflix accounts for almost 10% of North American traffic. They should be charged a premium, as should its users.
Just don’t interfere with the rest of the web.
The danger of course, is that the web will just become the next media to allow for passive content to dominate.
why should netflix & its users be charged a premium? all youve said is “Because, Netflix.”
data is data. dumb pipes shouldnt care whats their contents are. if the data is too big for the pipes, the pipes should be made bigger. if ISPs have to charge for that, charge for it as part of the overhead.
The catch to your comment is that we users are paying for a service we aren’t really getting. I pay for “up to” 10mbps. I’m lucky if I get 2. I have only one choice for Internet service so I can’t play that game. And that ISPS wants companies like Netflix to pay them so I get what I’m already paying for.
If I was guaranteed a certain level of service and they were paying on top of that it would be different
Comcast, TW, et al are DESPERATELY trying to avoid becoming “dumb pipes”, but that’s just inevitable. The problem is that subscribers will have to suffer while the cable providers become the victims of technological entropy.
A very clever “think of the children” angle.
Telecommunications lobbyists don’t want net neutrality regulation. AT&T, for one, argued that it would ruin the internet. Businesses typically want less regulation. It’s the consumers that should want this. We already pay for service that is less than advertised. Look at all the ads that say speeds “up to X Mbps.” I don’t know about you, but I, and a lot of people I know, don’t get more than about 70% of X. That is unless it’s peak usage hours, then it’s even lower.
It would be nice if more of the profits were used to upgrade our infrastructure so we could get to a point where you are paying for a minimum guaranteed speed. I can’t see that happening any time soon, though. At least not without some sort of net neutrality regulations.
“Telecommunications lobbyists don’t want net neutrality regulation.”
Sure they do! That “regulation” is a golden opportunity for them to generate thousands of billable hours. They, or at least their corporate clients, just don’t want EFF’s version of net neutrality regulation, and thus will allocate millions of dollars to prevent or, more likely, deeply influence that legislation.
No, every telecom lobbyist on K Street has a hard-on for the idea of Congress crafting regulations for broadband access legislation.
This is the purpose of Internet2.[1]
The main (and only really salient) argument he makes is moot.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2
I pay for my Internet access. If my cable company doesn’t want to carry my Netflix traffic, I don’t want to pay them.
10% of North American Internet traffic, if true, means that 90% is something else.
That 10% is not some extra, unpaid-for burden. It’s part of why I’m paying them so much for so much bandwidth and usage.
There already is prioritization in the telecommunication industry. For example, on cellular networks emergency numbers (911, etc) get priority over all other traffic. People generally agree that this is reasonable and necessary.
There is no governance framework for data which would prioritize traffic supporting essential services like EMS, etc. Without a framework in place then a trojan horse like Mark Cuban suggests would quickly be used for “other purposes”.
On another note, why is Ayn Rand still at thing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8m8cQI4DgM
As long as it doesn’t include Comcast slowing down Netflix so they can extort double payments out of them, then I can see his point.
Mark Cuban is full of crap. This is a distraction in the guise of an argument.
Right, like regulation isn’t the answer for jewelry stores ripping off customers by misrepresenting the products they sell. Or consumers who buy mortgages. No, the government has no role in modern life at all.
All government is bad, and business is always more efficient.
Please, that tired old meme has to die. The sooner the better.
It’s all about your definition of “answer.” I’m a raving Progressive Liberal, and even I don’t fool myself into thinking that regulating the internet under Title 2 will be good. However I do believe it will be better. The only question is by how much?
Government regulation never truly solves problems, especially since the problem is usually that many people greedy selfish bastards. What government regulation usually does is mitigate the more heinous effects of said greedy selfish bastards (eg Wiley Act, Glass Steagall Act, Clean Water Act). None of those were optimal solutions, but they made things better than they were. In a capitalist representative democracy, that’s usually the best you can hope for.
We already have paid fast lanes in another industry: cable television. ESPN, CNN, NBC, ABC, NBC, FOX, etc. all pay for these fast lanes to promote their propaganda. How well is that working out for the common person who wants to broadcast something important to the world? Not so well. The Internet was the first great equalizer of information sharing, thanks to Net Neutrality. Without Net Neutrality, we end up with cable television again.
We already have fast lanes, but they’re determined by user, not content. Broadband services like Xfinity and Verizon FiOS charge more for faster data. What they don’t do is charge more if you want certain types of data. Thus, EMTs and hospitals can, like the rest of us, obtain faster service for things like on-scene remote viewing. They should certainly have priority access to bandwidth, but that doesn’t mean dedicated lanes. When emergency vehicles drive through traffic, they don’t have dedicated lanes; everyone else gets out of their way. I don’t see why the same can’t hold for emergency virtual services.
You do realize that those monopolies exist precisely and only because Government creates them in the first place, right?
(Literally – Comcast or Time Warner or whoever get their local cable monopoly from the city or county, in exchange for bennies for the government and favored interests.
A Federal “fix” for that is ignoring the core problem, and not fixing everything.)
And when you do that, how do you keep BitTorrent floods from making VOIP and streaming video not work?
If you’re not “spying” on the packets to know what’s what, and if QoS is illegal because “you can’t ‘artificially’ slow stuff”, you end up with latency and jitter ruining things that depends on low latency and jitter.
All so that people can posture about how it’s “neutral” to not treat different kinds of traffic appropriate to their content and needs.
Sorry, not buying that. Haven’t been buying it for years, since Richard Bennett first pointed out that it’s an incredibly counterproductive idea.
Your payment to your ISP is for them to provide a pipe to you.
Not for them to pay transiting costs for Netflix traffic, rather than charging Netflix.
Transit is priced by megabit-seconds per month, not at a flat fee.
If Netflix wants a faster connection to your ISP, they can pay for more transit, or they can pay to colocate.
(Since they’re not an internet provider or backbone, they obviously can’t participate in peering.)
Your payment to your ISP is not an obligation to pay Netflix’s transit fees or to provide them with free colocation because you’d prefer it.
The internet has never worked that way and never will, nor can it.
I think we need slow lanes. For all the fart apps, cat videos, and comments. A smaller pipe to slow down pics of Kardashian’s butt would be nice too.
The real “Federal ‘fix'” is take away the big cable providers’ monopolies thus facilitating municipal control of high-speed links to the curb that can allow multiple vendors to over-lay. Then let Comcast compete with AT&T, Sonic, Astound or anyone else who thinks they can do it better to provide consumer services on a even playing field. I believe the Conservatives and Libertarians call that a “free market”.
I’m shocked that they’re not screaming for that.
Internet infrastructure has been for a while, but definitely is now becoming essential for communication, for both consumer and business, so it should be treated as a public utility. Even the cable and telephone company providers acknowledge this as they lay down fiber for digital services and cut the copper lines to people’s homes. And just as the telephone and radio and television before it, when those became essential to get news and information out to the public (especially in emergencies), internet infrastructure should be regulated. Those services weren’t suddenly shut down because the government (a.k.a. the people) told them they needed to provide a certain basic level for everyone in order to keep up communication and foster growth in other areas. Neither will ISPs — even though they are bellyaching as much as those others did back in the day.
More on this: http://business.time.com/2013/01/09/is-broadband-internet-access-a-public-utility/
A telling bit: “In Europe, where there is much more robust wireless competition, one gigabit service with unlimited minutes and text messages is available for $12 per month, according to Crawford. A comparable service in the U.S. costs anywhere from $50 to $90 per month, depending on the contract.” The US is also behind Asia when it comes to internet service.
We have so much room for growth, a little requirement to keep the bandwidth free and clear so competition can drive innovation further and build the country overall is not a problem. The US companies are choking bandwidth and refuse to build more in order to put more in the pockets of their CEOs. (Why else would they be afraid of Google Fiber coming into an area?) They’ll scream if regulation comes, trying to tell us the regulations are somehow killing their ability to provide us faster service — and all the while the rest of the world will laugh at us. Until and unless the providers can’t deny, just as other essential services before them.
What Cuban says make sense. But if it doesn’t make money for Comcast/TWC, that’s not the way it’s ever going to happen in reality.
Nowadays; I’m have FTTH 100/10 mbits/s internet (latency of 23 ms) unlimited + POT (Voip over fiber) unlimited minutes + The Top TV On Demand Package & TiVo functionality at their Data Centers all over fiber + 2 Cell Phones 4G (Unlimited Voice + Unlimited SMS + Shared Pool of 4Gbits/month Data) everything for 105€ or around 130 USD per month.
Fiber goes right inside my house where there’s medium changer to Gigabit Ethernet.
I guess this is because we have actual competition and there’s no artificial territorial allocations to companies. One of the reasons may be that we don’t have a history of cable TV and only had it for the last 15 years and they had to complete with every other telco, cell, satellite, OTA for TV, voice and data communications.
“No artificial territorial allocations to companies,” except for the agreements major providers have made to not compete with each other to any significant degree.
Cuban can afford to pay extortion. Most consumers can’t.
Where? Here it’s almost impossible they get huge fines from both the country’s antitrust tribunal and from EC antitrust commission (the same one that wants to tear apart Google) and besides they can’t stand each other as they majors compete through Europe and Worldwide; and the smaller ones can not survive following the strategy of the majors; they cannot subsidize local loses with earnings from developing countries.
Any collusion would last less than the duration of the shortest OPEC countries’ meeting to set the prices and max. output of petroleum barrels.
Yeah, cities give away those monopolies. That’s why a Federal fix could improve things. Because you don’t have a bunch of incompetent local yocals giving away the keys to the vault to the monopolies.
I doesn’t, if you look outside the US; you will realize that Telcos are making huge profits while revamping the infrastructure and delivering high speeds at affordable prices thru a range of technologies. While trying to retain and milk the customer with an offer based the convergence of services at marginal costs to the customer:
they try to sell you POTs, Broadband, Mobile Voice and Data, Using their private network (not Internet) the provide Premium, on demand TV, PayperView, Netflix like services and Similar services to TiVo (you don’t have drives) using their private clouds. That it’s because they invested in the infrastructure (fiber to the home) that holds various circuits nowadays at over a Gigabit/s so they can deliver Internet, VoIp (over its specific voice only private network – not virtual) , HD Video Broadcast and HD On Demand (over its specific video only private network – not virtual).
An the pricing goes from most basic 10 Mbits symmetric + POTs unlimited from around € 37 or USD 45 to
the Top Package (without the extra for sports of €15) for €61 or USD 76 where you get:
Broadband 100/10 Mbits over Fiber;
POTs (unlimited calls, 550 min to cell weekdays, unlimited cells weekend and holidays);
Mobile (unlimited calls cells and pots and SMS) + 2Gbits/month data over of LTE (4G);
TV multi-screens enabled (TVs, Tablets, Smarphones, Desktops), TiVo functionality directly from provider, Ondemand TV, 68 channels many in HD of Broadcast TV.
People tend to sign for the USD 76 because you can add extra cell phones at a flat fee of USD 31 for the unlimited plan or for 12 USD for a flat fee of 22 cents per call + 800 Mbits of 4G data.
Now they are selling more services to the same person than before over the same infrastructure and thus making a bunble trying to maximize the usage of the infrastructure.
What Cuban says is a fallacy, as it’s based on false premises.
Monopolies are not always – or even often – created by the government. They can be created. Monopolies are created by private and public companies to maximize profits and hose their customers – since that is what they love to do – and that is how they “maximize” profits – at least for a time. This would be why many “monopolies” be they public or private are regulated and also, on occasion the government tries to break them up – just look at GM, Dupont (or was it Dow Chemical?), IBM and Microsoft – to name a few…
Your first sentence is horrendous, Sigivald. IIRC about 30% of all internet traffic is Netflix. Amazon, Apple, Nexflix and Youtube only deliver 1080 (for the most part) content … I doubt the bit torrents are slowing anything down.
Yes – all data should be treated equally. I suppose you could make a case for data that requires low latency and in order packets (and no dropped packets), but that is a different issue, and I would image already solved issue. I’ve not seen a VoIP issue in ages – I guess they still exist, yet voice – for that part is very low bandwidth. Live video might be another matter… (simply streaming video should not require any changes at all).
I’m sure you are missing the forest for all the trees, Sigivald.
I live in the United States, where entities like Verizon and Comcast not only cede territory to each other, but where they each deliberately neglect their own infrastructure after having received specific tax breaks to improve it.
I understand the EU still has good governance of carrier behavior. If that’s where you are, I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts.
They are already dumb companies and I’m pretty sure they are dumb pipes.
If they really had a game plan they could deliver better content – or even the same content better – more efficiently – with a better interface/reliability/etc.
My cable company is the suck – so is Verizon. They cut some many things – or they have “features” that are only semi functional. They often behave like poorly regulated monopolies all ready – it is really sad.
Netflix gets it. Apple gets it. Hell, even Amazon and Google, mostly get it. Its a shame so many others fail at failing – I makes me want to watch fails on youtube. 😛
10mbps does not sound very fast. That’s not even 2MB/s (how non serial through put is measured).
Often people pay for 10, 15, 25Mbps – and they can get those speeds, but the problem is most services are sold as “unlimited” – but they do have limits and most people are under those limits.
… Until you start stream a lot of 1080 content (even so highly compressed it no longer looks like 1080 – yes that would mostly be YouTube) – maybe H.265 will resolve some of that…. it even helps on the lowly 1080 encodes.
I mean tablets and phones are often over 1080 is resolution and what they can do .. now wireless is always shared and is most often capped, but I don’t think that’s what we are talking about here.
Um – this would be wrong. So wrong. Clearly if people are using their internet pipe – they are paying for this pipe. If the pipe is always maxed out – that’s another story – but that is what people are paying for.
Maybe its like going to an all you can eat buffet – but it’s not really an all you can eat buffet. Many people won’t come close to makings those invisible data caps – and those maybe an ISP may lose some money one a customer or two – but they make bank on everything else.
Yes – it all costs money – maybe cable companies and other data provides just need to not be so dumb? Or so greedy?
Yes, 911 traffic over cellular lines, POTs and even data networks (VoIP) should be a priority. EMS should be a priority. This would not mean you cannot have net neutrality.
Most people love the interest …. most business love the internet – everyone thinks its great – but that is because its been fairly free, open and efficient.
That would be horrible.
10Mbps full duplex is not much of anything – though I guess it still counts a broadband. I guess it would be good to have the POTs backup and a 56Kbps modem…
This sounds a bit like a big town USA circa 2001.
Cuban is only sticking his neck out because he knows he wants to grow his bank account. The devil is in the details – the details that many would leave out.
I do find it odd that billionaires had making a tiny fortune. I guess it is no longer fashionable (or was it ever?). The problem is – that type of greed makes everything else worse.
And I though the US was doing better – with its better/faster/broader 4G coverage … o well.
Verizon and Verizon wireless does way more than neglect their infrastructure. They completely ignore their customers.
I really do not like any of them. I feel they are from the old Soviet Union (the bad old days?) and they clearly want to charge people money for nothing (no chicks for free).
At least with AT&T I can easily obtain a number and talk to a human representative and get something – or almost anything done. That is worth the money – and hell, I’m even still on an “unlimited” plan. They even have pretty good coverage – for where I go.
The problem is -many of these companies are run by hundred millionaires and billionaires – and in that rarefied air – there is a serious lack of oxygen.
I’ve been quietly told by a couple of Verizon techs that the only people in my neighborhood who have FIOS are the ones who are affluent enough to pay for their own fiber.
Good gods, the euphemisms. Dave… please.
Is there any chance we can all simply agree to stop using the term “fast lane” as though it means something other than “getting everything the advertising pitch claimed you were paying for”?
What the carriers are trying to create are slow lanes for customers who won’t pay extortion fees. Never mind the wireless people who promise “unlimited data,” only to put caps on it for actual use.
This is as though a water utility added an extra regulator on your building’s pipes because you’re using some of that water for drinking.
The people who are controlling the conversation are redefining the terms to require consumers to start with less.
You got me wrong in that:
The minimum you can subscribe (universal service) for Internet is an assured symmetric connection of D10Mbits/U10Mbits usually delivered over Fiber Up To The House (FTTH) with latency of 30 ms. TV on Demand, TiVo, Voice or any other value added services goes thru the same fiber but over a private ip network (not virtual/no Internet) of the Telco, you don’t even know or care about the bandwidth used for that.
The next tier you can subscribe for Internet goes directly:To a broadband with 100Mbits Download/10Mbits Upload Speed over fiber (FTTH) and a latency of 27 ms.
There’s the word out that it will be soon (before summer) rolling out an upgrade to all customers (at the same price) to 200Mbits/100Mbits
We don’t have POTs (classic), we actually have VoIP over fiber (we can have more than ten simultaneous calls from/to the same phone number) and we don’t pay for the calls…
It’s great if you have adolescents home… If you know about SIP with an asterisk installation you can even setup a DISA. You don’t need special hardware other than the ip phones as calls flow in and out over Gigabit Ethernet up to the media changer where is bridge thru the actual optic fiber.
Yes, I’ll try to enjoy it while it last.
The speed test from my iPad right now:
From: The Canaries, ES
Server: Munich, DE
Download: 77.87 Mbps
Upload: 9.19 Mbps
Ping Time: 28 ms
Connection Type: WiFi
This is a disingenuous argument at best, akin to all the “Think of the children!” arguments for shredding our Fourth and Fifth amendment rights in the name of ‘defeating terrorists and criminals’. Follow The Money.