21. Paul K brought up a good point (others have too, but he was first): computer owners cannot always control what comes to or from their computers. Viruses. Trojans. Legit Auto-updates. Etc.

They [generally] can with their mobile phones.

Mark, open your books and reveal your interests in this matter. Generally when someone makes an illogical argument (over and over and over), it's because they have something to gain...

Posted at 2:32PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by King Tut

22. Wow the billioniare wants to raise the price of internet access. We should raise the monthly fee to $1000.00 a month. That way only people of worth to society can have access to do their truly important work. Gamers and people sharing files dont really matter. Mark Cuban says the internet has got to change, so thats the way it has to be. Sorry you've been paying a monthly fee for all these years, but our betters have spoken.

Posted at 2:53PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Chris

23. Mark says:
"So I've come up with a better way to get rid of P2P without calling for an outright disabling of the protocol"

And that's your problem right there. Nobody is buying your proposition that P2P is the menace you claim it is. You're attempting to move the conversation forward on how best to get rid of it, but *no one thinks you should be removing it*.

And many don't believe you're doing this for the "public good" either. You've got a lot of investments and I'm sure somewhere you've got a vested interest in seeing P2P removed for whatever reason (and no, it's not because you think your "internet is too slow").

Posted at 2:59PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by DML

24. Usually, I read your blog and think "pretty clever guy". This P2P thread...not so much.
My ISP provides a service. I pay for that service, with the understanding that I will be able to use it without FUNCTIONAL limitations (particularly hidden ones). Would you support a car manufacturer that limited top vehicle speed to 25 mph? Or restricted them to certain roads? It's even worse with ISPs, because consumers are frequently limited to one or two companies serving their area.
Right now, I pay for Comcast through my HOA, but do not use it. I pay a second time for Brighthouse. Guess why...

Posted at 3:13PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Jay

25. Why don't we expand this out just a bit? Why don't we make the net a nicer place? ISPs simply start charging more for transporting packets with "mean" content. If you want to be mean, you can pay more! Imagine how nice people will be after their first bill after a huge flame war!

The idea of looking at specific kinds of traffic and assigning some different value for transporting it? Down that road lay dragons...

Posted at 3:21PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Patrick Berry

26. If the best you can do to counter your critics--and there were some well thought-out comments on your previous two p2p posts--is to insinuate that all of your detractors are idiots writing "You Suck" or making worthless appeals to the status quo, then I think you have a weak argument. It's deliberately misleading and should be beneath you.

Posted at 4:49PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Ben Compton

27. Cell phone minutes? A familiar topic.

In 10 years bandwidth will be a mute point. You probably will have fiber to your bathroom!

Zipityzap. Internet Television. Seeking partners, investors.

Posted at 4:58PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Gerald Zuckerwar

28. So you've decided to to think the issue through a little. This is a better solution, however you must also think about the cost of installing equipment capable of metering EVERY subscriber on the network. It is highly unlikely that the telcos have this level of sophistication at each subscribers house. Installing the gear is a financial barrier, perhaps one that would require a significant amount of time to recover.

Also, unless every provider switched to this form of billing it won't work. The people you are trying to restrict will simply change to a provider that doesn't have this kind of plan. Since most providers share a certain level of the last mile infrastructure, it won't help your issue of P2P slowing the network for other subscribers.

Let's also remember that cellular providers are among the most loathed in the communications industry for the billing and contractual practices they force on customers. Any telco adopting those practices would certainly risk losing a large percentage of their subscribers to the competition.

Posted at 4:58PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by J Cornelius

29. Completely agree with you Mark. If P2P isn't addressed, we will all see either higher rates or slower connectivity. In my case, I am already seeing slower speeds.

People continue to be proud that they can beat the man and use the Internet as they want to. Spam, P2P, spyware, etc. It's out of control.

Posted at 5:10PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Dave

30. Mark,
Maybe when you have as much money as you do, this type of model makes sense. How about people who work, say, in the video industry who upload hundreds of GB of data a month to save money on FedEx. You are attempting to make a statement about the effects of P2P on content producers, well what happens when you bankrupt the small companies with Bandwidth charges!!

Then we are all stuck with whatever the conglomerates want us to watch, and they are only interested in making more money and pleasing shareholders. If content companies spent half of what they do trying to stop P2P in creating good content that people would actually pay for, this would be less of an issue.

They make billions in profit, and they wonder why people who make $7/hr are downloading their stuff. Think they feel a bit screwed when they go to buy that movie at an insane price of $25! Now why would they do that when they can get it for free.

These companies are making more and more money while the average person is making the same wages with inflation. I only know a few people who are not living paycheck to paycheck already, now you want to up their costs even more because they are taking what they can't afford already?

I do not condone piracy (I used to be a HUGE pirate and distributor), I even did a documentary on piracy in Canada. I buy my movies, my TV shows and music, however, I don't think jacking up pricing and net neutrality are the answer. Better content, keeping up with technology and easy options are the answer. People want easy, cheap and fair. You will always have the people that will find it for free, but don't put that on the rest of the people who are (sorry for saying this) too stupid to realize what they are doing is wrong (And yes, even with all the media, most people still don't know how to properly compose an email and don't know what 'piracy' even is).

Posted at 5:21PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Kray

31. When I buy of sell on AdBirds.com , eBay or Craigs' list I should pay more for uploading or downloading a page with a photo? How will normal traffic be affected?

Posted at 5:21PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Randall Stephens

32. mark, was this a clever ploy to increase traffic to your site? :-)

Posted at 6:07PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Brian

33. Heh. I won't own a cell phone until the prices come down more. I at least want unlimited incoming calls. I think all cell phone providers should give me unlimited incoming!

I'm being snarky. Of course, the free market should decide. One size fits all never actually fits anybody. Charging per the minute could certainly be an option for the ISP you decide to set up, but it's pretty crass of you to jump in and tell the other ISPs how they should be running their business.

AT&T started charging landline customers a premuim when they didn't spend enough in long distance! Because I don't download things, I predict that with your scenario, I'll soon be paying a premium because I am *not* using enough bandwidth.

Free internet, supported by advertisements, seemed like a great idea to me, but the market decided that paying for better and faster access was the way to go.

I even signed up for lifetime dialup access for a one time fee of $99.99. The ISP needed startup money. I figured it was really only a 9 month risk, and I dialed up for 3 years before I opted to go with high speed, even though I had to start paying again.

You're an idea guy - take your ball and run with it. Give us consumers choices instead of crying that other people are hogging the internet.

Posted at 6:07PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Angelatc

34. I don't see anything in this post which would impact on "net neutrality". If you are purely talking about measuring the total traffic (up, down or both) and changing aspects of the user's service (price, speed or both) then that has no relation to any specific type of traffic.

What I would like my ISP to do is, at the quieter times of day, *increase* my upload speed so that I can keep a better ratio on torrent sites (live music sites like Dime) with less effort. There's a 40:1 difference down:up for me (20Mb down:0.5Mb up) and a couple of hours at, say, 20Mb down:5Mb up would help my ratio a lot. If that also meant accepting a slower speed at other times of day then I could manage my uploading/downloading around that. There's got to be some incentive for me. Variable speeds might also be more acceptable to customers than variable prices but would have the same overall effect.

As others have commented, most internet users don't have any need to think about these issues. There's no reason to change things for them. For users who want higher than average speeds/bandwidth (especially upload) then what would be wrong with creating a different, better (faster) and probably more expensive service for them?

Posted at 6:29PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Colin

35. At least give some credit to your comment base--to the degree that you criticize them. Sure, there are plenty of you suck comments. They should have been your idea sucks, but that's another point. Over three days, they have molded your ideas to something closer to technically accurate and palatable. Can we get a thank you?

Posted at 6:46PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Chris Woods

36. There are some good non-"You Suck" comments here...

I will add - as has been noted - we already do pay for uploads. They cap my connection at 1 MB upstream... while downstream is 13. That is a cap - you can play with words all you want, but that is exactly what it is.

Second, what you suggest is a two way street. If they start charging for set allotments, then they must provide said allotments. While they can get away with terrible slowdowns and overall horrible speeds (compared to some of those outside the US) because it is an all you can eat proposition. It is essentially a buffet. If you change it from a buffet to a pay by meal scenario.. and you are charging $60 a month as a cable company – you had better provide good service! Buffet to nice restaurant… and I do not think these companies can deliver nor want to deliver that.

You also write as though it is P2P. As has been pointed out – bandwidth is simply bandwidth. Ultimately everything is P2P on some level – the “server” is simply the stamp put on the machine running the site. Uploading happens not just with P2P but with emails sent with attachments, uploading content to legal services (smugmug etc) and such things as the emerging backup markets where people can upload files online which can be many gigs. Further, some chat would be P2P, or any number of new technologies (mainstream at least) such as remoting into a persons machine to assist, sharing your files across multiple machines and so on. What you suggest hampers technological growth while protecting decaying and outdated schemes. What you suggest would dampen growth…

While you may look at the cell phone market as a good one to view, how many times have your read or heard people saying how much they love their phone company? Do a search! Do you think this is a good way to market a product i.e. produce happy customers? What you assert makes you look silly – and I do not believe you are. It is more likely you are viewing this as someone afraid your content will be stolen via the Internet. While you do not mind (I have no doubt) if Comcast or insert whomever uses the same pipes to push your content down.
The Internet in the US is already falling behind countries around the world where cheap Verizon FIOS like speed can be had by almost everyone… while you want to take things back to 1997 type systems. So – if you truly believe in your assertion – what is the cap? Give out what you consider to be reasonable? How will customers keep track of that? Do you think customers will actually know how to keep track? How will the metering take place – will it be by sampling or actual usage? How will you protect or track the traffic and what does that imply privacy wise? These are just a couple of the 10s that need to be answered.

Posted at 7:00PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Ben B

37. One thing I'd like to say, is thanks for giving Brian De Palma artistic freedom in the way he made his film, even though you redacted some of it. I haven't seen it yet, I wonder will you release it using P2P to distribute the HD quality version of it without DRM on the Internet? I would gladly pay $3 or $5 for that, and maybe you can get a few million other people around the world pay that same amount. Thus please figure something out with Brian De Palma, tell him you are sorry about the redaction of his film or something, so please give him the means to make more awesome films and I suggest you release the films not only theatrically, but also online in HD p2p downloads.

Now about the bandwidth issue, I do believe ISPs will charge per Gigabyte used and it will be less of a flat fee issue. But the price per GB should be extremely affordable, for example less that $0.05 per GB delivered over 100mbit/s Fiber to the home or $0.20 through Mobile WiMax. With a minimum monthly payment for example. This way the bandwidth then needs to be guaranteed and of high quality. This will be common I think once HD video streaming, higher quality live p2p streaming, cached p2p RSS distribution and other online HD video becomes mainstream.

Posted at 8:21PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Charbax

38. > we should look at some realities and options.

Reality 1: The statistics about what p2p use are questionable.
The only stats we have are from the ISP's. The ISP's have a strong motivation (lawsuits and threats from major copyright holders...we all know who that is.) I find the numbers from the ISP's to be extremely suspect.

Reality 2: Search engines and video sites use a huge amount of bandwidth.
Google alone chews a staggering amount of bandwidth. No other site on the internet single handedly uses as much bandwidth as YouTube and GoogleBot.

Reality 3: There is no shortage of legitimate bandwidth.
Dunno what the heck is going on in Dallas, but down here in Austin, it rare for me to wait for anything but the largest dl's. The average user has bandwidth to burn.

So while I agree with you that net neutrality is a bad idea; however, if we are going to slam p2p average joe, then lets also go after the heavy corporate users/abusers as well.

- bt

Posted at 9:20PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Brett Tabke

39. Welcome to China...

Geez Mark - this doesn't seem like you at all. The guy that always says, "the consumer should control the market"....ugh. Well the consumer has come up with an ingenious way to utilize the free bandwidth with an amazing global collaboration tool. You just love Google video because Google is fast - they should be - they've built their own mega Akamai. P2P is one of the most amazing inventions ever. It's the classic case of pooling resources for crowd gain. There is some "law of the commons" going on here and that's why you're ticked off. Too many people eating your grass and you feel like you're starving. I will support the people on this one who purchase a capacity of broadband and expect what they were promised. You know how shocked I was when I called Qwest to complain about my 100k downstream DSL that is called 1.5MBPS and they said that it falls in line with their minimum service requirements (which of course are not posted anywhere). Blame the ISPs who oversell. Just because the U.S. is a big land country that doesn't have a high population density, you want to punish something that will make the world a better place? Just because you don't find value in it, doesn't mean that the majority of internet users don't either...

Anyways, I find it fascinating that I write comments in your blog. It's mostly because I know you'll read them and because you are an influencial person that really opens a dialogue with others - the very thing that makes you who you are is the exact person that should get this P2P thing. It's not going away and how dare you even suggest that the ISPs control, censor, or throttle the bandwidth that they have available.

Thanks for being a great sounding board - peace.

Posted at 1:10AM on Nov 24th 2007 by Rio

40. Mark,

I've been reading your P2P posts. While there are certain aspects I agree and disagree with you on, I'd like to let you in on my current ISP dilemma.

I'm a business customer. I run an e-mail server at my home for my small business. I'm too far from my Verizon Central Office to get decent DSL, the best they can offer me is 1.5Mbps by 768Kbps, which for the average internet user sucks, let alone a professional like myself. Time Warner is my only choice.

I need a static IP address for my e-mail server. Time Warner's Residential Plans leave me two choices: either 7.0x512 or 10.0x1.0, $45 and $60 monthly, respectively. Dynamic IP's on both of them. What's my other option? Time Warner Business Class (their business channel) that offers me the same 10.0x1.0 package but with 5 Static IP's for $140 monthly (over twice the cost of residential for static IP's, with most DSL providers a $10-$20 add-on) AND I have to pay installation fees, be forced to use their proprietary modem and sign a three-year contract. It's safe to say I'm paying a premium considering whenever my side of Plano's cable network goes out I'm down. My modem has died and been replaced three times and every time I try to run off-site backup sessions that last more than three hours my connection is disabled by Time Warner's P2P filtering. I rarely do any P2P... maybe once a month, Maybe... but every time I try to run an off-site backup I'm told I'm trying to do P2P and I have to power-cycle my modem. Recently I was in Atlanta for a business meeting and Time Warner's filtering system caused my modem to drop out. Luckily I had a backup mail service pick up my e-mails but the fact of the matter remains that as a business customer paying a premium for a cable connection I barely do any P2P and their systems leave me in a pickle time and time again and now I'm tied to a 3-year contract.

For grins, I ran some BitTorrents for a day straight. I had to power-cycle my modem 4 times. My point is this: the only carriers I've seen complaining about P2P are the cable-based carriers (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Communications, Charter), but not the telco/DSL/fiber providers. One of the times a Time Warner Business tech was out here replacing my modem I asked him about Time Warner's new business VoIP service I read about and he told me that their infrastructure is not nearly strong enough to withstand that added time-sensitive traffic. Wasting bandwidth I disagree with, but I think it's a crutch used by the cable modem ISPs so they don't have to invest in a strong infrastructure, because from a network expert's standpoint (I hold a few Cisco certifications myself and work in the networking industry) the cable modem service provider's network infrastructure is out-grown and very elementary compared to the DSL and fiber provider's networks.

I personally think that ISPs should offer premium services for people who want to take advantage of such bandwidth-hogging applications. My point is I'm paying a premium for my bandwidth and I can't even use it for my business duties (backups) OR P2P if I wanted, and that's not right.

Posted at 1:46AM on Nov 24th 2007 by Texas Hammer