Net Neutrality

[spidey07]

Tough current issue.

Your thoughts?

I've responded in P&N, but maybe we can keep this to the industry.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The way I've been reading the very few things I've read about it is that companies are telling us they'll be good. And politicians believe them.

 

[Atheus]

I wonder how/if this will spill over into the world internet? If the US telcos have their way, will all US hosted content be affected? Will requests from certain countries be preffered over requests from others?.. Or if it is only the consumer sector that is affected, how will requests _to_ other countries be treated? Will consumers be 'encouraged' to buy Detroit motors because the Japanese sites are too slow?

Another concern is that if the new 'tiered' model turns out to be a real cash cow for the telcos, will other countries' telcos follow suit? Should we be thinking about similar EU legislation for example? I know some dodgy initiatives have crossed the pond one way or the other, while others haven't (paying to recieve phone calls), but this might be too much for the big corporations to resist.

My personal opinion is that these decisions should be made by some kind of world internet govorning body - then, theoretically, this would simply not be allowed, and the Chinese would not be allowed their firewall either. Such things would be difficult (impossible?) to enforce however...

 

[cmetz]

It seems to me that the political action on this subject is premature.

This whole issue is relatively new. It has for a long time been the case that if you want to be sure of really high quality bandwidth to a particular ISP's customers, you had to make arrangements directly with that ISP, typically buying a pipe giving you termination on their network. Because of this, some providers popped up whose entire purpose is to be a middleman for this sort of thing, getting a lot of high-bandwidth private pipes and then selling access to that network.

I am not really sure what the telcos are trying to do differently than before. They are simply saying that they want to charge for high-quality connections to their networks. Which they do today, and have done for a long time. As far as I can tell, this is simply a bunch of chest thumping on the telcos' part trying to claim that they're the more valuable party in that relationship, and therefore deserve more money, or something. I assume this is all for Wall Street, who likes that sort of showmanship. Google's market cap is bigger than Verizon's. I'm guessing that Verizon's management doesn't like that very much, and would very much like to convince Wall Street that Verizon is the more valuable party.

There are all sorts of gloom-n-doom predictions of telcos charging a toll for everyone who wants to access their network at more than a trickle. That is certainly a possibility. But it seems to me that it would be a pretty fatal move if they have competition. Their competitors have to simply not do that, and they could advertise it widely - real, non-discriminatory Internet access. And if such a thing were to happen, then, at this point, it would be appropriate for the public to push legislatures to create a regulatory solution.

Instead, we're pushing for a regulatory solution to a hypothetical problem. This doesn't seem like a smart strategy. Government regulation is a force that tends to make everything it touches mediocre. That doesn't seem like a step in the right direction. Until things get downright horrible, at which point mediocre would sound real good, let's just leave things be.

Government regulation of the Internet strikes me at a high level as being a Very Bad Thing. I would rather a duopoly of telcos and cable companies control the Internet than the government. At least in the former case, they have an incentive to offer something people will be willing to pay for.

 

[spidey07]

cmetz,

I see we are on the same page and had hoped you'd chime in. Almost exactly on point....

"Instead, we're pushing for a regulatory solution to a hypothetical problem. This doesn't seem like a smart strategy. Government regulation is a force that tends to make everything it touches mediocre. That doesn't seem like a step in the right direction. Until things get downright horrible, at which point mediocre would sound real good, let's just leave things be. "

I would appreciate your wisdom in the new "sky is falling" sticky thread going on in ATOT and P&N. The kinds of stuff being thrown around is just ludicrous. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things bloggers and others that have no idea how the Internet works are throwing around.

What's more troubling is people are falling for the scare tactics and WANT this regulation. That is what is so scary.

 

[Atheus]

I am not really sure what the telcos are trying to do differently than before. They are simply saying that they want to charge for high-quality connections to their networks. Which they do today, and have done for a long time.

Am I a victim of the hype then? I had been told the telcos were giving requests to some companies/organisations preference over requests to others....

 

[spidey07]

Yes, you are.

ISPs for the most part are packet movers. They carry traffic into and outof their network.

And I can tell you as somebody that has been deep into the inner guts of the Internet and worked with and built exchange points - we don't care, nor would we ever try to enact something as ludicrous as preferring certain compaines over others**. We transport.

For the most part it doesn't matter because at the high level they sell/resell bandwidth, but enhanced services are coming to fruition via technology. They sell pipes and charge accordingly, but that is changing. At the ISP/peering level it still is nothing more than bandwidth because that is the only currency of the Internet.

**Without getting into the deep technical details we use mechanisms to prefer routes and manage traffic accordingly.