Policy Wonk Castigates Net Neutrality 322
An anonymous reader writes "Tom Giovanetti, president of the Dallas, Texas based public policy think tank Institute for Policy Innovation envisions a chaotic world as a result of Net Neutrality. He says a flood of undiscriminated traffic to and from Youtube, Coldplay, and Victoria's Secret will bring down the Internet, leading to failures of IPTV, VOIP, and emergency services which depend on VOIP. Is he right or wrong?." From the article: "... government should be about fostering a dynamic and risk-taking economy, not preserving the certainty of anyone's business models. Net neutrality regulations would severely restrict broadband providers' right to enter into contracts and to try new business models while protecting the business models of Google and Ebay." Compare this with George Ou's commentary on this subject from yesterday.
Justifiable Reasoning (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, this is one of the reasons why I'd love to see the government set up a site for everybody to go to, where they can see each of their legislator's votes on issues, as well as a quick comment on the reasoning for voting that way (or longer per the legislator's desire), and put this out there in a very accessible location, and make this a manditory part of the legislative process. The site could be organized in a way such that citizens could easily see the reasoning behind other legislator's votes as well, so that counterpoints are clear to citizens.
This would all help us be better informed and make good decisions, as well as help the government keep itself in check ("I voted no on this legislation because it contains 'xxxxx' add-on legislation that I don't agree with"). Debates would always be there and available to citizens in a way that they can do it at their convenience, and don't have to try and dig up all this information themselves. Essentially, this idea would function a similar purpose as that of a judicial decision opinion (clarifying the decision). We don't need big media to give us all our info anymore. We can get it right from the source. The internet is a very powerful thing. LEVERAGE IT!
Anyway, I know that rant was slightly off topic, but I felt it to be relevant since originally my opinion was leaning towards enacting net neutrality legislation, but I still had my doubts, and this reasoning has made me think that maybe it's just better to wait and see what happens before we get too hasty to legislate, though I still do think that publically funded infrastructure should still be publically owned and unhindered.
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
No. See my letter to my congresscritter [russnelson.com].
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
On this, we do. Right now, the commercial internet works because I pay someone to connect me to the internet and give me a certain amount of bandwidth. I do this for my connection at home, because I want bandwidth to get what I ask to see. I do this for my server at a data center, because I want bandwidth to get to people that ask to see me.
When I use bandwidth to my own server, like when I get my email, I pay twice for that bandwidth. I pay for sending the email from my server, and I pay for receiving the email at my desktop. And that's fine. It makes perfect sense to me.
What isn't fine is that now someone in the middle is saying that I should have to pay them extra so I can use the bandwidth I'm already paying to have. They seem to be of the opinion that I need to pay THREE people for the bandwidth I use. I understand that there are two ends to the connection, so I need to pay people on both sides. But this third charge is someone in the middle. How many "third" charges *are* there? How many networks does my data traverse on the way from point A to point B? Can they all charge me? When? If I go from network A to network B and then back to network A, do I have to pay network A twice?
This is a big-ass can of worms. We need to keep it well and truly sealed.
Trajedy of the commons (Score:5, Informative)
The tragedy of the commons is what happens when a resource is provided that lacks a proper mariginal cost for increased use. The classic example is private property versus unrstricted access to public grazing land. By charging a small price for admission per sheep to the land or by making it private, the incentive to overgraze it is removed and the total amount of meat sustainbly raise actually is higher. In this case if it's case where there is simply not enough baqndwith for everyone to do voip, and I don't pay any extra to do VOIP, then it's going to be over grazed and everyone gets a crappy connection. On the otherhand if the connection cost already is sufficient to expand the network to handle all the users that want voip or if we can prevent this from becomeing a power law network with critical links then it may be that the more users the better some sort of p2p works.
Thus another way of looking is this is that the thing we need to fear is too few corporation controlliing the internet and resulting in bottlenecks on backbones. In the long run to get high bandwidth we will need p2p that does not traverse a central backbone.
Assuming that the p2p scaling effect will not be sufficient and the tragedy of the commons wil happen then the way out is to have a pricing schedule. We can put that schedule on the users or on the content providers. the latter is what the backbone owners want since it means no net neutrality and control. The former would be better but I can imagine the cheap ass slashdotters used to paying a tiny sum for all-they-can eat internet won't like it.
Re:Trajedy of the commons (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole commons mentality is "If I don't use it somebody else will."
However, this doesn't work with bandwith. There is no free bandwith just laying around to be snatched up by anybody. You pay for your bandwith, websites pay for theirs, and if you use more bandwith, it costs more.
Thus another way of looking is this is that the thing we need to fear is too few corporation controlliing the internet
This is the entire problem. Most small towns usually only have the local cable company and the local phone company supplying broadband access. There are only a few national telcos with most of the lines under their control. The stage is set for rampant extortion.
Re:Trajedy of the commons (Score:2)
Well that was part of the question I was posing. You assert that everyone is paying their fair share. Perhaps not. Few people consume all the bandwidth they could and conversely the heavy users are getting a cheap ride since most (home) internet use is a flat fee that varies little (less than
Re:Trajedy of the commons (Score:5, Insightful)
The costs involved in telecommunications are in the laying of infrastructure. The cost to operate it after it is built is insignificant by comparison. Furthermore, the cost to operate it doesn't decrease appreciably with less users. You still need to run the lines regardless. It's not like when half the people turn their connections off they get to turn off half the lines and save electricity.
And this nightmare scenario, where too many people downloading a hot wardrobe malfunction cause the rest of the internet to stop, that has NEVER HAPPENED. The fact of the matter is that all this chaos exists because it has been demonstrated to be the most reliable means of running telecommunications in the public sector ever created. He talks about how all these essential services are moving online. They're not moving online because it's the cool thing to do and all the firefighters and EMS workers want to be hip. They're doing it because it's MORE reliable than the pre-existing ivory tower administered systems that predate it.
The reason why it's more reliable is because it is NOT STRATEGIC. It is TACTICAL. Highly structured systems where you say "we need to do it precisely this way and everything will work" rely on perfect information and perfect judgement, which do not exist. Chaotic systems like the internet work better because they say "we're not capable of making all these determinations and decisions on how the system should work, so we're going to lay down a set of tactics that will allow individual components to react co-operatively and intelligently to problems".
It's like the difference between a good boss, who recognizes the strength your individuality brings to the table and attempts to make it useful, and a bad manager, who tries to micromanage you and just ends up making you (and the entire system) less effective.
The internet, in it's chaotic form, is a SMART internet. Every node has the capacity to make tactical decisions, and thus react to problems that no other node even recognizes exists. Tiering, rather than attempting to progress this powerful idea, is a fundamental rejection and dismissal of that intelligence and the value it brings to the table.
I'll cap my little rant by mentioning that this whole thing about the internet being a resource in short supply is a ridiculous joke. Capacity has been growing faster than usage for a long time now, and we're at the point where free wireless mesh networks can be set up for next to nothing. Small cities with limited budgets and technical resources have demonstrated that they have the capacity to do this with no help all from any existing carrier. We could, with minimal investment in infrastucture, set up wireless networks of sufficient speed that they could assume all the burdens off the wired net for all in-city traffic, and with an intelligent caching system, it could assume a lot of the burden for inter-city traffic too. So for negligible investment (compared to laying fibre) we could practically unburden the entire existing internets physical infrastructure and use it for some new purpose without losing any of the communications we currently enjoy.
In a nutshell, the mans position is either utterly ignorant foolishness or a blatant lie intended to manipulate the people who are exposed to his bullshit, to the detriment of us all. Having seen how very warped the views of people who are isolated from reality with other intellectuals can become, I'm not quite cynical enough to say with any confidence which one it is.
Re:Trajedy of the commons (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trajedy of the commons (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're Right But You're Still Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You're Right But You're Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Porn always forecasts the trend in comms/entertainment tech markets. Amateur porn and tiny little producers/distributors are the majority of porn consumed. TV of all genres will go the same way, now that the Internet has hit critical mass of high bandwidth consumers. Telcos can't compete with such a diverse array of content competitors on a level playing field, so of course they're working to fragment and unlevel the field.
Giovanetti of course knows this. His analysis doesn't come from any ignorance but the willful kind. The principles are obvious, the break with the decades-old, unprecedentedly successful "neutral Internet" too blatant to miss. He's shilling for corporations who benefit for his thinktank's "less regulation" ideology. As usual, deregulation promotion masks corporate anarchy in the name of "freedom". Freedom for corporations to exploit us without government protection.
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:3)
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:2)
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:2)
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet totally wiped out the free market's contemporary offerings: GEnie Online, Prodigy, and a bunch of other crap proprietary networks that didn't interoperate, cost a fortune, didn't give people enough freedom to be useful.
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, the article is illogical. The very entities like Google CAN pay corps the extortion fee to be in favored status. It's the smaller guys that get fucked. Tom Giovanetti can pretend that this will threaten Google's/Microsoft'sMSN/OtherGenericBigBadGuy business model. And then there is the real world.
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, I agree completely. I don't think there's any reason to think the phone company will exploit their monopoly [wikipedia.org]. No reason at all...
But if I ask myself for an answer to the question, it's no longer rhetorical. Must... not
Re:Justifiable Reasoning (Score:2)
What happens when Congress doesn't pay as much as the opposing lobbyists to get the fast lane over some intermediary telco for the content you want?
UN-Justifiable Reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
The loss of Net Neutrality goes way beyond that and strips every protection against monopoly on the internet. FACT: with the loss of Net Neutrality, anyone who doesn't have a contract with a Telco assuring them a chunk of bandwidth (i.e. everyone except the largest companies) no longer has any right to be on the internet and can be completly shut down. Blocking traffic is completly at the discretion of Telcos now.
What the loss of Net Neutrality does is to completely deregulate the internet and allow Telcos to shut down any site they choose. That's no exaggeration. Now, there are no consumer protections and no guidelines on what's fair and what's not in regards to filtering.
Anyone who thinks the free market is going to ensure fair competition is a real dunce. History shows the natural outcome of a completely unfettered market is an anti-competitive monopoly. That's why we had to regulate to prevent monopolies for pete's sake!
To make matters worse, other deregulation a while ago means Telco monopolies are no longer required to offer their lines service to small ISP. In other words they don't even have to share their government sanctioned monopoly on the last mile anymore. So, there goes the competitive market as small ISP are gradually squeezed out over the coming years.
This is going to lead to aggressive and highly anti-competitive Telcos running turf wars on an unfettered and unethical internet. Fair competition will vanish quickly. If for example a rival company (insert mega-corp of choice) wants to pay more to shut down your bandwidth than you can pay to buy your bandwidth, that's perfectly legal now. If Oracle for example had wanted to pay to buy People Soft's internet bandwidth to depress their stock price and ease the takeover, perfectly legal now. If MS wans to pay confidentially to hobble Linux servers or companies using them, again, perfectly legal now.
The loss of Net Neutrality means there is now no regulation and turns the internet and Telcos into monopolies capable of extorting protection money, and calling that protection: perfectly legal fees.
I really can't believe the lack of awareness and apathy on this issue from supposedly tech savvy people.
What else is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What else is new? (Score:5, Informative)
If you use this [sourcewatch.org] as a starting point, you'll find that one of this institute's corporate contributors is Exxon-Mobile. I wouldn't be surprised if companies auch as AT&T are also paying this guy.
FTS:
The fact is, the traffic on the net is already that way, and I don't see the Internet going down. This guy is full of shit.Re:What else is new? (Score:2)
Re:What else is new? (Score:2)
as if government is better? (Score:2)
the primary difference between corporations and governments is that there will always be at least one other corporation wanting to sell us something different while government will simply strike the same old tune over and over and over.
yeah I know some corporations wield considerable power but even they are beholden to governments. do you reall
Multiple observations: (Score:5, Insightful)
second. i want to know what his stance on music downloading is given this quote:
"government should be about fostering a dynamic and risk-taking economy, not preserving the certainty of anyone's business models."
if he's against "online piracy" than he is a hyppocrite.
Re:Multiple observations: (Score:2)
The fact that infringement isn't theft doesn't seem to matter much to 'em.
hrmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hrmm... (Score:3, Informative)
In a real life-or-death emergency when the phones are down, all you really need is couple of feet of fiber and a shovel. Use the shovel to bury the fiber, and when the backhoe driver shows up, you can ask him to drive you to the hospital.
I was gonna say that. So I will. Differently. (Score:2)
Most emergency services also have radio. (Score:2)
Re:Most emergency services also have radio. (Score:2, Funny)
24 minutes per hour
7 hours per day
52 days per year
MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:5, Insightful)
I f.ckin do not believe how you, u.s. people can ALLOW for such debate to even take place, such s.hit rule the agenda, and do not blow your congressmen's senator's ears off about the matter.
The biggest revolution, since the french revolution, the internet, is being handed over to the minority elite.
This is our 'thing'. This is the 'thing' of our times. This is one of the most important thing in our times.
My head really aches, and im weary.
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:2)
I f.ckin don not believe how you Europeans could allow monarchs to rule for a thousand years, with such s.hit ruling, and did not blow their ears off. We kicked the monarchy to the curb after a short 250 years, na-na.
Look, no offense, but you can't blame all of the U.S. citizens because our loony government has some qu
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:2)
Actually there is not much difference between the feudal society and the wealth-based dynasties.
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:2)
you FUCKING cannot believe
such SHIT is ruling the agenda.
there we go, I feel...well, a little better.
Apparently the net neutrality amendment to the cable tv bill this morning only got 20 min of floor "debate" before being tossed. Rep. Markey said that they usually give twice that to mundane issues like naming a new post office somewhere.
The entire thing is complete bullshit.
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MY HEAD ACHES NOW (Score:2)
What it takes (Score:3, Insightful)
The President getting a blow-job from a chubby intern?
If... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If... (Score:2)
VoIP is operating in a regulartory space where because they don't have to taylor their network to the same level of regulations that POTS, they appear cheaper. When you dial 911 on POTS, you're certain that call will go through
specious argument (Score:5, Informative)
The telephone system is neutral, but some telephone numbers are clearly more popular than others. Yet this hasn't brought down the phone system.
The reality is that the engineering of the network (including capacity planning and expansion) is done precisely on the basis of traffic flows. There is also congestion control. The internet is not like the public highway system, where capacity problems take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to solve.
Even if a zillion people did all try to get to the Victoria's Secret web site all at once, that would probably not affect my ability to access my email or read CNN's web site.
corporate single points of failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, due to consolidation, mergers, rabid anti-spam measures, and hard-line corporate push towards 'consumerism' on virtually any kind of internet connection- that's just not true anymore.
A few years ago, it used to be that Apple would bring Akamai to its knees every time they had a big announcement, and anyone that used Akamai (which was a large number of popular sites) would suffer; a million mac users would be trying to load up the webcast or hitting "refresh" a thousand times on store.apple.com or www.apple.com.
Google is another example. Google is so ingrained in people's brains that I watch fellow -professional- sysadmins ping "www.google.com" as a test of whether a machine has DNS and outgoing connectivity. People hardly bookmark things anymore; they just "google it" and sift through the first 6 hits or so to find what they were looking for.
Here's my point: pick any one of the big giants in the internet world today. Now picture they're gone- wiped off the map by a disgruntled employee, a natural disaster, or more likely these days- a corporate scandal (imagine what would happen if Google was the next Enron. If you think that's impossible, look at the Google CFO's background.) Now think about how much that would hurt the web. We've made progress in some areas of the Internet (DNS- you have lots of choices for registrars, though GoDaddy has become the largest by far, and now represents a similar risk), but lost massively in others.
I have ONE choice in internet service provides in my town. I live 20 miles from Boston, but because of "Gentlemen's agreements" that are pervasive in the telco industry, I can't get DSL because Comcast is in our town. 10 years ago I could pick from a dozen dialup ISPs, national, regional, and local- same for ISDN. Now I have ONE choice, and I live in one of the more wealthy and technologically advanced states in the union, and I'm not permitted by my ToS to run a webserver, email server, "discussion board", or "Internet relay chat server". I believe I'm not even allowed to run a VPN server. My ToS clearly states that I am a "consumer" of information services. That's progress?
Re:George Reyes (Score:2)
C'mon, are you telling me this *isn't* a face we can trust [google.com]?
That's progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
That's capitalism.
Re:specious argument (Score:2)
This actually happens more often than you might expect. During big events such as telephone voting etc, it's sometimes difficult to connect to other numbers due to the sheer number of calls going through. Entire telephone exchanges (switches) have actually failed due to occurences like this.
Neutral? No it's not (Score:2)
TCP backs off; UDP does not (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoramuses keep bringing this issue up as if it's going to KILL THE INTERNET, so we MUST CHANGE INTERNET POLICY. They tried this back in the early 90's when IBM was running the T-1 Internet backbone through some subsidiary. What didn't work back then still won't work today. For an arbitrary packet on the Internet, you cannot tell in which direction the value is flowing; thus you cannot figure out who to charge.
Re:TCP backs off; UDP does not (Score:2, Insightful)
So, do it the way the telcos want to do it: Charge every node in the route both ways!
Dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
Zero State intervention (Score:3, Insightful)
The unintended consequences of any act upon a complex system are far greater than the intended consequence - if the intended consequence even occurs at all.
Morevoer, State intervention upon one issue opens the doors to State intervention on many issues.
Do we really think, overall, that the sum of State intervention will be positive or negative?
Given past performance, suspectibility to lobbying, short-sighted political behaviour, "it's for the children", simple incompetence and failure to understand the issues, I'd be far happier with zero State intevention.
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole reason these telcos exist is because of state intervention. All we're talking about now is using that state intervention for the public good, instead of letting the telcos profit from it by screwing the customer.
If you're against state intervention, then back a proposal to get telcos to leave their grubby hands off people's private property. Because the biggest state intervention to this point has been when it claimed eminent domain and allowed the t
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:2)
International policy with countries we have no direct relations with is too complicated to be entirely effective, so the government should not get involved. (Rouge states can ignore one of the most powerful nations)
Criminal justice is far too complicated for us to get right in every single case, so the government should not get involved. (Yay anarchy!)
You have an easter bunny argument
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:2)
> exactly right, so the government should not get
> involved. (People starve)
Aid is complex. State aid is highly inefficient in its application and in particular is prone to corruption - and because of that, people do indeed starve - more than would have done if the aid had been effectively used.
The State should get involved in that it should provide funds, but it should simply distribute dollars to the people in need. The market will ensure the
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:2)
Bring on the government intervention please.
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:2)
> to your house that you can drive to work on? Do
> you have electricity?
> Bring on the government intervention please.
I'm not sure what you're arguing.
Are you asserting that we wouldn't have these things, were it not for State intervention in the market?
Dare I say that we would have had them sooner, and we have them now more cheaply, if the State *hadn't* have been involved?
Electricity in the UK is now about half the price it used to be; this i
Re:Zero State intervention (Score:2)
The government has already created this monster, it needs to keep them in line.
I agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the entire point.
They've been handed full or near monopolies on data communications, and with monopoly comes restriction.
Because they already have, already are, and will continue to screw over the consumer.
Heck, even companies that do not have monopolies have huge restrictions on screwing over their customers when it comes to conflicts of interest. For example; some investment banker isn't allowed to tell you how great company X is, if a different unit of his bank happens to be seriving company X's IPO. That's really just plain common sense.
Net non-neutrality is very simple, basic, econ 101 vertical monopoly. Nothing at all suspect about wanting to curb it. Yes, it happens to benefit other companies. In fact, making sur the vertical playing ground is even benefits the entire economy, and not just broadband companies rights to enter into contracts.
WRONG (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the dumbest argument ever. 1) Companies that large connect directly to top tier providers. These companies are paying hundreds of thousandsands of dollars to the top 10 internet back bone providers for fat pipes into the internet. 2) We have tons of dark fiber still running across the US. Companies liek Qwest invested millions upon millions of dollars in infrastructure for customers who still don't exist.
We don't have a bandwidth problem. We have a problem with a congress that doesn't understand infrastructure.
BTW: Here's the list of house member who voted NO the ammendment:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll239.xml [house.gov]
Policy wonk? (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, you just need to follow the money in these matters and this is very revealing. The last year that records were kept regarding Dick Armey's contributions you'll see that his top contributor was Allegiance Telecom. Other notables in the "Dick Armey" include National Cable & Telecommunications Assn, Verizon, BellSouth and SBC. It's all here at open secrets. [opensecrets.org]
Politicians remain lapdogs to their masters even after leaving the Hill
Re:Policy wonk? (Score:4, Interesting)
If i was handed 1-2 million dollars by telcos (Score:2)
NOT !
Unfortunately im not a person that puts money ahead of principles, but apparently there are many that do.
So essentially, what he says, is... (Score:2)
That what you want to say, Mr. Giovanetti?
Overload...? (Score:2)
A server may fry, and a kitten may get hit by a car, but that's about it.
*(except price gouging...)
VOIP? (Score:2)
Indiscriminated traffic ?!?!? (Score:2)
Curious (Score:2)
Is this an attempt to appeal to the techies among us?
It's a pretty weak attempt, given that the entire "tiered" model is about preserving the big ISP-s business model (they are afraid people will use what they pay for, once), and giving them the freedom to wreck Internet and blackmail any online business f
curiosity cat (Score:2)
rs.internic.net
Re:curiosity cat (Score:2)
Good, what do you want to tell me, besides pointing me to an invalid URL (the page you're pointing me to has moved).
Monopolies and Regulation (Score:4, Insightful)
However, there is little to no effective competition in the internet access market. Sure there is a bit of competition between the cable and phone companies and electric companies always claim to be just about to deploy broadband over powerlines but these providers control the lines and can make life very difficult for any other DSL providers. Besides even if your broadband provider believes in net neutrality it isn't clear you don't still suffer from privleges granted by an upstream carrier. In short their is no easy way for competition to exercisce its judgement that net neutrality is worth paying for (and with enough money surely people could expand their pipes).
I mean just imagine if the local phone company announced it was going to charge you double if you called any buisness that didn't join its prefered buisness program (i.e. paid it money). This would be extortion and phone regulations rightly prohibit it because otherwise phone companies could use their monopoly position to exact almost arbitrarily high profits.
Re:Monopolies and Regulation (Score:2)
We were all sunk years ago when dubya and crew decided that the cable monopolies didn't have to open up their network to competition (http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2 0 02/nrcb0201.html) and further ruled that they are not subject to Common Carrier status. That effectively locked us into one of three monopolies for broadband (phone company, cable company, or power company in theory at least). In theory the phone companies must share their lines but in reality the cost structure is prohibiti
Disincentive to increase bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is enough bandwidth then everyone's traffic will get through regardless of Net Neutrality. If there is congestion though, without Net Neutrality only traffic from sites that paid the extortion fee will get through.
Does this not lead to a situation where it is ideal for an ISP to maintain a certain level of congestion at all times in order to ensure that there exists a reason to pay the extortion fee?
One the other hand with Net Neutrality in place it's in the ISP's best interest to maintain an adequate level of bandwidth to make sure everyone's traffic gets through.
Re:Disincentive to increase bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell no he's not right (Score:5, Insightful)
People have been predicting the death of the Internet for years. First 56k modems were going to do it, then the glut of DSL and cable subscribers. Now it's going to be all the fibre to premises customers and Google. After that it will probably be WiMAX because now we're going to have kilometers of wireless coverage that anyone can jump on. These people seem to forget that bandwidth is a two-way street. You might have 5Mbps down, and all your neighbors, but the hosted server most likely has a bandwidth lock at 1Gbps or so... that's your limiting factor, not how much bandwidth you can pull down.
Which one should die? (Score:3, Interesting)
Suddenly, the TV image goes pixilated, and then dark. The phone call drops. You hear yelling from your teenagers' rooms. But that's not all.
Across town, police on the beat suddenly can't reach headquarters on their radios. In an ambulance, the EMTs are trying to call in vital signs for a patient they are transporting to the hospital, but they can't get through.
Is it an alien invasion? A convergence of planets or some other astral phenomenon? No, it's a convergence of a different sort. Turns out that tonight is also the night of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, as well as the night Coldplay releases its latest song online. And YouTube has just released embarrassing video of a major Hollywood star having a ``wardrobe malfunction.''
My question is: how does prioritizing help. If a neutral net can't handle all of this at once, how could one claim a tiered Internet CAN.
And if it's not at all about being able to handle all at once (but about blackmailing service providers), but prioritizing one over the other, which of these should fail?
The quick answer is that VOIP and police stations should have high priority and the rest can go to hell. But is this (to quote the article again) "the converged, always-on, interconnected world we've all been dreaming of".
Would you let some corporate or government entity to anonymously decide which stuff is important and which is less important?
Is the stuff from those who pay more, more important?
Is Coca Cola's site more important than Pepsi's site? Is Yahoo more important than Google?
Plenty of questions, for which the answers will change with every shift of power, as people "on top" work on doing what's "best for us", since we're apparently told we don't know it ourselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2)
Smart Filtering vs. Paid Filtering (Score:4, Interesting)
A very real fear is that a telco says "this pipe is reserved for general internet traffic" and never increases the size of that pipe. As time goes on, they continue to expand capacity, but all new capacity is reserved for the pay-for-play lanes. The original pipe stays its original size for years, getting more and more congested until any company that wants to reach this telco's customers with any kind of speed or surety needs to pay the telco for access to the pay-for-play lanes. That's an unregulated net where filtering and prioritizing has gone awry.
On an overregulated network, where absolute neutrality is enforced, you have the doomsday scenario where World Cup streaming takes down the Internet.
A middleground I think works is that you enforce a ratio of neutral pipe width to free prioritized pipe width (for ensuring that certain services can maintain a certain minimum level of quality) to pay-for-play prioritized pipe width (where a QOS is guaranteed to anyone willing to pay the premium). As capacity grows, all of those pipes grow at a proportional rate. So if BellSouth/AT&T lays new fiber that triples bandwidth across their backbone, the neutral pipe width triples, the free prioritized pipe width triples, and the pay-for-play pipe width triples.
It's figuring out what's a fair ratio and a workable way of monitoring it that's the trick.
This is just ridiculous (Score:2)
I have been following this whole discussion, and I want to clear something up for everyone. Network engineers, this one is for you...
General uninformed public, meet Quality of Service (QOS) [wikipedia.org]. Simply stated, the concept roughly is:
To allow for differentiated levels of service (ex. best effort, guaranteed delivery, etc.) based upon the content of packets and type of transmission
Telcos, ISPs, etc. should not.. and I repeat.. NOT!!! be able to discriminate against different users of their bandwidt
Straw Man argument doesn't hold (Score:3, Interesting)
The author is not an independent researcher. He is a paid shill for an-industry funded think tank [ipi.org] founded by one of the more aggressively pro-corporate members of the House GOP leadership.
Let's not forget that "net neutrality" is the STATUS QUO. The telcoms want to change the system to take net neutrality AWAY. Recognize this, and the author's "straw man" argument collapses. Shame on the Mercury News [mercurynews.com] for printing this corporate PR garbage on its op-ed pages.
A side order of sarcasm (Score:2)
The acronym "DMCA" springs to mind. Ah well.
Confusion (Score:2)
When explaining net neutrality to lay people, make sure you mention that it is merely legislating how things already are today. It makes it much easier for people to understand and they can see through FUD like this article very easily.
I Read This Title As... (Score:2)
"Policy Wonk Castrates Net Neutrality." Probably would have been just as accurate, actually.
word up Mr. Wonk. (Score:2)
What do you mean by net neutrality ? (Score:2)
To me net neutrality means not discriminating on the basis of origin. Example Verizon/ATT/Bellsouth/Comcast cant arbitrarily decide to play with packets from google to make yahoo the only search engine that works.
Then theres neutrallity based on type of service but not origin. An example would be VOIP from vonnage would work just as well as VOIP from comcast on a comcast cable modem. Similar arguments are there for video.
MOST ISP's have not been neutral in t
The Institute for Policy Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
Here's another IPI opinion [ipi.org]:
Net Doublecharge (Score:2)
Anyone who paints it any more complicated than that is spinning. For a fee from someone, whether directly from the telcos or some ideology thinktank gobetween.
They get what they pay for... (Score:2)
Be careful what you offer, you just might sell it. And that's exactly wh
Enough with the Lesse-Faire hypocrites (Score:2)
Suddenly, well, the same scenario. The TV grows pixellated, then dark. The phone call drops. I hear my brother throwing a tantrum about his lost game.
Across town, the police on the beat have to shout over static to reach po
Re:Enough with the Lesse-Faire hypocrites (Score:2)
How long will it take before this is overrun? Not long, in some areas we are there already.
Do you want ISP's to
Emergency services (Score:2)
My Letter to Eric Cantor (Score:3, Interesting)
June 8, 2006
The Honorable Eric Cantor
U.S. House of Representatives
329 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4607
Dear Congressman Cantor:
As your constituent, I am very concerned about the efforts of the telephone and cable companies to fundamentally alter the way the Internet works, and urge you to do all you can to protect the Internet as we know it and to stand up for the principle of "net neutrality."
It seems that you do not agree with this sentiment, since you help to defeat the "Markey of Massachusetts Amendment" (HR 5252). My only conclusion must be that you are poorly informed about the issue, and have allowed the incumbent telephone and cable companies to unduly influence you. Make no mistake - this is one of the most important issues of our time, and the plans of these communication companies will destroy our public infrastructure. I work in the field of Information Technology, and I have a clear understanding of both sides of the issue. Frankly, you have supported the wrong side.
I am a conservative person, and am always opposed to intrusive government regulation, especially at the national level. Unfortunately, the ISP industry does not respond well to market pressures, since most services exist as monopolies or near-monopolies, and were supported as monopolies by federal laws for many years. The market will not be able to keep the damage in check. The Internet will fundamentally change, and very much for the worse.
This is not about Google, Amazon and eBay wanting a "free ride". I understand why they support network neutrality regulation, but they are the few supporters with the deep pockets to make their opinion heard. The real losers will be the small businesses and individual citizens. I'm sure you have heard about Web Loggers or "bloggers" on the Internet. They are the freedom-minded individuals that create news and opinion websites on small budgets, and report on current issues. It was the bloggers that first revealed that the National Guard documents about President Bush, reported on 60 Minutes, were actually a hoax. Without net neutrality, these small voices will be silenced. Most are small, unfunded writers with opinions, started websites out of their own pockets. ISPs will now be allowed to silence these small voices.
My wife is very fond of researching products before she purchases them. She will go to forum sites and discussion boards on the Internet, where she can read the experiences and opinions of other people. When access to content can be strictly controlled by the big ISPs, manufacturers will be able to pay to have these websites effectively blocked, or throttled to such a degree that they are effectively useless.
The Internet is NOT television, Representative Cantor, and it should not be run like television, but the ISPs will now be given the ability to do that. I have several hundred channels of content available on my television today, and there is nothing to watch. Sure, there are be a few independent voices out there, but they are of such poor quality and so full of static that they are be unwatchable. So what do I do? I just turn it off. It appears that this will happen to the Internet, too. Do you want everyone so frustrated with the Internet that they will just turn it off?
The Internet produced one of the greatest communication revolutions of our time. It connects people with people. Not everyone can afford to produce a slick television show or advertisement and pay for air time, but anyone can put up a web site and have their message available to the world. No more. Since the big 5 media companies will want all the bandwidth they can buy to push our their content, and Google, Amazon, and eBay paying the ISPs for some of the extra left, all the small voice will be drowned out.
Please reconsider your stance. You may be given a chance to make the right decision next time.
Re:Makes Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, while that's a great ideal, it's not the reality right now. Personally, I have two choices for broadband interent: Comcast cable, or SBC DSL. A duopoly hardly is a good environment for fostering consumer choices. While capitalism is great and all, it breaks down when there are monopolies (or duopolies; they don't really allows for much more competition than monopolies). As it does not make sense for multiple companies to hang wires all around the country, a monopoly is assured. In order to protect other services which might use the wires of that monopoly (wires which were, by the way, laid partially with public money) from the monopolies' own interests (i.e., other VoIP providers from the monopolies' own VoIP service), regulation is neccessary.
Put more simply, this has nothing to do with reliability. This is about a few companies controlling the internet.
Re:Makes Sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't tar libertarianism with the same brush as capitialism. Under libertarianism, there would be fewer laws that could be used to create monopolies or duopolies. This would mean that you've probably end up with a large number of smaller businesses, with few reaching into multiple areas.
T
Re:Makes Sense (Score:2)
Let's see, right now I am using Comcast for my internet.
If I didn't like their policy (which I don't. They are against net neutrality), I could go to Earthlink for DSL. If I don't like them, then this is about the point where I am screwed. The only other two options where I live are satellite(And the resulting latency issues which kill gaming) or dial-up(56kbps! Whee!)
This same situation is true for much of rural Americ
Re:Makes Sense (Score:2)
Rural America nothing. I live in the heart of Silicon Valley. I have only five broadband choices: AT&T/SBC/PacBell, Covad (which AT&T wants to get off their lines and keep trying to legislate out of existence), WorldCom (which went backrupt several times and thus isn't exactly a safe bet), and Comcast.
I'm considering moving over the hill to the Santa Cruz metro area. It is a cross between a beach town and a bedroom community for the S.V. area. In town... three choices: Verizon, Covad (in only