I could go on and on. Instead, I think I'll just link up a Daily Show clip about it from youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YedWtX9tKE
- Forums
- Cross Site
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- The internet and the Net Neutrality Act
The internet and the Net Neutrality ActFollow
Ah. So you know nothing about it except what you saw in a comedy sketch? Just checking...
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Actually Gbaji, I don't know much about it.
And apparently neither does Jawbox.
Can you enlighten us? I'm too lazy to look things up tonight.
(being serious)
And apparently neither does Jawbox.
Can you enlighten us? I'm too lazy to look things up tonight.
(being serious)
Basically it has to do with the level of control over what gets through the physical wires of the internet. Certain companies (like AT&T, Comcast, etc.) own and operate a lot of the infrastructure of the internet. They've been lobbying Congress pretty hard with a lot of money to ease the restrictions built into certain "network neutrality" laws that ensure that internet providers do not treat one website differently from another in terms of the passage of data through their network.
Opponents to this corporate campaign argue that there is a real risk that companies like Comcast could potentially make deals with cetain content providers such that their sites load faster on your machine than other sites. There would be a kind of check of the content passing through their system, and then preferential treatment (in terms of speed and access) based on contractual agreements.
I only learned of this opposition movement (and the FUCKING HILARIOUS Dialy Show video) by coming across the Save the Internet petition site.
Edited, Jul 29th 2006 at 12:59am EDT by Jawbox
Opponents to this corporate campaign argue that there is a real risk that companies like Comcast could potentially make deals with cetain content providers such that their sites load faster on your machine than other sites. There would be a kind of check of the content passing through their system, and then preferential treatment (in terms of speed and access) based on contractual agreements.
I only learned of this opposition movement (and the FUCKING HILARIOUS Dialy Show video) by coming across the Save the Internet petition site.
Edited, Jul 29th 2006 at 12:59am EDT by Jawbox
Yawn. How about worrying about something that won't be kicked out by the Supreme Court? Budget overspending or saving the whales anyone?
First off Jawbox, you've got that almost comletely backwards. Those companies are not lobbying to get rid of existing laws, but to prevent *new* legistlation that would limit the ability for ISPs to provide different levels of service based on cost.
Right now, and for the entire existance of the commercial internet, those ISPs have been able to do this. But a bunch of really dumb people who don't seem to understand the economics of the internet want to change all of that. The change in law is to restrict the current practices, not change them to be more favorable for businesses.
Right now, companies can go to AT&T (for example) and buy a dedicated trunk of bandwidth from point to point. They pay through the nose for it. A hefty chunk of the total amount of money collected by those ISPs is generated through such bandwidth purchases. What do you think will happen when they are no longer able to do so? Companies won't pay more for internet service if they don't get anything for their money. End result will be a massive increase in cost to the home user, and crappy internet for all.
Network neutrality is a sham. Almost everyone who actually works in the field understands this. But there are apparently a ton of people who don't and can easily be manipulated into following along (cause it makes us all "equal" right? Classic pavlovian response IMO).
Network neutrality will also destroy future growth and development of the internet. VoIP and IPTV will never become a reality if it's allowed to pass. Because the simple fact is that some types of data are more sensitive to tranmission time then others. An email or web query doesn't care if it takes an extra half second to arrive. A phone call does.
Companies need to be able to provide different service both based on who the customer is (pay as you go essentially), *and* what type of packet is being transmitted. Up to now they could (at least there was nothing legally preventing them from doing so). But if network neutrality clauses are allowed to be inserted into bills, it'll destroy that, and destroy the internet.
Don't believe the hype. My personal belief is that this is motivated by two groups. One is the phone companies. They've already taken a licking in the internet market. Widespread adoption of VoIP could kill them entirely. The second group is the "usual suspects" on the social liberalist front. They hate anything that's managed by a free market and seek to bring the internet fully under the control of the government. If they can destroy the profit margins for ISPs by negating any benefit to businesses for paying higher prices for better service, they know this'll result in an increase in cost to the home user. The internet will be unable to support itself and no longer be the "cheap" benefit it is today. They'll then swoop in to "save the day" by proposing federal funding of the internet with the usual federal control that follows federal funding.
Voila! Bye bye internet. Hello brave new world. Sigh...
Right now, and for the entire existance of the commercial internet, those ISPs have been able to do this. But a bunch of really dumb people who don't seem to understand the economics of the internet want to change all of that. The change in law is to restrict the current practices, not change them to be more favorable for businesses.
Right now, companies can go to AT&T (for example) and buy a dedicated trunk of bandwidth from point to point. They pay through the nose for it. A hefty chunk of the total amount of money collected by those ISPs is generated through such bandwidth purchases. What do you think will happen when they are no longer able to do so? Companies won't pay more for internet service if they don't get anything for their money. End result will be a massive increase in cost to the home user, and crappy internet for all.
Network neutrality is a sham. Almost everyone who actually works in the field understands this. But there are apparently a ton of people who don't and can easily be manipulated into following along (cause it makes us all "equal" right? Classic pavlovian response IMO).
Network neutrality will also destroy future growth and development of the internet. VoIP and IPTV will never become a reality if it's allowed to pass. Because the simple fact is that some types of data are more sensitive to tranmission time then others. An email or web query doesn't care if it takes an extra half second to arrive. A phone call does.
Companies need to be able to provide different service both based on who the customer is (pay as you go essentially), *and* what type of packet is being transmitted. Up to now they could (at least there was nothing legally preventing them from doing so). But if network neutrality clauses are allowed to be inserted into bills, it'll destroy that, and destroy the internet.
Don't believe the hype. My personal belief is that this is motivated by two groups. One is the phone companies. They've already taken a licking in the internet market. Widespread adoption of VoIP could kill them entirely. The second group is the "usual suspects" on the social liberalist front. They hate anything that's managed by a free market and seek to bring the internet fully under the control of the government. If they can destroy the profit margins for ISPs by negating any benefit to businesses for paying higher prices for better service, they know this'll result in an increase in cost to the home user. The internet will be unable to support itself and no longer be the "cheap" benefit it is today. They'll then swoop in to "save the day" by proposing federal funding of the internet with the usual federal control that follows federal funding.
Voila! Bye bye internet. Hello brave new world. Sigh...
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Quote:
Right now, companies can go to AT&T (for example) and buy a dedicated trunk of bandwidth from point to point. They pay through the nose for it. A hefty chunk of the total amount of money collected by those ISPs is generated through such bandwidth purchases. What do you think will happen when they are no longer able to do so? Companies won't pay more for internet service if they don't get anything for their money. End result will be a massive increase in cost to the home user, and crappy internet for all.]
Network neutrality is a sham. Almost everyone who actually works in the field understands this. But there are apparently a ton of people who don't and can easily be manipulated into following along (cause it makes us all "equal" right? Classic pavlovian response IMO).
Network neutrality will also destroy future growth and development of the internet. VoIP and IPTV will never become a reality if it's allowed to pass. Because the simple fact is that some types of data are more sensitive to tranmission time then others. An email or web query doesn't care if it takes an extra half second to arrive. A phone call does.
Companies need to be able to provide different service both based on who the customer is (pay as you go essentially), *and* what type of packet is being transmitted. Up to now they could (at least there was nothing legally preventing them from doing so). But if network neutrality clauses are allowed to be inserted into bills, it'll destroy that, and destroy the internet.
Network neutrality is a sham. Almost everyone who actually works in the field understands this. But there are apparently a ton of people who don't and can easily be manipulated into following along (cause it makes us all "equal" right? Classic pavlovian response IMO).
Network neutrality will also destroy future growth and development of the internet. VoIP and IPTV will never become a reality if it's allowed to pass. Because the simple fact is that some types of data are more sensitive to tranmission time then others. An email or web query doesn't care if it takes an extra half second to arrive. A phone call does.
Companies need to be able to provide different service both based on who the customer is (pay as you go essentially), *and* what type of packet is being transmitted. Up to now they could (at least there was nothing legally preventing them from doing so). But if network neutrality clauses are allowed to be inserted into bills, it'll destroy that, and destroy the internet.
You’re a @#%^ing idiot.
And No, I'm not going line for line as to why.
1) You support ISP's being able to restrict certain data from reaching the end user if it's not from one of "their" paying business partners.
2) VoIP is ALREADY A @#%^ING REALITY, and it works fine for decent connections. Hell, it works fine on a 900mhz polling wireless network at 512kdown/256k up. Their packet information does not need "special" rights. IPTV is also doing ifne on the current tech. They just need to refine it, which takes time. KINDA LIKE STREAMING RADIO AND VoIP.
3) T-1 (and above) class trunks are the only way service is graded. If my T-1 is down\not functioning properly, I get a credit. Period. You talk like they can downgrade service on the actual trunks. They come with very specific GOS.
4) You support big brother by having ISPs check and grade EACH AND EVERY PACKET. What will they do with that info? I don't know, but I sure as @#%^ don't want them to have it anyway.
5) Companies will still be able to provide different levels of service LIKE THEY HAVE BEEN, even if NN is passed. It's based on the package speed itself, and what perks you would like with it (battery backup, software, ect). Not by what data you receive.
Right now, companies have been pushing for ISP to give them "special" grades of service. Special, as in I (as a big Co) will have my packets fire in like mad, every time all the time. But the poor ******* at www.aolsucks.com, his ....well...bad things happen to good packets some times.
NN is already a reality. The Net has been for anyone and everyone who wants to use it. If you want more speed, then fine! Buy a bigger trunk. If you want more reliability, great! Get a better ISP. While I agree alittle bit that this bill might have language that pushes restrictions abit aggressively, the main point of the bill is to stop big Co's from having better service then the poor guy over at www.aolsucks.com
Go back to the cell phone shop and leave the internets alone.
Edited, Jul 30th 2006 at 9:43am EDT by Molish
Molish wrote:
1) You support ISP's being able to restrict certain data from reaching the end user if it's not from one of "their" paying business partners.
*cough*. "Restrict"? Funny how you make it sound like they wont make it or something (as implied by the comedy skit). The issues I'm talking about have *nothing* to do with ISPs preventing specific types of data from reaching their destination. I'm opposed to that.
That's not what network neutrality is about though. That's the tag line folks use to convince the uninformed though, but that's *not* the actual legistlation they're pushing for. They're trying to make it illegal for companies to prioritize packet transfers based on criteria like source/destination and type. And by "type" I don't mean distinguishing between downloading **** and the latest issue of an engineering journal. I mean "type" as in "is this a time sensitive protocol?". Sheesh.
Quote:
2) VoIP is ALREADY A @#%^ING REALITY, and it works fine for decent connections. Hell, it works fine on a 900mhz polling wireless network at 512kdown/256k up. Their packet information does not need "special" rights. IPTV is also doing ifne on the current tech. They just need to refine it, which takes time. KINDA LIKE STREAMING RADIO AND VoIP.
Do you own a hardline VoIP running through a private PBX? I do. Guess what? It sucks. Bad. You know why? Because right now, unless you buy it as a service from an ISP (and are connecting to another VoIP on the same or affiliated service), the packets are treated the same as any other. Get it? The "all packets are treated the same" methodology is currently applied internet wide. The push being made by the "evil" corporations is to establish protocols internet wide that will allow packets like VoIP, that need higher transmission rates, to be delivered at higher speed *everywhere*. Not just within a single company's network.
Network Neutrality is what's trying to prevent that. Not make it happen. It will end up doing exactly the opposite of what the proponents claim. It will make products like VoIP and IPTV only work well within affiliated networks (or not at all, depending on who's legistlation proposals you look at). You *really* need to read more on the topic then what the screaming crazy web sites say.
Quote:
3) T-1 (and above) class trunks are the only way service is graded. If my T-1 is down\not functioning properly, I get a credit. Period. You talk like they can downgrade service on the actual trunks. They come with very specific GOS.
I have no clue what you think you are proving with this statement. I'm talking about T-1 and higher trunks. You know. The ones that large corporations buy? I've been directly involved in the setup of corporate remote-site networks. I know very well how it works. I can also tell you it's *very* expensive.
Her'es what's going on. Currently, if a large corporation want's to run a site to site network at high speed, they contact the provider(s) that own the physical lines between the two sites. They pay them for dedicated high speed lines. The relevant switches are configured to only allow packets from point A to point B to pass. They add sufficient physical connections "softwired" in this manner to provide the bandwidth requested. They then trunk those in any of a number of manners depending on the customer's specifications.
This section of backbone is effectively removed from the rest of the internet as far as anyone else is concerned. What started all of this was an idea by the backbone providers to utilize newer/faster switches that exist today to allow for a "shared bandwidth" solution. The idea being that as long as the utilization of that segment (or set of segments) is below a certain threshold, other packets will be allowed across the links. This requires a bit of reprogramming, and requires that many different backbone providers all agree to abide by the same standards of service, but it effectively allows *you* and everyone else to use bandwidth that's currently potentially sitting idle because a large corporation has bought it.
This is the "evil" that network neutrality seeks to combat. Yes. It's so evil that we're trying to reconfigure the internet so that people can freely use bandwidth paid for by other people when they're not using it. Yup. That's a crazy idea, and is clearly aimed at ******** over the little guy. Wait... It's not! In fact, it's designed to provide more bandwidth for "free" to "the people". Hmmm... Be careful which side you're on here, cause it's not looking good for you.
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4) You support big brother by having ISPs check and grade EACH AND EVERY PACKET. What will they do with that info? I don't know, but I sure as @#%^ don't want them to have it anyway.
You're kidding, right? The IP protocol already contains the flags used for everything being done. There's no more inspection of the data then is already done. Do you have *any* idea how IP works? Every packet is already inspected. The headers are read, which contain source, destination, size, type, etc, flags. These are used to allow the network switches and routers to send the packet to the correct destination along the best path possible.
The implication of some kind of invasion of privacy is ludicrous. I'm serious here. Do you know *anything* about this subject?
Quote:
5) Companies will still be able to provide different levels of service LIKE THEY HAVE BEEN, even if NN is passed. It's based on the package speed itself, and what perks you would like with it (battery backup, software, ect). Not by what data you receive.
What the hell do battery backup and software have to do with this? We're talking about how packets are routed across a network. Nothing else. You say it's based on package speed, but you seem to have no clue how that's obtained. You are aware that electrical current travels down a wire at some function of the speed of light, right? They don't go "faster". "Faster" is achieved across a network by increasing bandwidth. The packets don't actually arrive faster. You're able to send more of them at the same time, allowing for more data to arrive at the other end in the same amount of time.
Maybe you should take a newbie course in networking before you start trying to debate this, because you seem to have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
Quote:
Right now, companies have been pushing for ISP to give them "special" grades of service. Special, as in I (as a big Co) will have my packets fire in like mad, every time all the time. But the poor ******* at www.aolsucks.com, his ....well...bad things happen to good packets some times.
Yes. How dare folks that pay a thousand times more for their internet service actually get more for their money. Yeah. That's just silly...
Do you even understand what you're saying? If an ISP does not give a company that pays them more for "special" grades of service that allow their packets to "fire like mad", then there's no reason for any company to pay them any more for their network then you do for yours at home. Stop and think about what that means. If we assume that the physical size of the internet stays the same, we can assume that the cost to operate it stays the same. But if you remove any benefit for paying greater amounts (because you don't get greater/faster service), then where's the difference in money going to be made up?
Do you have any idea how much large corporations pay per month for their internet access?
Quote:
NN is already a reality. The Net has been for anyone and everyone who wants to use it. If you want more speed, then fine! Buy a bigger trunk.
You're speaking of it from the perspective of a home user though. Buying a bigger trunk does you no good if 50 feet after your trunk hits the backbone, you're sharing a connection with 50,000 other people who've all paid $20/month for their service. To a home user, "buying a bigger trunk" will improve access rates, because for a home user, the bottleneck is nearly always at the local ISP end (his physical connection into his ISP's network). Once you get into the "we've got 50 offices worldwide with 100,000 users" range, the entire equation changes. You have absolutely no idea how much bandwidth is required by those types of networks, nor how critically important it is that they be able to obtain that bandwidth. Network neutrality threatens to destroy that, which will in turn threaten the largest source of revenue that ISPs gain, which will in turn force them to obtain that revenue from other sources (you!).
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If you want more reliability, great! Get a better ISP. While I agree alittle bit that this bill might have language that pushes restrictions abit aggressively, the main point of the bill is to stop big Co's from having better service then the poor guy over at www.aolsucks.com
Which is exactly the problem. I just don't know how many more times and ways I can say this. If you stop big companies from having better service then the poor guy over at www.aolsucks.com, then the big companies will no longer pay larger amounts for that service.
Isn't that obvious? What do you think will happen? Sheesh!
Quote:
Go back to the cell phone shop and leave the internets alone.
You're right. What the hell does a senior unix engineer know about computer networks and the internet? Clearly I must be less informed then some crazy with a web site...
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Quote:
What the hell does a senior unix engineer know about computer networks and the internet?
Funny, but true.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Jophiel wrote:
Quote:
What the hell does a senior unix engineer know about computer networks and the internet?
Funny, but true.
Heh. Ok. There are a few like that out there. But... the fact that he's in charge of "mainframes" should be the first clue that he's not network saavy. It's not the size of the computer, but the number that's going to determine your network knowledge. Any idiot can manage a network with less then say 500 or so systems. Past that point, you kinda have to know what you're doing...
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Quote:
first argument
Site?
Quote:
2nd argument
Guess what? Big company = larger need for bandwidth for Voip. Wow, imagine that. I have to buy a bigger line, or figure out how to lower quality to increase available line usage. Congrats, my 3 yr old niece knows that.
Giving big CO's a foothold on internet priority an awesome idea, though! I like that, chop up my internet for specific usage by corporations! Just like slicing up abit more of Americaks for CO control.
Quote:
3rd quote
Yaaa! 3 whole paragraphs for the defitnation of a VNP. Congrats! The most heavy winded prize is yours.
***** at whatever your business broadband solution is for over selling their hardlines to other customers. That what I'm @#%^ing talking about Gbaji, I buy a hard line, I get a specific GOS for that hard line. If I don't get my 1.54mbps from my @#%^ing T-1 every second of every day, then I'm ******** to my provider and I get a credit. Simple. They entered a contract to give me specific service. If I don't get it, then that’s breach of contract.
What, you run your big huge business networks with no @#%^ign contract? Or did you just VNP for a @#%^ing radio shack?
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4th, 5th, and @#%^ing 6th argument.
Yaaa, now we've moved up to packet generation and line usage.
Please turn to page 69 of your OSI handbook and start jerking off.
I will give you this one though. We should just give control of hardline access to CO hands. The internet is, after all, at their beck and call. GOS has nothing to do with this AT ALL.
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To a home user, "buying a bigger trunk" will improve access rates, because for a home user, the bottleneck is nearly always at the local ISP end (his physical connection into his ISP's network). Once you get into the "we've got 50 offices worldwide with 100,000 users" range, the entire equation changes. You have absolutely no idea how much bandwidth is required by those types of networks, nor how critically important it is that they be able to obtain that bandwidth.
It's not like hardline and new trucks are being added every day or sumthing. No, gbaji, the internet always stays the same size.
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Do you have any idea how much large corporations pay per month for their internet access?
Oh god yes, they should never have to pay more for reliability and bandwidth. @#%^, how could I forget the revenue that generates! Reganmoics!
Oh wait... I'm not in the top .5%.....
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Which is exactly the problem. I just don't know how many more times and ways I can say this. If you stop big companies from having better service then the poor guy over at www.aolsucks.com, then the big companies will no longer pay larger amounts for that service.
I just don't know how to say this many more time and which positions to have you bent in. If you actually enter a contract for a certain GOS, and the other little guy just has his sh*t website hosted on crappy servers that he pays 5.99 a month for, then you get what you pay for and so does he.
If not, then ***** at your ISP.
Your right, what the @#%^ would a network admin for a little ***** WISP servicing just 80 sh*tty business GOS contracts know about ther interwebs! Nothing (honestly, I know nothing). I don't draw up the contracts, I don't work with each and every business, and I sure as hell don't have to listen to the calls when they don't have service in according to their GOS contract.
EDIT: I know I said no puch fer punch, but seriously not again man. For your next post, what ever sh*t it may be, I'll give you this.
Your right, Gbaji. I just can't compete with your high and mighty intellect. Please make corporations run my interwebs.
Edited, Jul 30th 2006 at 1:03pm EDT by Molish
Why wouldn't any large company want more control over its product? Why wouldn't any government want more control over any and all transmitted data?
It's ridiculous that you are arguing about this.
It's ridiculous that you are arguing about this.
Quote:
Why wouldn't any large company want more control over its product? Why wouldn't any government want more control over any and all transmitted data?
It's ridiculous that you are arguing about this.
It's ridiculous that you are arguing about this.
A) It's not theirs' to take. The internet has been a bastion of free speech for those so inclined. Who are they to take that away from us? Once practices like this one go into play, what’s ******* next? The only website I'm allowed to view are the ones that pay my ISP the biggest chunk of change?
B) See my previous post, or maybe I'll just have to ******* quote it for you.
Quote:
Giving big CO's a foothold on internet priority an awesome idea, though! I like that, chop up my internet for specific usage by corporations! Just like slicing up abit more of Americaks for CO control.
These have been open door practices that must be stopped before they get out of hand.
It's ridiculous that you argue for more corporate control for the last place that the freedom of speech truely has left to reside.
What, you think your fair and balanced reporting from Fox is all that’s happened in the world? It will be once Fox throws their money an ISP that accepts these types of practices.
When Allakhazam jumps in a pool, he doesn't get wet, the water gets Allakhazamed.
Edit: Lol, somebody's having fun with the word filter.
Edited, Jul 30th 2006 at 8:08pm EDT by Demea
Edit: Lol, somebody's having fun with the word filter.
Edited, Jul 30th 2006 at 8:08pm EDT by Demea
Jophiel wrote:
I managed to be both retarded and entertaining.
Molish wrote:
Quote:
first argument
Site?
Quote:
2nd argument
Guess what? Big company = larger need for bandwidth for Voip. Wow, imagine that. I have to buy a bigger line, or figure out how to lower quality to increase available line usage. Congrats, my 3 yr old niece knows that.
Yes. And apparently, you can't figure out what this means.
If network neutrality is allowed to pass, then that big company *wont* be albe to "buy a bigger line".
Are you getting it yet? Sheesh. How on earth can you say in one sentence that large companies should pay more for more bandwidth, and then in the next support a legistlative change that will prevent companies from doing just that.
Quote:
Giving big CO's a foothold on internet priority an awesome idea, though! I like that, chop up my internet for specific usage by corporations! Just like slicing up abit more of Americaks for CO control.
That's how it's been since the commercialization of the internet. It's *always* been that way. Private companies own the backbone. They own the trunk lines. They own the ISPs. Yet, somehow, despite the assumptions that this type of system will result in the little guy getting squeezed out, the exact opposite has happened. Now, a group of Liberal lawmakers want to change this and place heavy government regulation on the "free" internet that's been working so well.
I'm serious. You're on the wrong side of the argument if you want the internet to stay the way it's been.
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***** at whatever your business broadband solution is for over selling their hardlines to other customers. That what I'm @#%^ing talking about Gbaji, I buy a hard line, I get a specific GOS for that hard line. If I don't get my 1.54mbps from my @#%^ing T-1 every second of every day, then I'm ******** to my provider and I get a credit. Simple. They entered a contract to give me specific service. If I don't get it, then that’s breach of contract.
You bought an "internet phone" from a provider that sells them and charges you for its use.
I bought a physical hardline VoIP phone. In fact, a fair number of my friends all did. And we set up a private PBX system in the home of one of them and programmed the phones to connect to it. What this means is that I can plug my VoIP phone into *any* active network connection with dhcp and an internet route, and dial anyone else configured on that PBX, anywhere in the world, by dialing an extention.
That's what VoIP is. What you have is an internet phone that runs only through your providers network to a phone annex (their PBX), and from there to a normal phone landline. Your VoIP never actually traverses the internet. That's why it's "fast" and sounds good. True VoIP systems have a quality about like that of a modest quality cell phone call.
True VoIP would mean effectively an end to the phone company's because any internet connection becomes a phone cable that is "free" as long as it's active. So if you pay for a decent speed internet connection you *never* need to pay for a phone bill again.
Getting it now? This is one of the protocol changes that the "evil" internet providers are trying to implement. They're trying to prioritize packets for things like VoIP so that they can be viably used as I described above. Who do you think is blocking this? Not those who truely believe in a "free internet". It's the phone companies...
It's not rocket science. It really isn't. This is a clear case where those seeking to restrict the freedom and utility of the internet have somehow managed to convince people that they're fighting to "save the internet". They're lying to you. You're buying it. And that's sad.
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What, you run your big huge business networks with no @#%^ign contract? Or did you just VNP for a @#%^ing radio shack?
Again with the reference that big business should pay for more service. What the hell do you think I've been arguing about? I'll say it again. Network neutrality will prevent those companies from being able to do exactly what you say they should do. Please tell me you get this.
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It's not like hardline and new trucks are being added every day or sumthing. No, gbaji, the internet always stays the same size.
And where do you think the bulk of the money that pays for that expansion comes from?
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Oh god yes, they should never have to pay more for reliability and bandwidth. @#%^, how could I forget the revenue that generates! Reganmoics!
Sigh. Still not getting it. I never said that companies shouldn't pay for more bandwidth. I said that they *do* pay for it. But network neutrality will remove any benefit to a company for doing so.
Would *you* pay more for your service contract, if you got the same service regardless? No? Then why the hell assume that big companies will? And if they don't, what happens to the money that they're currently paying into the internet? What then happens to the internet?
It's a pretty obvious set of relations.
Quote:
I just don't know how to say this many more time and which positions to have you bent in. If you actually enter a contract for a certain GOS, and the other little guy just has his sh*t website hosted on crappy servers that he pays 5.99 a month for, then you get what you pay for and so does he.
If not, then ***** at your ISP.
If not, then ***** at your ISP.
You're still not getting it. I already went over this. To a home user, the bottleneck is always going to be his local connection to his local ISP. To a large corporation, bottlenecks often occur between two points on the internet. They care about packet rates across the internet itself, not just how fat their pipe is to their ISP. And they spend lots of money to backbone providers to ensure that they recieve a specific amount of bandwidth based on their needs.
I know this because I've worked first hand at setting up a remote site. We didn't just contract with a local ISP. We contracted with the backbone provider(s) that owned every inch of network between the two sites. A home user never has to think about this issue. Large companies do.
The really funny thing is how this whole issue got started. Businesses that need high speed connections across the internet backbone have always purchased dedicated lines to get that bandwidth. And they've paid an arm and a leg for it (literally). This whole network neutrality act came up because the backbone providers came up with a clever way to allow the companies who paid for dedicated bandwidth to get that bandwidth but still allow everyone else to use that bandwidth when it was not in use by the customer.
Basically, they were trying to providing "free" bandwidth to the random at home user. Instead of dedicating a number of bundles of wires to only allow specific site to site packet routing, they'd prioritize the packets, allowing any packets to pass up to a certain threshold, but allowing the packets from the site(s) that paid for the connection to have priority. Basically, it was a way to share bandwidth while still being able to guarantee a bandwith level of service for the large paying customer.
You'd think this would be accepted with open arms. A way to effectively provide additional bandwidth to all users without any additional cost to them or anyone else. But nooooo! See. Since we have to prioritize packets, that sounds a lot like segregation and class levels and is "unequal", that's "bad". So, not having *any* of that paid for bandwidth is ok, but sharing it with a lower priority to those who didn't pay is bad.
It's ludicrous if you know the history. It's base on pure semantics and knee-jerk reaction by folks who are quick to jump on any badwagon that claims to be protecting their rights, freedoms, equality, etc...
Quote:
Your right, what the @#%^ would a network admin for a little ***** WISP servicing just 80 sh*tty business GOS contracts know about ther interwebs! Nothing (honestly, I know nothing). I don't draw up the contracts, I don't work with each and every business, and I sure as hell don't have to listen to the calls when they don't have service in according to their GOS contract.
You're only seeing one part of the equation: The connection and service between an ISP and a local customer. That's why you don't get this.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Molish wrote:
A) It's not theirs' to take. The internet has been a bastion of free speech for those so inclined. Who are they to take that away from us? Once practices like this one go into play, what’s @#%^ing next? The only website I'm allowed to view are the ones that pay my ISP the biggest chunk of change?
*cough* Network neutality has nothing to do with blocking content
Sheesh.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
gbaji wrote:
Businesses that need high speed connections across the internet backbone have always purchased dedicated lines to get that bandwidth. And they've paid an arm and a leg for it (literally).
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Businesses that need high speed connections across the internet backbone have always purchased dedicated lines to get that bandwidth. And they've paid an arm and a leg for it (literally).
Inconceivable!!!
Ok. Maybe not an actual arm and a leg...
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
On re-reading my response, this part merits a second direction.
This is exactly what the network neutrality folks are trying to change.
They are specifically wanting the service level for the shit website to be the exact same as the one the large corporation paid for. They want to make the internet "neutral" to the source/destination and protocol of the packets that pass across it. They want to do this specifically to prevent large corporations from being able to pay for better/faster internet access. They want to make it so that you *don't* get what you pay for. You get the same level of service regardless of how much you pay.
If you get nothing else, get this part.
If the service providers cannot provide different levels of service to their customers, then the cannot expect their customers to pay different amounts for that service.
It's really that simple. Just ask this question:
"Do you support legistlation that would prevent internet providers (both ISP and backbone) from negotiating GOS levels with their customers?" Yes or no.
If you think that's a good idea, then by all means support network neutrality. Because that's what it's trying to do. If you don't, then you need to oppose it for the steaming pile of crap that it really is.
Molish wrote:
I just don't know how to say this many more time and which positions to have you bent in. If you actually enter a contract for a certain GOS, and the other little guy just has his sh*t website hosted on crappy servers that he pays 5.99 a month for, then you get what you pay for and so does he.
This is exactly what the network neutrality folks are trying to change.
They are specifically wanting the service level for the shit website to be the exact same as the one the large corporation paid for. They want to make the internet "neutral" to the source/destination and protocol of the packets that pass across it. They want to do this specifically to prevent large corporations from being able to pay for better/faster internet access. They want to make it so that you *don't* get what you pay for. You get the same level of service regardless of how much you pay.
If you get nothing else, get this part.
If the service providers cannot provide different levels of service to their customers, then the cannot expect their customers to pay different amounts for that service.
It's really that simple. Just ask this question:
"Do you support legistlation that would prevent internet providers (both ISP and backbone) from negotiating GOS levels with their customers?" Yes or no.
If you think that's a good idea, then by all means support network neutrality. Because that's what it's trying to do. If you don't, then you need to oppose it for the steaming pile of crap that it really is.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
gbaji wrote:
On re-reading my response, this part merits a second direction.
This is exactly what the network neutrality folks are trying to change.
They are specifically wanting the service level for the shit website to be the exact same as the one the large corporation paid for. They want to make the internet "neutral" to the source/destination and protocol of the packets that pass across it. They want to do this specifically to prevent large corporations from being able to pay for better/faster internet access. They want to make it so that you *don't* get what you pay for. You get the same level of service regardless of how much you pay.
If you get nothing else, get this part.
If the service providers cannot provide different levels of service to their customers, then the cannot expect their customers to pay different amounts for that service.
It's really that simple. Just ask this question:
"Do you support legistlation that would prevent internet providers (both ISP and backbone) from negotiating GOS levels with their customers?" Yes or no.
If you think that's a good idea, then by all means support network neutrality. Because that's what it's trying to do. If you don't, then you need to oppose it for the steaming pile of crap that it really is.
Molish wrote:
I just don't know how to say this many more time and which positions to have you bent in. If you actually enter a contract for a certain GOS, and the other little guy just has his sh*t website hosted on crappy servers that he pays 5.99 a month for, then you get what you pay for and so does he.
This is exactly what the network neutrality folks are trying to change.
They are specifically wanting the service level for the shit website to be the exact same as the one the large corporation paid for. They want to make the internet "neutral" to the source/destination and protocol of the packets that pass across it. They want to do this specifically to prevent large corporations from being able to pay for better/faster internet access. They want to make it so that you *don't* get what you pay for. You get the same level of service regardless of how much you pay.
If you get nothing else, get this part.
If the service providers cannot provide different levels of service to their customers, then the cannot expect their customers to pay different amounts for that service.
It's really that simple. Just ask this question:
"Do you support legistlation that would prevent internet providers (both ISP and backbone) from negotiating GOS levels with their customers?" Yes or no.
If you think that's a good idea, then by all means support network neutrality. Because that's what it's trying to do. If you don't, then you need to oppose it for the steaming pile of crap that it really is.
All I gotta say is even Google knows your full of shit.
Edit: And if you follow the links, So does CBS and How shit really fucking works.com
Ya know... if your too damn lazy to follow the links..
Done with this.
Edited, Jul 31st 2006 at 8:13pm EDT by Molish
Molish wrote:
All I gotta say is even Google knows your full of shit.
Google is one of the companies specifically supporting the net neutrality movement. I wouldn't take their word on the issue.
I'll also point out that their statement doesn't say what net neutrality *does* exactly, but only makes predictions about what evil things might happen if net neutrality doesn't get pushed into law. That should be the first clue that you're reading the equivalent of an advertisement. As a fellow engineer used to say: It's "content free".
Quote:
Edit: And if you follow the links, So does CBS and How shit really fucking works.com
Which is funny, since they don't actually take a position. The article in question typically presents only the pro-net neutrality position, but the howstuffworks paper actually presents the pros and cons of both sides.
Unfortunately, none of them actually say exactly what the issue is about. How about we go to wiki and see what the folks who post the topics there think?
If you read the whole thing, you should walk away with the realization that this is a far more complex issue then just "OMGZ! We must save the internets!". The problems range from differing opinions about how to handle technological changes, to just plain misunderstandings of what exactly "net neutrality" means.
It's somewhat telling to me that the arguments that are parroted about the most deal with "blocking access" to sites. Yet that kind of behavior has already been outlawed (with significant penalities) by the FCC. So, the network neutrality bills being pushed aren't about preventing content blocking (in case you missed my bolded statement in an earlier post). While they may very well talk about preventing content blocking, the key additional legal bits have nothing to do with that and everything to do with preventing "QOS" (guality of service) contracts. Which is exactly what I've been talking about all along.
Internet providers want/need the ability to provide different levels of service based on either the type of packet (that's not the same as the content!), and the source/destination of the packet. They need this so that they can correctly offset the costs for bandwidth based on usage, and so they can ensure that packets that "need" faster rates get them. This is pretty clearly quoted here:
Quote:
In the early 2000s, legal scholars such as Tim Wu and Lawrence Lessig raised the issue of neutrality in a series of academic papers addressing regulatory frameworks for packet networks. Wu in particular noted that the Internet is structurally biased against voice and video applications. The FCC subsequently adopted principles which ensured "consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice." In 2006 a bill called Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006 was introduced in the US House of Representatives, which referenced the principles enunciated by the FCC and authorized fines up to $750,000 for infractions. An attempt to amend the bill by Democrat Ed Markey with additional network neutrality regulations banning fee-based Quality of Service offerings was defeated 269-152.
What we basically have is a "moderate" implementation of "net neutrality", which most people (like me) agree and accept. Then you have the "nutball" implementation of net neutrality which folks like Markey want to implement which will apply so much restriction on the companies running/funding the internet, that it'll amost certainly end up having to be government funded (which I suspect, is the ultimate goal).
But hey! Don't take my tin-foil hat theories on it:
Quote:
The arguments against network neutrality as a principle take several forms, as the principle of neutrality is defined in several ways. The first and most common says that packet-level discrimination is absolutely necessary in order to provide Quality of Service on any packet network. Quality of service commitments could help market additional services.
Another argument says that service bundling creates the revenue streams necessary to encourage investment in the networks of the future. If a broadband carrier is, for example, allowed to charge more for a high-priority voice service when competing services such as Skype run at standard priority, the carrier's voice service will sound better, and this will limit Skype's appeal while increasing the carrier's willingness to invest.
One response to this argument concedes that discrimination results in greater profit for broadband carriers -- but asks whether the costs in terms of application innovation are worth it. In the example, the operator is exploiting a bottleneck in the network to extend its monopoly from the network service to another sector entirely, in this case messaging applications. It also asks whether allowing discrimination is the best way to encourage network deployments. In other words, there may be less distortionary ways to encourage carriers to build out their network, such as using the tax code, or government funding.
Another argument says that service bundling creates the revenue streams necessary to encourage investment in the networks of the future. If a broadband carrier is, for example, allowed to charge more for a high-priority voice service when competing services such as Skype run at standard priority, the carrier's voice service will sound better, and this will limit Skype's appeal while increasing the carrier's willingness to invest.
One response to this argument concedes that discrimination results in greater profit for broadband carriers -- but asks whether the costs in terms of application innovation are worth it. In the example, the operator is exploiting a bottleneck in the network to extend its monopoly from the network service to another sector entirely, in this case messaging applications. It also asks whether allowing discrimination is the best way to encourage network deployments. In other words, there may be less distortionary ways to encourage carriers to build out their network, such as using the tax code, or government funding.
And ultimately, the reason this gets so much support from the left is a basic semantic issue, also well phrased in the wiki paper:
Quote:
Opponents of neutrality regulation say this argument confuses a necessary form of discrimination, discrimination among packets with different latency requirements, with arbitrary discrimination between applications of the same type, and is therefore blind to network engineering requirements.
Cause hey! Discrimination is "bad", right? Knee-jerk reaction to the rescue!!!
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Molish: Calm down, think for 30 minutes, apologize.
Order of operations.
Order of operations.
The issue is far more thought-provoking than I thought it would be when I heard about it a month ago. There are a few issues that should be treated as separate, but are being grouped together.
The ability for a company to buy a pipe from point A to point B seems to be threatened in at least some versions of net-neutrality, which is downright silly. Many companies have a legitimate need for a dedicated line between two or more sites, and taking that away for an idealistic goal of equality is absurd. Likewise, the improvement GB was talking about, in utilizing that pipe for normal traffic while it is not in use 100% seems perfectly reasonable.
The ability for the network to discriminate between packets with different application-specific latency requirements seems like an improvement. If I could choose to send my world wide web queries at half speed in return for priority on my first person shooter packets, I'd say sign me up, and I might even pay a bit more for the privilege. I have no idea how they would charge for sending/receiving/forwarding viop traffic as opposed to normal traffic, but I'm an engineer, not a vice president of sales. They can figure it out, and I can choose to accept or reject their terms.
The ability for the network to perform arbitrary discrimination (send google.com faster than aolsucks.com) seems borderline at best. I don't see how this kind of discrimination would be necessary, additionally, I don't see why any company would purchase it if it was available. Currently virtually all latency in bringing up webpages is due to server latency. google.com loads plenty fast for me right now, and having some fundamental knowledge of how the transport layer works in the internet, granting google.com packets a special status wouldn't make a noticeable difference. (If they implement this tiered system how I am thinking, by allowing prioritized packets to jump the queue at each router in the network).
I'm having a lot of difficulty viewing arbitrary discrimination in terms of the world wide web though, (even though that is typically how it is framed) because the internet already does a really frigging good job of servicing webpages. A two-tier system would at best do nothing to the www, and at worst would be detrimental. Maybe there are other applications where arbitrary discrimination would be beneficial, but I can't think of any.
I have a few questions for Gbaji.
First, I don't get how the internet providers in the middle get paid. google.com pays company X for however many gigabytes they push out, and I pay Comcast $50/month for broadband, but how do the people who own the pipes between me and google.com get paid? Does the company that provides for google.com pay Y% of their google.com bill to the company whose network they push their packet onto between them and me? That seems most fair, but I don't think the ip header has enough information to track that. Do the people in the middle get all their money from dedicated lines for companies? Or is there really no benefit from owning the lines in the middle other than to provide enough utility for the last mile that they sell to recoup for all their lines?
If there is no direct benefit from owning the lines in the middle, then it seems there is no incentive to prevent the lines in the middle from going the way of the commons between the different internet providers, so this doesn't seem reasonable either.
Second, while my line of thinking about discriminating between packets (allowing discrimination for applications that need it, but not for arbitrary things) seems like the best solution to me, I don't know if it is feasible. After all, the protocol field is just a couple bits in a packet, and it seems like there is nothing preventing anybody from writing a networking application that simply calls all of it's packets voip packets, regardless of what they are. Its just not possible to scan each packet that claims to be a viop packet to make sure it really is. That would slow things down too much. Even then you could always disguise the packet.
So am I correct then in my thinking that while I would rather allow discrimination in some circumstances but not all, I have to view packet discrimination as an all-or-nothing deal? Then again, keeping government out of it entirely and letting the internet companies do what they want with the lines they just so happen to own doesn't sound so bad either, so long as they continue to be disallowed from censoring traffic.
Edited, Aug 1st 2006 at 2:44pm EDT by Zarg
The ability for a company to buy a pipe from point A to point B seems to be threatened in at least some versions of net-neutrality, which is downright silly. Many companies have a legitimate need for a dedicated line between two or more sites, and taking that away for an idealistic goal of equality is absurd. Likewise, the improvement GB was talking about, in utilizing that pipe for normal traffic while it is not in use 100% seems perfectly reasonable.
The ability for the network to discriminate between packets with different application-specific latency requirements seems like an improvement. If I could choose to send my world wide web queries at half speed in return for priority on my first person shooter packets, I'd say sign me up, and I might even pay a bit more for the privilege. I have no idea how they would charge for sending/receiving/forwarding viop traffic as opposed to normal traffic, but I'm an engineer, not a vice president of sales. They can figure it out, and I can choose to accept or reject their terms.
The ability for the network to perform arbitrary discrimination (send google.com faster than aolsucks.com) seems borderline at best. I don't see how this kind of discrimination would be necessary, additionally, I don't see why any company would purchase it if it was available. Currently virtually all latency in bringing up webpages is due to server latency. google.com loads plenty fast for me right now, and having some fundamental knowledge of how the transport layer works in the internet, granting google.com packets a special status wouldn't make a noticeable difference. (If they implement this tiered system how I am thinking, by allowing prioritized packets to jump the queue at each router in the network).
I'm having a lot of difficulty viewing arbitrary discrimination in terms of the world wide web though, (even though that is typically how it is framed) because the internet already does a really frigging good job of servicing webpages. A two-tier system would at best do nothing to the www, and at worst would be detrimental. Maybe there are other applications where arbitrary discrimination would be beneficial, but I can't think of any.
I have a few questions for Gbaji.
First, I don't get how the internet providers in the middle get paid. google.com pays company X for however many gigabytes they push out, and I pay Comcast $50/month for broadband, but how do the people who own the pipes between me and google.com get paid? Does the company that provides for google.com pay Y% of their google.com bill to the company whose network they push their packet onto between them and me? That seems most fair, but I don't think the ip header has enough information to track that. Do the people in the middle get all their money from dedicated lines for companies? Or is there really no benefit from owning the lines in the middle other than to provide enough utility for the last mile that they sell to recoup for all their lines?
If there is no direct benefit from owning the lines in the middle, then it seems there is no incentive to prevent the lines in the middle from going the way of the commons between the different internet providers, so this doesn't seem reasonable either.
Second, while my line of thinking about discriminating between packets (allowing discrimination for applications that need it, but not for arbitrary things) seems like the best solution to me, I don't know if it is feasible. After all, the protocol field is just a couple bits in a packet, and it seems like there is nothing preventing anybody from writing a networking application that simply calls all of it's packets voip packets, regardless of what they are. Its just not possible to scan each packet that claims to be a viop packet to make sure it really is. That would slow things down too much. Even then you could always disguise the packet.
So am I correct then in my thinking that while I would rather allow discrimination in some circumstances but not all, I have to view packet discrimination as an all-or-nothing deal? Then again, keeping government out of it entirely and letting the internet companies do what they want with the lines they just so happen to own doesn't sound so bad either, so long as they continue to be disallowed from censoring traffic.
Edited, Aug 1st 2006 at 2:44pm EDT by Zarg
What you've got to remember is that the guys pushing the "net neutrality act" are essentially backing Markey's ammendment to the COPE act. That's what folks like saveourinternet.com and moveon.org are pushing. And it's essentially equivalent to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The boogyman they bring up is the case where an ISP or backbone could put packets heading to/from say google.com at a lower priority then another service. However, that's not what anyone trying to utilize the priotization flags has proposed. It's "possible" for that to occur, but no one's planning on doing so. It's kinda like opposing the building of roads because criminals might use them to get out of town quickly after commiting a crime. Sure. It's possible for them to be used that way, but the benefits in terms of commerce far outweigh the potential negatives.
How the middlemen get paid is simple. This is a part that the average user doesn't see, but the ISPs pay for their connections to the backbone in the same way that you pay your ISP to connect to them. The ISP has a number of cusotmers that purchase varying amounts of bandwidth from them, and they in turn buy bandwidth from the backbone providers. The cost flows through those systems freely.
The reason why companies want to implement packet prioritization isn't to blackball sites, or block conent. It's so they can open up the whole internet to more services that currently don't work well due to the "neutrality" of packets across the internet as a whole.
Right now, you have to purchase your phone service to a local providers that physically owns the wires. You can get a long distance service through another company, but that's done on the backend and through your own phone company. Same deal with cable (without the long distance bits at all though). A customer in San Diego cannot decide he wants to recieve his cable from a company in New York for example.
Why is that? Because the data rate for cable or phone from New York to San Diego would introduce unworkable amounts of latency. The goal of prioritizing packets is to fix this problem, by building a sytem capable of handling voice, data, and video on the same wires. Imagine that 10 years from now you don't buy a phone service or cable service at all. You simply purchase a connection to the "net" from a local ISP. It doesn't matter what form it takes. Could be anything. The ISP is simply a gateway service. From there, you'd purchase "packages" from other service providers. Perhaps you get your phone service from one company, and cable from another. Perhaps you want to telecommute, so you purchase a specific point to point high speed data rate from your home to your work. The idea is to make the internet flexible to these needs while allowing for logical costs appropriate to the service.
The only way to do that is to allow packet prioritization. So the service provider that has a link to a set of broadcasts, and an archive of films available, could offer itself as a cable service provider (or just "IPTV"). Users will subscribe to that service, generating revenue. The IPTV SP uses that revenue to purchase the right to prioritize packets with the IPTV flag (presumably a pretty high priotity so stuff can be viewed in real time). The customer gets the TV service of his choosing, everyone involved makes their money for their expenses involved, the service works well, and we end up increasing free market competition since the user is not locked into a local provider for these type of latency sensitive protocols.
Same deal with your phone. Imagine being able to buy a unit that connects to a local ISP. It's got a HD tv screen, a keyboard/controller, and a webcam/microphone. You use this device to watch live broadcasts from anywhere in the world, view archived films, make voice calls, even make video calls. All working in real time and with good quality. This is what the proposed protocol changes will bring us. Net neutrality seeks to block this. By keeping packets "neutral", you can't make videophones work. Not outside of a local network anyway. You certainly can't view any real time video from anywhere farther then your local cable source either.
The push for the change has nothing to do with blocking content. I really can't stress this enough. It's really about making these newer datarate sensitive applications work across the internet as a whole. If everyone in the country/world adopts these protocols and abides by them, then everyone benefits. That's what they're trying to do. Why and how the net neutrality folks came to try to oppose this I really don't know. I have suspicions that if you dig deep enough into the movement, you'll find that it's the local cable companies and phone companies that are funding the movement. They have a lot to lose with this, since they are able to essentially buy an "area" in which they have a monopoloy. It's possible even the satellite cable folks are there too, since their entire reason for making money is due to people being locked into one cable company's service, with satellite being the only alternative. If these protocol changes are put into place, any company anywhere in the world could offer alternative content to any customer anywhere in the world.
That's a "free market". That's what packet prioritization allows us to do. While it certainly *can* be used to slow down content from/to sites, that's not the intent, and in fact, the wording of the COPE act (which is in place) requires that any SP that uses packet prioritization must not use it unfairly (in a manner that would violate anti-trust laws). So all IPTV and VoIP packets must be passed equally, even their competitors. That's *already* in the law. The Markey ammendment would have prevented *any* QoS based prioritization, effectively preventing any of these services to exist since the whole point of packet prioritization is to improve quality for services that have been purchased/licensed, while allowing all others that are "free" to travel at a normal (slower) rate.
Another aspect to this is that since QoS restrictions would prevent the point to point stuff I talked about earlier, you'd also end up with a net loss of income for the internet providers as a whole. As I touched on earlier, this will raise the prices to the average consumer. Potentially by a very large amount. This may well price internet connections out of reach of many people. In a funny bit of turnaround, a movement who's goal is to prevent "discrimination" among packets will result in real discrimination of the people using the internet.
It's just a really bad bit of legistlation. I'm frankly not surprised moveon.org and others are supporting it. They seem to support anything that "sounds good", is easy to rally support for with rhetoric, and appears to oppose the "evil big businesses". But it's really a super incredibly dumb bit of law. It really will do vastly more harm then good. It really does not deserve any support. We got the COPE act, which covers the basics. Certainly, there may be holes, and some folks may abuse them. But it just makes sense for us to wait and see what "bad things" people do before closing those holes, right? What net neutrality attempts to do is guess at what abuses might happen, and make radical changes to the law to prevent them, while not knowing or careing what other legitimate uses of the technology they'll be preventing in the process.
And that's just a dumb way to make law.
The boogyman they bring up is the case where an ISP or backbone could put packets heading to/from say google.com at a lower priority then another service. However, that's not what anyone trying to utilize the priotization flags has proposed. It's "possible" for that to occur, but no one's planning on doing so. It's kinda like opposing the building of roads because criminals might use them to get out of town quickly after commiting a crime. Sure. It's possible for them to be used that way, but the benefits in terms of commerce far outweigh the potential negatives.
How the middlemen get paid is simple. This is a part that the average user doesn't see, but the ISPs pay for their connections to the backbone in the same way that you pay your ISP to connect to them. The ISP has a number of cusotmers that purchase varying amounts of bandwidth from them, and they in turn buy bandwidth from the backbone providers. The cost flows through those systems freely.
The reason why companies want to implement packet prioritization isn't to blackball sites, or block conent. It's so they can open up the whole internet to more services that currently don't work well due to the "neutrality" of packets across the internet as a whole.
Right now, you have to purchase your phone service to a local providers that physically owns the wires. You can get a long distance service through another company, but that's done on the backend and through your own phone company. Same deal with cable (without the long distance bits at all though). A customer in San Diego cannot decide he wants to recieve his cable from a company in New York for example.
Why is that? Because the data rate for cable or phone from New York to San Diego would introduce unworkable amounts of latency. The goal of prioritizing packets is to fix this problem, by building a sytem capable of handling voice, data, and video on the same wires. Imagine that 10 years from now you don't buy a phone service or cable service at all. You simply purchase a connection to the "net" from a local ISP. It doesn't matter what form it takes. Could be anything. The ISP is simply a gateway service. From there, you'd purchase "packages" from other service providers. Perhaps you get your phone service from one company, and cable from another. Perhaps you want to telecommute, so you purchase a specific point to point high speed data rate from your home to your work. The idea is to make the internet flexible to these needs while allowing for logical costs appropriate to the service.
The only way to do that is to allow packet prioritization. So the service provider that has a link to a set of broadcasts, and an archive of films available, could offer itself as a cable service provider (or just "IPTV"). Users will subscribe to that service, generating revenue. The IPTV SP uses that revenue to purchase the right to prioritize packets with the IPTV flag (presumably a pretty high priotity so stuff can be viewed in real time). The customer gets the TV service of his choosing, everyone involved makes their money for their expenses involved, the service works well, and we end up increasing free market competition since the user is not locked into a local provider for these type of latency sensitive protocols.
Same deal with your phone. Imagine being able to buy a unit that connects to a local ISP. It's got a HD tv screen, a keyboard/controller, and a webcam/microphone. You use this device to watch live broadcasts from anywhere in the world, view archived films, make voice calls, even make video calls. All working in real time and with good quality. This is what the proposed protocol changes will bring us. Net neutrality seeks to block this. By keeping packets "neutral", you can't make videophones work. Not outside of a local network anyway. You certainly can't view any real time video from anywhere farther then your local cable source either.
The push for the change has nothing to do with blocking content. I really can't stress this enough. It's really about making these newer datarate sensitive applications work across the internet as a whole. If everyone in the country/world adopts these protocols and abides by them, then everyone benefits. That's what they're trying to do. Why and how the net neutrality folks came to try to oppose this I really don't know. I have suspicions that if you dig deep enough into the movement, you'll find that it's the local cable companies and phone companies that are funding the movement. They have a lot to lose with this, since they are able to essentially buy an "area" in which they have a monopoloy. It's possible even the satellite cable folks are there too, since their entire reason for making money is due to people being locked into one cable company's service, with satellite being the only alternative. If these protocol changes are put into place, any company anywhere in the world could offer alternative content to any customer anywhere in the world.
That's a "free market". That's what packet prioritization allows us to do. While it certainly *can* be used to slow down content from/to sites, that's not the intent, and in fact, the wording of the COPE act (which is in place) requires that any SP that uses packet prioritization must not use it unfairly (in a manner that would violate anti-trust laws). So all IPTV and VoIP packets must be passed equally, even their competitors. That's *already* in the law. The Markey ammendment would have prevented *any* QoS based prioritization, effectively preventing any of these services to exist since the whole point of packet prioritization is to improve quality for services that have been purchased/licensed, while allowing all others that are "free" to travel at a normal (slower) rate.
Another aspect to this is that since QoS restrictions would prevent the point to point stuff I talked about earlier, you'd also end up with a net loss of income for the internet providers as a whole. As I touched on earlier, this will raise the prices to the average consumer. Potentially by a very large amount. This may well price internet connections out of reach of many people. In a funny bit of turnaround, a movement who's goal is to prevent "discrimination" among packets will result in real discrimination of the people using the internet.
It's just a really bad bit of legistlation. I'm frankly not surprised moveon.org and others are supporting it. They seem to support anything that "sounds good", is easy to rally support for with rhetoric, and appears to oppose the "evil big businesses". But it's really a super incredibly dumb bit of law. It really will do vastly more harm then good. It really does not deserve any support. We got the COPE act, which covers the basics. Certainly, there may be holes, and some folks may abuse them. But it just makes sense for us to wait and see what "bad things" people do before closing those holes, right? What net neutrality attempts to do is guess at what abuses might happen, and make radical changes to the law to prevent them, while not knowing or careing what other legitimate uses of the technology they'll be preventing in the process.
And that's just a dumb way to make law.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
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