Why The Net Should Stay Neutral

Dino wrote to mention a BBC opinion piece on why tiered Internet setups are a bad idea. From the article: "What is being proposed is more like building two roads into every town and up to every house, one smooth and well-maintained tarmac and the other a dirt track, and then letting Tesco and Waitrose bid for the right to use the good road. This issue just the latest round of a long-running debate about how much government - of whatever type, in whatever country - should be involved in the growth and development of the internet."

Comments

I hope they just go out of business

[Pi_0's don't shower]

Now some of the big telecoms companies want to be able to sell premium services for things like streaming video or voice over IP, and some people are worried that this will eventually lead to a segregated internet.

Hopefully, this will allow small companies to have an edge, by simply providing access to all services without artificially jacking up the price for access to what has become standard services.

Re:Government

[Zeinfeld]

The government should have no control over the internet.

If you were paying a little more attention to the debate you would know that Google is the one asking the government to ban this type of discrimination.

The FCC regulates the Internet, of course there needs to be some oversight. The question is whether that oversight is going to be for the benefit of Internet users or whichever corporation paid the party who appointed the regulators the biggest bribe, sorry campaign contribution.

There could be value in two tier pricing but the carriers are too greedy to make it work. see my blog essay i wrote earlier.

Municipal Wi-Fi

[jdludlow]

That opinion piece uses arguments similar to those being used to ram government funded Wi-Fi down our throats. I'm sorry, but no one has the right to have broadband. Some people pay for it themselves, others have dial-up, and others choose to not have any internet access.

A major problem with this line of thinking is that after they establish that everyone has a right to use the internet at max speed, the next thing on the list will be the huge social injustice caused by not everyone having a tax payer supplied computer.

Re:Municipal Wi-Fi

[Sique]

And no one has the right to have a green park or cleaned streets in downtown or whatever public services are there. And don't tell me you don't live downtown and have to pay your gardener or the cleaning lady! Sometimes it's just a good idea from a town to offer a service for free, even though you don't use it.
If a mayority in a town wants to have municipal WiFi, then let them have their way. If it gets too expensive for your wallet to pay the taxes, move somewhere else. Sheesh!

Re:Municipal Wi-Fi

[RyanFenton]

I don't think that the argument from most proponents of government-provided WIFI is that it is a right by any means. Rather, it is a privilege which, if given to everyone as part of goverment services, would benefit society as a whole at a much greater level than the costs involved. This idea may be false in terms of the result of such services - but the idea itself does not involve artificial rights of man to goverment services.

It's the same as with public transportation by bus - it's not something that is a right that has to be given to everyone, but rather a sound logistical choice that builds a stronger, freer society than would exist otherwise.

Now, it is true, if government-provided WIFI is seen as important to people, it could become established as a service people are unwilling to let goverment drop, but that's another issue. It still wouldn't be a right. The only right people would have to WIFI is the right to use it as they see fit, however they get it, so long as they are not violating others rights in doing so.

Remember the 9th and 10th ammendments to the bill of rights -

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Rights are the freedoms of mankind, not something they are granted by government. Don't let your fervor against goverment action blind you into making strawmen arguments against those you disagree with. There's may be valid arguments for government services, and they don't have to involve government granting new rights.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Municipal Wi-Fi

[Ex-MislTech]

I'm sorry, but no one has the right to have broadband.

While your statement has some truth, it is also like saying why don't we do away with
municipal libraries . If people want books they can buy them !!!

You may be thinking I have taken this too far as a case and point, but here is why
you may have that perception, your own personal usage of the Internet .

Some people do their homework via the web, some do business via the web, some do research and our send e-mail instead of letters . The internet is slowly replacing the way we do a lot of things .

We can print thousands of text books for school, or we can make it a torrent on the net .

We can print millions of voting cards, or we can make it an encrypted multi-point user
verified voting system that works much better than the current corporate model .

We can pay per minute voice charges, or we can use VoIP .

We can pay postage on each e-mail we send , or we can mass e-mail all our family members photos of our newborn child, wedding, or graduation .

We can choose to realize its fiber with light pulses being turned on and off and using
VERY little electricity, or we can say it costs TWICE as much to send 2 meg as it does 1 meg .

We should all easily realize the cost of sending 2 meg of data vs. 1 meg of data is not simply double all expenses .

Why did an OC-3 from chicago to washington cost 3 million per month in the late 90's ???

I understand recouping the cost of implementation, but that OC-3 was but one virtual channel
of many signals being sent down a DWDM fiber line that was a OC-192 as a single strand
of fiber that had been laid for long distance phone calls over a decade before .

The glass and putting it in the ground had long been paid for .

$36 million USD a year for less than 2% of the pipe means that the pipe would make them over 50 times that a month at that rate, roughly 1.8 billion .

They never laid just single strands, they laid bundles of multiple strands .

But we must recognize one pricing scheme of long haul fiber, quadruple the bandwidth, half the price per Mbit cost .

But then you come to the consumer, the more you want the more we are going to charge .

Also consider the dark fiber situation ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

Some areas have 30 times the fiber they need , and it just sits dark and has for years .

With better and better DWDM and other compression technologies this just becomes even more pronounced .

US taxpayers shelled out $200 Billion, yes billion, not million , to the major Telcos
for a deployment of fiber to all homes in the US .

This is what we got => http://www.newnetworks.com/Scandalreslease13006.ht m

The telcos much like bernie ebers of WCOM are nothing but a bunch of corrupt , crooked
scam artists , and my uncle worked as a union steward for one for 30 years, so
I have heard ALL the inside dirt from SBC .

I got one word for the corporate whoring of the internet ..."scum"

Other countries who were further behind us are now far ahead of us, and citizens have 100 Mega-bit fiber to their homes for reasonable prices .

In the country that made the internet possible our corporate pimps are too wrapped in
greed, and our politicians take 200 billion of tax payer dollars from us to give to the
corporate pricks to just screw us all and want more money thru .... "Tiered Internet"

Excuse me but this is Horseshit ... Once again greed wins .

Ex-MislTech

The money quote

[patdabiker]

The money quote:

"After all, once we get away from the idea that the pipes just move bits around without really caring what data is being transmitted, it's a small step to discriminating against some forms of content and then targeting specific sites, services or users."

What if all the big ISPs start charging $0.10/min for VOIP? Or $1.00/mb from "long-distance" sites? Where does it end?

Paradigm

[RomulusNR]

What is being proposed is more like building two roads into every town and up to every house, one smooth and well-maintained tarmac and the other a dirt track, and then letting Tesco and Waitrose bid for the right to use the good road.

The problem with your analogy is that there is some New Business-man reading that and saying. "Hey! That's a fucking GREAT idea! (If I weren't a opportunist monkey, I might have thought of it myself!)"

Tunnels

[kd3bj]

It would seem to me that shortly after some big corporation tries to segregate the Net, if there is
any marginal advantage to the bandwidth carrying their segregated service, somebody will devise a way
to tunnel other services through the "premium" bandwidth. If I can send you bits, I can code my data
into those bits, steganographically if necessary, but there's no way the channel can stop me from
sending whatever I want.

So I say, bring it on. We'll have fun writing ironic tools like IPOV -- IP tunneling over Voice Channels -- betcha we can send up to 56K bits/sec on a 3 kHz analog voice link.

Re:Tunnels

[jacksonj04]

I like your IPoV idea. Perhaps we could get devices to 'dial' each other? Some kind of Mega Over-Driven Electric Messenger - M.O.D.E.M.

That's the way it will go again if traffic becomes controlled by type. The only things that should have special attention paid to them are priority headers.

Let's not pay twice

[t7]

I'm going to take a step back and look at this purely from a consumers standpoint. I'm already paying comcast my $45+ a month to have a "blazing fast" connection so I can stream music and videos. Most news and video providing sites offer their streaming services for free, charging only for higher quality content. I fear if these sites must pay a premium to offer the same service they are currently providing free, that they cost will be passed down to the consumer.

This will undoubtedly usher in a wide variety of subscriber fee based sites and services. I'm not looking forward to shelling out another $20+ a month to view streaming content on the handful of sites I like to visit.

On a side thought, how would this affect Internet2?

Regulating the internet is regulating information

[elucido]

To regulate the internet is to regulate the library. Sure we can have a private internet, but to regulate the public internet is no different than regulating public libraries. The internet is all about information, nothing more nothing less. The internet is most profitable when it is filled with diverse information. How are we supposed to tell China to be a free and open society if we close and restrict the internet?

Re:Government

[Aggrav8d]

If anyone should have any control I would hope it would the the universities (at least).
 
...because university politics never get nasty, right?
 
If it ends up like the medical schools in the US then if you sold a brand X router to university A then you wouldn't be able to sell them to university B because the two universities are in competition with each other. Eventually you'd end up with a two-tiered internet again.
 
I for one would welcome our robotic/alien/insect overlords, if only because they would implement a global standard.

Translation for Americans

[Tx]

"Tesco and Waitrose" is like Walmart and ... oh, that screws up my analogy, Walmart doesn't have any significant competitors ;).

Re:Regulating the internet is regulating informati

[thrillseeker]

I don't want to go to a private library and ask for a book that they don't have because their religious sponsors don't condone the contents.

In an unregulated world you could then go next door to the unregulated competitor and get your material instead. It's in your regulated world that allows those with influence to control what everyone else gets to see and do.

Closer, but here's one closer yet.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Here in the Washington, DC area, they are considering a tied road system where you would have the option of paying more to travel in lanes with less traffic.

Closer. But the premium lanes are still doing "best effort" delivery.

Here's one closer yet:

Think of what they're building as a multi-lane highway - with railroad tracks down the lanes. Each house gets a multi-lane driveway with a couple sidings running up the lanes.

Driveway/sidings come in several standard lane counts. Theaters, arenas, and factories have very wide ones, houses narrower ones (but still plenty wide), businesses, restaurants, and so on have something in between. The wider the driveway, the more you pay (in taxes or "driveway rent" to the "road company").

You can runs trains, cars, motorcycles, trolleys, people-movers, delivery busses, computerized delivery carts, you-name-it, on the pavement or the rails.

There's a fancy computerized signaling system telling every car which lanes it can use. Lots of switches tied in with it (and signaling BACK from the trains and such), so rail vehicles can be switched around as easily as cars make lane changes.

You've got two ways to use the road:

- You can pay a small toll and schedule a non-stop run or a scheduled stream of them (if there's capacity for it). The computers controlling the signaling system moves all the other traffic out of your way when it's your slot. If you got your reservation your trip is guaranteed. No stops, no traffic jams (for you), limited number and duration of red lights, getting you to your destination when promised.

- You can pay nothing (besides your flat-rate driveway rental) and use it like a regular road. Usually you get through. Sometimes there's a traffic jam and it takes a long while, or you have to make a detour. Once in a while it's so bad you give up and go back home. Big point: You have to guess how long the trip will take, and whether it's possible.

With this road in place you call a restaurant to cater your big party: The restaurant schedules a set of reserved road slots, cooks up the courses in his central professional kitchen, puts each on a little automated cart, and the cart brings it to your house: fresh, piping hot, and just in time to be served. Course after course, just on time, guaranteed to make it.

Meanwhile, the lane the caterer's carts were using is being used by lots of other traffic, mostly flat-rate, take-your-chances-with-traffic-jams traffic, whenever there wasn't a scheduled cart/train/bus/limousine/whatever using it.

THAT's the combined system.

What's the alternative?

You build a road AND a railroad. Separately. Each with its own infrastructure. This costs a LOT more than building one system, so its total capacity is smaller for a given investment. But even worse: Cars only get to use the road, trains only get to use the railroad - cars can't run down the rails when there are no trains in sight. So much of the capacity is unused.

Maybe you rented a siding from the railroad company. If so, you only get their trains. You don't get catered parties unless you buy them from the railroad company. Your local restaurant might try that stunt using waters on motorcycles - but he can't guarantee the main course won't be caught in a traffic jam while the soup gets cold. Some shippers might use trains to haul containers cross-country and transfer them to truck beds - but once they're on the trucks they're back in the traffic jams.

THAT's the "no favorites" scenario some posters keep whining for.

The problem is that some internet services, like streaming audio and video or VoIP, REQUIRE guaranteed bandwidth, limits on packet latency, and/or delivery reliability ("Quality of Service" (QoS)). Others (like file transfer) don't - "best effort" is good enough. If you want to serve both on the same net and do a good job of it, you have to give some packets preference over others.

If some packets ar

Limited access? Does this mean...

[MikeSty]

net*split*

On a more serious note, I think the Internet is fine as it is. Would you not agree that as it is, the internet is a very succesful thing? Why make such radical changes to it that could shake it up?

  Oh, whoops, this is capitalism.

"Previous attempts to set up a two-tier net have failed"

Does this say anything to anyone else? Yeah yeah, it's probably like people saying to the Wright brothers, "Previous attempts at flying have failed," but this is something of a totally different scope and I think that failure is imminent.

The internet itself is a revolutionary public communications system. It is my opinion that the internet is far greater than the postal service or the telephone service. Not so much from a technical standpoint, but the fact is, so much of it is user-created and comes at little expense. It's a public form of communication, and it should be left as it is for the good of the people.

Re:public utility

[DerekLyons]

Public utuilities are normally regulated. The reasons for that are well established. Companies in the utility markets are not generally are not cherry pick the most profitable customers. Instead for being allowed to operate they are also required to serve the public interest in other matters. That's why you have the public access channel on cable TV , the public alert systems on radio, why rural communities have electricity, and why the power company cant simply shut off the juice to the old/infirm without certain procedures. Some of those Odious fees on your phone bill pay for things like universal 911 connectivity.

On the other hand - I can't think of a single utility, public or otherwise, that doesn't have tiered acess and/or variable rates in one form or another.

Re:Regulating the internet is regulating informati

[Zeinfeld]

To regulate the internet is to regulate the library. Sure we can have a private internet, but to regulate the public internet is no different than regulating public libraries. The internet is all about information, nothing more nothing less. The internet is most profitable when it is filled with diverse information. How are we supposed to tell China to be a free and open society if we close and restrict the internet?

Very nice.

Now you have your liberflame off your chest perhaps you will take the trouble to read the article or if thats too much work my essay which is slightly shorter.

The issue here is not government introducing regulations to impose a two tier Internet, the issue is whether the government will allow large carriers to leverage their defacto local monopolies to extract rents from third parties in return for access to their subscribers.

'Kenny boy' Lay and his friends at Enron managed to defraud California out of about $15 billion when they persuaded Cheney to tell the regulators to look the other way. The carriers probably thought they could get the same deal.

As I point out in the essay I do not think it is exactly likely that Congress are going to support the carriers over Google. Legislation is mostly written by 20 year old staffers who spend most of their research time using Google. Thy can be expected to explain to the legislators that allowing this sort of thing would not be a smart move.

Two tier pricing could well make sense if the settlements bought a lot of extra bandwidth for a short time. It would be nice to have home videoconferencing that is actually worth something. But what the carriers are demanding at this point is money for what their subscribers are already paying for which ain't going to fly.

Re:Verison, ISPs and Napster

[Anonymous Coward]

its called shared access! you think your $40/month is enough to cover the expenses for you to suck 10Mb/sec of the pipe 24/7?

yes, taking a cue from the insurance company, ISP's allow everyone to reap the benefits of a badass backbone pipe, for a very cheap price. if you want unfiltered raw access, you have to pay for it. you cant have it both ways!

Re:Regulating the internet is regulating informati

[Comboman]

I think you're confusing 'Government Regulation' with 'Government Funding'.

Public libraries are funded by municipal governments through tax dolars, university libraries are funded by the universities (and their corporate sponsors), religious schools have libraries that they fund. Each type of library is free to buy or not buy whatever books they want. Governments may not want books critical of their policies, religious schools may not want books with sexual content, univerisities may keep out books that their corporate sponsors don't like.

If the government regulated libraries, then all libraries, regardless of their funding, would have to comply with the same government regulations.

Re:Bad analogy for this argument

[Attila the Bun]

The analogy is fine: you pay for the speed of your connection, just as you pay for the right to use faster roads. What the telecos are proposing is more subtle, analogous to charging you to use a fast road, and then charging you again depending on who you are, what you're carrying, where you're going, and how fast you're driving. Actually the telecos charge even more: both the sender and the recipient have to pay - and here's where the analogy breaks down.

This is about chopping the internet into smaller markets. It's easier to charge high prices and confuse customers when what was a single service is subdivided into a gazillion different ones.

Re:Bad analogy for this argument

[kraut]

You already pay your ISP for how much traffic you pay (or at least how much bandwidth is allocated to you). Want a fast pipe and stream video? You pay for it.

What they're proposing is to get paid twice by the provider and once by the consumer.

I don't think that's going to catch

[OpenSourced]

Basically it's a balancing act. The US lawmakers want to decide if more money is to be had from the telcos or from the content providers. The balance in the long term is for the content providers. Specially if they are international content providers.

Has anyone stopped to think what would happen if that idea suddenly became law, and it was adopted all over the world? Well, the German telcos, for example, would tax Google to allow a moderately good access. And then the French, and the Chinese, the Zambian, you name it. Everybody would partake into Google profits, and then Yahoo, and Amazon, Ebay, etc. The US would be taxed from foreign telcos. Of course that would be a two-way street, but the balance I think would be bad for the US, as it has so many content providers.

I don't think US lawmakers would find the idea of US companies' profits being siphoned away to China, for example (think about how much the chinese could charge, if rates are by user) at all funny. So I don't think this is going to become law, ever.

Re:Regulating the internet is regulating informati

[ultranova]

In an unregulated world you could then go next door to the unregulated competitor and get your material instead.

What competitor ? We are talking about libraries here, not bookstores. Libraries aren't business ventures and don't have competition in the "free market" sense.

If, on the other hand, you were talking about going to a nearby bookstore to buy the book that the library doesn't have, you can do that right now. So what is the problem ?

It's in your regulated world that allows those with influence to control what everyone else gets to see and do.

Actually, what the library regulations do is allow even people who can't afford to buy books to read them. Removing public libraries would lead to even more widespread ignorance and ignorance has always quickly lead to tyranny since it removes all obstacles from its path. So if you don't want everything in your life to be regulated by some obsessive-compulsive nutcase dictator, support public libraries - once they go, nothing can save you anymore.

Re:Bad analogy for this argument

[packeteer]

Most people who drive through the DC area are not from the DC area. The whole point of the law is to decieve people. If everyone became adjusted to the new yellow timers then there would be no extra ticket revenue. The entire law is based around having a DIFFERENT yellow timer than surounding areas.

This problem is not about "wising up". It is praying on people who are A) new to the area B) commuters on their way to work after having just woken up and indeed C) people who run red lights. Gee it sounds to me liek just about every driver on the road in the area is the target of this law, that makes the law not OK with me.

This law is a textbook definition of entrapment, the law is trying to create crime where there was no crime before simply to make more money. Also you need to be realistic and admit that some peoplem would jsut never wise up to this scheme and more people would run red lights therefor increasing the danger of driving on those roads.

Re:Bad analogy for this argument

[HiThere]

By your argument not having a yellow light should be safer yet. Experiment has proven that this is false.

Most people try to avoid running a yellow light. Sometimes they can't. Those who intentionally run a yellow light deserve to get a ticket, but when you shorten the yellow light, you are gambling on people having shorter reaction times. Practically speaking, the roads already demand swifter reaction times than people have. Occasionally they demand swifter reaction times than an idealized robot would have.