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Father of Internet Warns Against Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "At a recent talk at the Computer History Museum Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, warned against net neutrality legislation that could hinder experimentation and innovation. Calling 'net neutrality' a slogan, Khan also cautioned against 'dogmatic views of network architecture.' A video of the talk is also available."
It's a good idea for two groups:
1) ISPs: Extra cash.
2) Big companies: Lock out potential competitors. (4 Seconds Loading Time Is Maximum For Websurfers)
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
I don't think he's against neutrality, just legislation as a means to enforce it. Because, then, if someone does come up with a better system later, it will be hard to implement. However, the telecom's current proposal isn't really better, and does need to be dealt with somewhere.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Um, how does this make him the "Father of the Internet"?
Co-inventor of TCP/IP, OK, but "Father of the Internet"?!? What about the CERN guys, what about the router folks, what about the...everyone else who co-invented a piece of technology that enabled the existence of the internet?
Just ranting because I'm kind of sick of hyperbole.
No, it would not be a good idea.
However, is Network Neutrality simply the inverse set of the scheme you refer to, or is it an over-the-top reaction that actually bans many quite legitimate activities an ISP might do (such as providing bandwidth over and above what an end user has paid for, to paying parties. ie you pay for a 256k connection, but it becomes a 1Mbps + 256k connection whenever Apple is sending data to it, because they paid.)
My reading of network neutrality is it makes all forms of improved service in exchange for money illegal, even when the end user doesn't lose out because of it. I'd rather see lobbying for minimum guaranteed service levels than "neutrality", the Internet equivalent of banning 1-800 numbers.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If anything, I would think that allowing corporate entities to throttle bandwidth for whichever site or service they choose, then hold that service's customer availability up for ransom would do far more damage to "encouraging capabilities" and "inventivize innvation". After all, money that might have gone into R&D from these companies (see: Google, Microsoft) might have to be used just so they aren't impeded from their customer.
It would also stall innovation on the end of ISPs- if they note that their current systems can't handle traffic from a certain site or service, they just throttle back that site/service, make them cough up dough, then use that dough to get more systems to handle the bandwidth (or just release the throttle, upgrade nothing, and screw the consumers; depends on which ISP we're talking about). So instead of handling it with improvements, they'll just look to throw more money for more of the same solution. (Which, granted, could be what they do now.)
Perhaps he's saying that the government shouldn't get involved on pro- or con-neutrality, which I can understand more, but then that opens the door for the greedy corporations to start throttling away.
A side thought on net neutrality: If an ISP decides to limit access to such sites as Microsoft.com, thereby hampering the Windows Update service, and the computers that can't get updated turn into botboxes (for spam or virii- or both), would the ISP then be liable for any damage caused by the spam/virii?
Who is "we", and who put "we" in the position of being in charge of what everybody else can do? If "we" is the government, I think "we the people" can count on them botching being in charge of the Internet.
Yes, We, as in WE the People who vote.
Governments, like it or not, are in the best position to provide certain services like roads, water, sewage, defense and so on. If private industries take over these services, bad things happen, like toll roads, dumped sewage and dirty water. Governments are wasteful because they are not bound by profit. Wasteful includes things like repairing roads that are still passable, but need repair and treating sewage before dumping it back into the water supply, even though it is expensive.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I agree with this guy. We can't even begin to imagine what our children are going to invent after growing up in this early phase of the internet culture. I, for one, am not excited about letting the geriatric politicos shackle our kids from innovating in ways we cannot anticipate today.
Governments, like it or not, are in the best position to provide certain services like roads, water, sewage, defense and so on. If private industries take over these services, bad things happen, like toll roads, dumped sewage and dirty water. Governments are wasteful because they are not bound by profit. Wasteful includes things like repairing roads that are still passable, but need repair and treating sewage before dumping it back into the water supply, even though it is expensive.
:-)
Or, put in another way, TANSTAAFL
A law is advocated to stop behaviour some people see as undesireable. The perpetrators have no such opinion. Whatever impels them to do the undesireable act continues to operate, and they just find a way around.
On net neutrality, in a competitive market, premium services will result in lower prices for bulk services. What do I care about 2000 ms latency when I'm downloading ISOs? I just increase RWIN.
Breaking a forerunner of "net neutrality" is how the Internet got it's international costs so low. Going from channel-switched [voice] to packet-switched [data].
This is not a democracy, or at least it's not supposed to be. People who vote don't have the authority to dictate arbitrary terms to other people, except where specified in a constitution.
Okay, you get some of your infrastructure (water, sewage) from the city. How does that translate into the Feds running the Internet again?
Net neutrality IS just a slogan, and not a very good one because it means different things to different people. To Robert Kahn it obviously means locking network protocols, which obviously he is against.
But the central issue already has a name--it's called "common carrier." ISPs need to be held to a standard that is content- and author-neutral. My Web site or e-mail or video should not be able to be blocked or slowed based simply on what it says or who wrote it. I don't care about the technology that gets it there--just get it there and don't let me be discriminated against.
Common carrier is so important, and so ingrained in our way of thinking, that to some people it's impossible to imagine that it can't exist. But the fact is that it must be specified by legislation, and right now for Internet services it is not. This is the essence of the issue.
Network protocols, frankly, are not. The network protocols used on telephone and cell phone networks change all the time, but the right to have your call delivered remains. Trucks and tracking technology are improved all the time, but the right to have your package delivered has not changed in over 100 years. There is no shortage of models for how common carrier can be enforced without hindering innovation.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
If your content is "worthy", people will pay what it is worth to see it. The installed bandwidth will increase to meet the demand (absent any non-competative tinkering like monopolies or goverment franchises, which may be the problem here).
That's like saying someone can go to Ford or Honda and buy up all the cars, and thus deprive all others of automobiles.
It won't work for the simple reason that Ford and Honda can make more.
No one will pay big money to monopolize all the bandwidth, because the more money they spend trying to do it, the more incentive there is for providers to make more.
And keep in mind that it's easy right now to choke off bandwidth. Simply open a huge number of simultaneous TCP connections to overwhelm all others. All other things being equal, if someone has 1 TCP connection moving data and another person has 16 TCP connections, the latter person will grab 16/17ths of the bandwidth.
Or maybe recruit thousands of zombie computers to ping flood a destination IP in a DoS attack. In effect network neutrality means those with the most bandwidth and most servers will win.
One solution to these problems would be to set up queues for all destination IPs and use prioritization to implement fair-queuing. The only trouble is that, under certain net neutrality proposals like that of Markey, fair-queuing would actually be illegal since it uses a prioritization scheme not among those allowed.
Think about that. It would actually be illegal in to fairly allocate bandwidth.
Not sure that's a very convincing argument.
I don't live in Chicago. I sure as hell don't want to pay for their highway. Therefore, having toll roads so that it doesn't cost me more in tax dollars sounds like a really good idea.
After all, having the government pay for something doesn't make it "free" it just distributes the cost among a whole lot more people; people whom, in many cases, will never see the benefit of what they're paying for.
If you want to show that government funding for something is a good idea, you have to be able to demonstrate that it's good for everyone who's going to end up footing the bill, not just the metaphorical Chicagoan who doesn't want to pay a toll.
Nobody likes paying tolls, but I think a lot of people like paying for roads they don't use and which may be on the other side of the country even less. That's why you have toll roads: it spreads the cost of a project across the people who actually use it, and assumedly who derive some benefit from it. (The arguments against tolls usually take the form of demonstrating that "people who use" and "people who benefit from" are not the same.) While a toll-free highway in Chicago would be understandably popular to residents there (just like the Gravina Island Bridge is popular with residents of Ketchican), I doubt you'll find a lot of support for it in Honolulu or Miami: after all, those people are going to ask, what are they getting by footing Chicago's bill?
The argument people are making against network neutrality is similar. Someone who doesn't use much bandwidth, and sticks mostly to services provided by their ISP, isn't going to like a 'neutral' net, because to them, it means a higher bottom-line cost than a tiered service might. In other words, they're basically subsidizing heavier users, or users of content that would cost more on a non-neutral net.
If you want to argue against the opponents of network neutrality, you have to come up with some sort of salient argument why it benefits the user who just wants a minimum level of service for the cheapest possible price. What does the $12.95/mo. DSL user, who does nothing but check email and look at things that are on the Comcast portal page, going to get from network neutrality, other than the possibility of higher rates?
Now, for the record, I support network neutrality, but comparing it to toll roads isn't going to help the cause any. If anything, "toll roads" are exactly the argument that the telcos and big ISPs are going to make. You don't want to go down that path.
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FCC statement.. those are legally binding right? And won't change with whoever gets put in charge of the FCC in years to come?
Pretty sure the answer there is no and no. Don't even get me started on how hard it is to define abuse.
Not that I disagree with the notion... I'd rather not let the government get any more involved in our Internet than they already are. I just don't trust the FCC any more than legislators or big ISPs.
You want low latency in your game traffic? How about smooth VoIP conversations? Would you like your ISP to block the spambot from filling your email with nonsense? There are good reasons for prioritization and blocking, none of which any of our current legislators can comprehend. Please keep them out of the decision making process and let ISPs run their business. If you don't like your ISP's policies, find another. If you have no choice, go talk to your local city council about laying municipal fiber and you'll have plenty of choices when that is done. If they don't listen to you, move to a city that is in the 21st century.
And what I get is two answers, that in my view are opposing. On one hand, he says he thinks "the net" should flourish with innovation, not just on the edges of the net, where things have traditionally happened, but inside the net as well. And then he goes on to say that he's opposed to anything that fragments or otherwise exclude players in the net.
I'm with him on the latter, but I fail to see where or how any commercial entity operating for profit will care anything about the network's integrity if they can make profit from limiting the performance of others. "Competition" is often defined in exactly that way, after all.
Ultimately, it comes down to either trusting commercial, for-profit entities not to interfere with internet traffic at large or legislating a prohibition against such activity. Ideally, any such legislation should essentially say "innovate all you like, but you cannot reduce the performance of competing traffic." Wisdom illustrates that no commercial can be trusted not to interfere with competing business without requirement of contract or law.
At the same time, the current situtation allows for ISPs to use the tiering features of their routing equipment as it was originally designed: To provide near real-time routing for time-sensitive traffic such as Voice Over IP.
e utrality.pdf (yes, it's a PDF)
Now read it and tell me what in particular you think will bring the Internet to its knees, or shut up (and no, this isn't specifically aimed at the parent, but anyone out there talking about it without knowing what it is).
They can do that now, and they can do that after Net Neutrality is passed. It seems that most of the complaints (on both sides) are about what they think could happen (but is illegal before and after, or legal before and after), not what is actually changed by it. About the only thing done now that *might* be illegal after would be restricting of P2P and servers housed in people's homes. My reading of the bill would make DNS filters and SMTP filters designed to stop DDOS and spam illegal. However, since these can affect performance for all and are not legal otherwise, those restrictions could probably remain, though a court would probably have to be consulted.
If you have a problem with the bill, please point me to the section you have an issue with. If you don't know the section you don't like, then you obviously don't know enough about it to object. The particular part I don't like is that many CLECs could be put out of business with Section 12 (d) of the draft bill. Oh, all right, here is one place you can take a look at a draft: http://dorgan.senate.gov/documents/newsroom/net_n
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Mr. Kahn seems to be completely overlooking the fact that ownership of the national network backbones is very concentrated, and that these owners are pushing hard to use their virtual monopoly position to maximize ROI. They have no incentive or stated intention of innovating or adding significantly more capacity until they've rung every last dollar out of what they've got.
It's common practice for various industries to sponsor economists, attorneys, academics, and engineers at non-profit think tanks, so it would be all too easy to suspect a hidden agenda in this case. However, a few minutes of Googling Mr. Kahn and the CNRI didn't turn up a smoking gun, so it may be that he's just being native about the market conditions.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Which of these do you think is more likely to happen if Net Neutrality is broken:
1. ISPs maintain the same level of service they do now, and allow some sites to pay more for a faster pipe to you.
2. ISPs cut your default service to squat, and make sites pay for anything resembling decent bandwidth.
Pieces of evidence to consider: N.N. wasn't even an issue until certain ISPs figured they could extort money out of sites like Youtube (which use a lot of bandwidth). Number 2 is cheaper.
What it comes down to it, your broadband ISP sold you an always-on connection that runs at >= 1Mbps but they aren't remotely capable of delivering it if everyone starts doing more than burst-type downloads. And now rather than own up to this mistake, they want to make the guys who made their error apparent (streaming video) pay. ISPs are corporations, which means that they don't care if it will destroy the Internet as we know it, because it's cheaper.
I'd be more than willing to bet that if legislation requiring minimum service levels passes, we'll see the minimum service level drop to squat, and anyone wanting decent bandwidth pays anyway.
Yes, so long as it is all game traffic, not just whoever's game traffic a man-in-the-middle ISP decides to grant low latency.
Yes, so long as it is for all VOIP systems, not just the one offered by an ISP.
Not particularly, since I don't use my ISP's mail servers.
I'm fine with that...
...except that ISPs are suing to block muni broadband. As far as I'm concerned, if there's a way to build an Internet that bypasses ISP stupidity as needed, ISPs can be stupid. But, if ISPs are going to block build-outs like muni broadband, then the ISPs have to follow a code of conduct (e.g., "common carrier") that offers a level playing field to all. They can't have their cake ("we'll charge arbitrary content providers arbitrary amounts or turn off the tubes") and eat it too ("and no, you can't stop us by building a municipal network").
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Roads are a public good. You benefit from them whether you use them or not. Look at anything in your home or office, and chances are that it was transported via road many, many times during it's journey from raw resource to finished product. Everyone benefits from the increase in trade. Roads help goods move faster, faster moving goods means an economy that grows faster.
Then there is the public safety factor. Everyone benefits from the fact that firetrucks can quickly reach a fire and put it out before it damages other property. Everyone benefits when police can quickly reach the scene of a crime. Everyone benefits from the fact that, with an efficient transport network, we can defend out territory with a smaller military.
By refusing to pay taxes that go towards roads, YOU are the freeloader. Roads represent an externality, a public good. The free market does not deal with externalities efficiently. Ignoring the public good, roads have utility X. People will pay Y for that utility, and the amount they are willing to pay determines the number and quality of roads available. This will be less than the optimal number and quality of roads, because the true utility of roads includes the externalities that can not be accounted for in market transactions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That would be just fine, IF I had a choice of more than two packages from more than two broadband providers. As it stands now, I can get two packages from Comcast and two packages from Verizon. There are no other broadband providers in the area. And because I don't have enough choice in the services provided, any differences in speed would not be a problem.
However, were I in a situation where there was sufficient choice in the broadband market, this sort of thing wouldn't affect me much. There are all kinds of value added services from my ISP that I never use, from that ridiculous "fan" to email to spyware and spam filtering.
There's two issues with network neutrality. The first is the backbone providers. At that level, all traffic should be neutral. Any preferential treatment would degrade the whole system because the of the way the Internet works. You can't tell which network your packet is going to be routed over, and so the consumer wouldn't have a choice in this case.
The second issue is with the last-mile providers, the ones who provide services to business and residential customers. As long as I got 8Mbps down and 768kbps up regardless of where I was sending the data, I wouldn't care if they improved service for something I don't use.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
We have lived during a rare time, when such a powerful medium has somehow managed to keep from being completely commercialized past any recognition of the fragile and open universe it was for its first decade. There may be no way to stop the dictates of the almighty "marketplace" from having its way with the Internet like a brute with a virgin child, but I give credit to those who are trying to think of ways to keep it free for a few more years.
And it's amazing all this happened while the internet was unregulated. Imagne what would of happened if it had been regulated.
FalconShould there be a Law?
None of the "jokes" on Slashdot are funny anymore. Hell, most of them weren't in the first place. Don't get your panties in a wad just because one conflicts with your personal politics.
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Prioritization is not inherently bad. Whats bad is prioritizing within the same network protocols.
For example, prioritizing ComCast VOIP service over Vonage VOIP service.
Or prioritizing video.cnn.com over video.google.com
"You want low latency in your game traffic?"
Then you'd better hope the game company decided to pay the toll imposed by every network provider between their server and your PC.
"How about smooth VoIP conversations?"
Ditto your VoIP provider, as well as potentially your ISP and the ISP of the person you're talking to (if they're also on VoIP).
"Would you like your ISP to block the spambot from filling your email with nonsense?"
That'd be nice, but I'd rather put up with the spam then give my ISP and every ISP between me and the person I'm emailing carte blanche to pitch or delay every message I send.
"There are good reasons for prioritization and blocking,"
I don't see why net neutrality needs to prevent prioritization. Shouldn't it be possible to write the laws in such a way to outlaw traffic shaping based on who the sender/receiver are while still allowing shaping based on what they're sending.
I'll grant you blocking is more problematic, but do you really want any network provider on the net to be able to arbitrarily block your traffic with no accountability?
"none of which any of our current legislators can comprehend"
Then perhaps we should try explaining it to them.
"If you don't like your ISP's policies, find another. If you have no choice, go talk to your local city council about laying municipal fiber"
And how does that help if some douche-bag backbone provider decides to throttle all traffic coming from a website I like because that site didn't feel like paying the toll? Unless you're suggesting that my municipal fiber network will have transatlantic cables...
Note that I'm not necessarily saying that net neutrality laws are a good thing, or that we wouldn't be better off keeping the government out of these things, but I do think you're over simplifying the argument a little.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything