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Father of Internet Warns Against Net Neutrality

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the my-two-dads dept.

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."

6 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. I don't get it... by ArcherB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So we should allow the highest bidder to choke off the bandwidth from their less wealthy competitors? Honestly, can someone explain to me how this would be a good idea?

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    1. Re:I don't get it... by numbski · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Meh. This is always a mess. From the ISP side, unless I have a business connection or the rare "clueful end user", I do traffic shaping on all connections, basically tossing p2p to the bottom of the stack, VOIP and video services to the top, and everything else to the middle. Now the kicker of Net Neutrality is that *technically*, I become a bad guy if I do this. It's entirely possible for me to decide that someone has paid me additional funds (say the local tv station) to prioritize their video feed above others to make sure it gets a nice clear picture, vs their competitors video feeds.

      Sounds pretty harmless when you're talking about Joe Tiny ISP. It's these big guys that start to give you the willies when you think about the implications of it. Net Neutrality in its purest form is somewhat of a myth these days anyway, given that almost no one runs a perfectly open router. We all firewall, we all segment and exclude, etc, etc, etc. Prioritization of packets is a natural next step in that chain. It just urks me that some PHB got the idea to make that into a profiteering mechanism, so now prioritization is evil, and will either be abused, or outlawed.

      The absurdity of it all abounds. Packet prioritization is not evil unto itself. I guess if I started squelching any and all requests from microsoft.com and msn.com but gave high priority to google.com....pfft, this is all insane.

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  2. Does kahn host his own servers at home? by SCHecklerX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wouldn't net neutrality help to stop the ridiculous arbitrary blocking of ports that many ISPs impose, which basically keeps people from using the Internet as it was intended?

  3. Re:Finally someone gets it by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Any legislation will hurt the ability of people to innovate.

    Not true. The regional broadband duopolies can do far more to hamstring innovation than net neutrality legislation would*. For example, with net neutrality, anybody is free to innovate in the fields of VoIP and VoD. But if the broadband companies had their druthers, they'd be the only providers of those services to their customers. How does that help innovation?

    * Yes, it's possible to craft legislation that would do more to hamstring innovation and then label it "net neutrality", but then, at its core, it wouldn't strictly be net neutrality legislation.

  4. I guess I get it,... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With all due respect to Mr.Kahn, who I am told invented TCP/IP: Just why should we give any weight to his notion of the best way to keep the Internet from becoming just another channel for corporate interests, instead of the wide-open agora of information and ideas that it has become.

    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.

    If we ever see the full-out commercialization and commoditization of the 'net, we will have lost something precious - something that made the turn of the millennium a great time to be alive.

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  5. Re:internet regulations by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pretty easy... just look at cable TV.

    Amazing how all the cable people required monopolies to run cable but no one needed a monopoly to run high speed internet.

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