Slashdot Mirror
Net Neutrality Summit
Castar writes "BoingBoing has a post about an upcoming summit in San Francisco about the issue of Net Neutrality. The EFF and speakers on both sides of the issue are gathering to debate and spread awareness of Network Neutrality, which is an increasingly important topic. The FCC, of course, might have the final word."
I think "Net Neutrality" is the wrong term, because it allows people to twist the argument to the wrong thing. I am more concerned with network transparency, and honesty. Make them say what they are doing and why. This will keep the Comcasts of the world somewhat more honest...
What makes an Internet turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or was it just born with a tube full of neutrality?
When you think about it, "net neutrality" is hard to describe in terms of the current Internet, because it is based on commercial systems, not on some government-supported network. Government could theoretically legislate neutrality, but the government had spent the better part of the last three decades deregulating industries. There's only one reason the government would get involved: if they could tax it. If the "net neutrality" debate meant legislation that allowed the United States Government to somehow tax Internet traffic, you can bet you'd have it in a minute.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
...bringing together lawyers, academics, economists, and technologists... Those people represent the pro-network neutrality side. Now, please invite the CEO of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast as well, so we can get the view of all 3 people on the other side.I offtoic'ed you for incessant spamming of that Spymac garbage.
If you continue, I'll use my other 4 points on you.
Creepy Crawler (680178)
I hate these filthy Neutrals. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me. What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
"If I don't get out of this alive, tell my wife I said Hello."
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
So far, the biggest problem with Net Neutrality is that those who want it don't define what they mean by it first. Should VOIP packets be delivered quicker? I think so. I don't mind if my email is delayed for several seconds.
I don't want complete packet neutrality, I just want all providers to use the same sensible transmission configurations.
Comcast has its own very expensive and poor quality VOIP. Comcast should not be allowed to delay the packets carrying the much superior free Skype VOIP calls.
I can't imagine why I, a consumer, would support what I've heard about "net neutrality." It seems to be all about restricting my freedom to buy the service I want in the service of a dubious and cynical goal that, practically, boils down to making sure freeloaders don't have to pay any more per packet than the rest of us. More or less a guarantee of some kind of Tragedy of the Commons on the Internet.
For example, it sounds like if I happen to want a massive pipe to my door, and lightning service to various IP addresses of my choice, then Big Momma a.k.a. the government isn't going to allow me to cut a deal with my ISP for speedier treatment of my packets in exchange for more money. Likewise, if my aged parent wants only some de minimis service for reading e-mail, and is perfectly willing to accept 4th class parcel-post service for her packets if the price is in the basement, then she, too, is up a creek, because it's a one-size-fits-all price and service level set by some doofus bureaucrat in Washington.
Well, screw that. I trust my ability to cut a deal with Verizon over my ability to cut a deal with a Federal agency any day. You think Dell's customer service is crappy? Try getting a government agency to change its mind, make a reasonable exception to the rules, see you as a person instead of set of numbers in a computer record. At least with Verizon I can threaten to withhold my money from them, which of course I can't do with the government, and if I piss Verizon off the worst they can do is refuse to sell me their service, while the goverment can and will put me in jail.
Furthermore, using the ol' retrospectoscope and checking out the record of innovation and efficiency growth in industries that have been heavily regulated in the past -- in the interests of fairness to the consumer of course -- such as airlines, telephone service, broadcast radio, power generation and distribution, public education, public health -- then alas any one with half a brain comes to the unpleasant conclusion that such interference always increases the price and decreases the efficiency of the service. Inasmuch as I'd like to see the spectacular gains in efficiency and innovation in networked computing continue, and not sink into the torpid sludge of the standard government-dominated project, then I'd also have to conclude that nearly any kind of top-down regulation other than that required to keep everything above board and open is the kind of clever-sounding but ultimately dumfuk idea that occurs to all of us when we've had a few too many beers during a college bull session.
History and economics prove that such an attitude leads to a non-optimal allocation of existing resource allocations, and removes incentives to invest into additional capacity. In a recent study, the Nemertes Research group warned that last-mile investment by ISPs was falling behind and would slow down adoption of HD content on the Internet.
The solution to the tragedy of the commons is the market. Only the market can achieve an optimal allocation of resources, and drive investment into additional capacity.
What the Internet needs is a marketplace for hosting capacity, supported by a universal network where:
That would pretty much make the "net neutrality" debate a moot issue. Content providers would enjoy lower hosting costs; consumers would enjoy faster downloads; ISPs would make money providing the bulk of the hosting (à la Usenet), instead of setting up roadblocks.
... there was a company called ATT. The fairy godmother DARPA asked ATT to build it a redundant network that could survive links being severed in a nuclear war. Oh, DARPA also wanted the ability to plug any computer it wanted from ATT's competitors into the network. ATT told the fairy godmother to take a hike, so the fairy godmother asked the hippies at Berkeley and MIT to build it for her instead. And of course the hippies let anyone who wanted to connect to the network and opened the code and the Internet lived happily ever after.
Oops, or at least they lived happily until another company called ATT and its evil brothers and sisters Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner reared their ugly heads again and wanted to take unplug all those happy services which they don't have revenue sharing agreements with. They also want to lock you into crippled phone/computers so they can charge you $2 for a ringtone and $0.15 for a text message.
I'd say "what we need here is some more government meddling, because that always works out well". ANd you'd know i was being sarcastic.
I'm a bit torn in this case, however, because the government has already meddled and in most cases created internet access monopolies for the local market incumbents. Normally market dynamics would sort out this mess and if any company tried anything stupid, they'd get their asses handed to them. But in a landscape of local government-backed monopolies for net access, a market solution is unlikely to foster.
So, i'm against government meddling in general, but in this case, previous meddling has created the mess. They can "unmeddle" but that will never happen, so instead they'll meddle further. Hopefully it won't make things worse, but i'm not optimistic.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Its interssting to note that the summit will be held before the next administration can boot the current set of industry ( * ) kissers out.
Have gnu, will travel.
Wish I still had my mod points.
Sounds about right.
So why isn't the free market providing something like that? And what about the high level backbones, which is what net neutrality is about? Hosting providers don't usually control Internet backbones. Neither do ISPs.
Bandwidth is not externalized. You and I and hosting providers all pay for bandwidth. But the high level backbones want to extort more money from the content providers, basically saying, "Pay us more, or your competitors' packets will get there faster." The thing is, even if you want a neutral net, you can't buy it. Your ISP can not guarantee that a higher level backbone provider is not messing with the packets of content providers that you want to visit.
Please, don't try to simplify everything down to free market solutions. The issue here is fraud and extortion, which are legal issues and require legal solutions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So in USA you're debating exactly how the network companies should route their traffic so that your CIA-monitored dial-up lines becomes equally bad where ever you connect.
In Sweden we debate on how we should secure the right to share information privately and how to cheaply get something better than 100/10 Mbit Internet connection.
USA had a huge lead in Internet adoption, but it has turned to dust by network monitoring and pseudo debates like this. I have 50% of my customers in USA, so can you please stop babbling and get some real Internet to the people? You don't need a huge company to connect a village to a 100 Mbit network... Well, maybe in USA because of regulations?
Even having an FCC rule over the broad areas it passes regulations on is arguably unconstitutional. The FCC doesn't have the power to control the Internet in detail. It doesn't have the power to stop technologist from inventing ways to supersede any control it attempts to exert or that any corporation or group of corporation attempt to assert against the express wishes of the people. So let's not act as if we are helpless in the face of whatever some unelected body decides. We are not.