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Network Neutrality Defenders Quietly Backing Off?
SteveOHT writes "Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. The story claims that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have quietly withdrawn from a coalition of companies and groups backing network neutrality (the coalition is not named), though Amazon's name is reportedly once again listed on the coalition's Web site. Google has already responded, calling the WSJ story "confused" and explaining that they're only talking about edge caching, and remain as committed as ever to network neutrality. The blogosphere is alight with the debate.
"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil." We are all fine.
Need I say more? They're grabbing headlines once again for confused reporting.
No!
You get "fast-priority" because Google put a server closer to you.
This is similar to what Akamai does.
So it's not unfair around the internet, only that google gets faster because it's closer
how long until
This is google paying more to provide a faster service, not paying more to provide the same service. there is a difference.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I keep hearing how we need NN regulations because there is so little competition, but I also don't see much being done by NN advocates to eliminate local and state franchising laws which make it harder for companies to enter cable and broadband markets. If Google were more libertarian than liberal, I would expect them to be proposing a referendum in California to sweep away all of the franchising laws so that there are no local or state limits on who can enter what Internet or TV market.
Part of the logic behind franchising laws is that they give more revenue to local governments, but so what? Most local governments can do without, and if you really need to help them with funding, then the obvious solution is to give them more latitude to tax their residents.
The WSJ is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns ISPs in Europe. For him net neutrality is a threat to a potential revenue stream. All we're seeing here is the 'editorial independence' of the Murdoch press.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
struggle to see what the problem is here really. It sounds rather like Google are buying dedicated (virtual) pipes to move data around. Millions of companies already do this and no one complains. Flame away, I get that foot in mouth feeling.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
net Neutrality is like election finance reform. The people trying to gain access are all for it, but once access is gained, the urgency seems to fade away.
Google needs net neutrality where it is weak, but exploits sweet heart deals where it is strong. The ISPs should be careful, in this economy, the infrastructure that they depend on can be bought by Google or Microsoft. More over, if Google or Microsoft could buy or build a few major backbones, they'll be screaming bloody murder FOR net neutrality.
I think Google has done the numbers, though. They are banking on semi-truck sized compact portable data centers and using existing the existing backbone as merely the pipeline for cache coherency. So when you run google apps, you are getting your applications only a few hops away without sprint in the way.
I will paraphrase an old expression, never under estimate the data bandwidth of a semi-truck sized data center driving two days across country. Think about the number of raw terabytes that can be shipped vs transfered over the backbone.
Well, this is why network neutrality is so hard to get right. Of course it's not much different from what Akamai does. Of course anybody could do it. But of course it's going to shut out the majority of sites in favor of those which can afford to get in bed with all the last mile ISPs. If Google and all the other big ones go right to the ISPs, why would any ISP work on upgrading their internet connections? Most users will think that other sites are just slow, when in reality the slowness is caused by a drastically underdeveloped connection from the users' ISP to other networks. In order to compete, you would then have to pay for the fast delivery of the data right to every ISP's doorstep: That's effectively the same as "we throttle you unless you pay up", i.e. not network neutral.
So since the US taxpayers paid for that cable that means we should get to say how it's used. I agree with you.
It wasn't just the telecoms that now "own" it that paid into its construction cost you know.
We had a huge hubub about telephone lines some time back and THANK GOD we can actually choose our long distance providers now or else we'd be in a libertarian nightmare of monopolies and high prices.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Which has NOTHING to do with "Net Neutrality", even though the anti-neutrality people don't QUITE seem to get that it doesn't prove their point or that anyone's turning their back on things.
Net neutrality is about applying the same consistent rules for all content and not munging for "quality of service" reasons the stuff. If Google's stuff gets there to you more robustly and quicker, it's because it's spending quite a bit of money putting HARDWARE they maintain closer to you and more of it.
The stuff the net neutrality people are harping on about is where the crap the ISP's are shovelling gets priority unless you pay them protection money.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Instead, each ISP hosted a server on their own network for this content. The BBC just sent one copy to each ISP and their customers then fetched it from their local copy. The same thing can be done to a degree by setting the correct cache flags, assuming your ISP provides an HTTP proxy. It only really makes sense for very large sites where a significant proportion of the ISP's customers are going to want to access and get a lot of static data. It's not applicable in the general case.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This ISN'T insightful.
This isn't backing out. If you understood what Net Neutrality actually meant, you'd understand that this is quite a bit different.
In the Google story, all they're doing is putting dumb bit shovels closer to you.
In the thing that people for 'net neutrality' are talking about, the ISP gives higher priority to the content THEY provide and unless you pay tribute to each ISP, they do nothing or actually degrade your priority, meaning you stuff gets to you slower or not at all- depending on whether it's the ISP's crap or your content provider paid their danegeld.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Net Neutrality is somewhat a myth. Network providers already prioritize their own traffic in many ways like edge caching. Or, they might change the way data is serviced to allow a more requested provider better access. Absolute Net Neutrality is a myth.
What we want to prevent is the practice of shoving a provider purposefully shoving third party content aside in order to better highlight their own content. For example, setting up your network in such a way that a Google search takes three to four seconds to return results while the provider's search results are instantaneous. Users will switch to the faster provider's search engine. Or, maybe streaming content from iTunes or YouTube is no longer smooth. You attempt to listen to a song or play a video, and you get a lot of caching going on. However, the provider's own video and music service is smoother with no caching.
This is the true issue. Is the same firm that provides the pipe (or if you live in Alaska, the tube) to your computer using its advantage to push other business they're way.
There were two types of monopolies that the government use to watch over. One was a horizontal monopoly where a single company captures a vast majority of the market and can use their clout to prevent others from entering the market, thus eliminating competition. An example of this was Standard Oil.
The other, lesser known monopoly was the vertical monopoly where the company controls the entire vertical distribution. Two examples: One was the three television networks. They were prohibited from producing their own shows for the longest time. The reasoning is that if they could, they could favor their own productions over third parties. Instead of hundreds of independent production studios, there would be three who could control payments.
Another example is Boeing. At one time, Boeing was not just an airplane manufacturer, but also owned an airline. This meant that Boeing could favor its own airline with newer equipment at cheaper rates, thus giving its airline a cost advantage over other rivals. This was back in the days when airmail was an important revenue stream for airlines, and Boeing could outbid its rivals. The government separated United Airlines and United Technologies from Boeing back in the 1930s.
This is the actual problem. Local providers of service should not be content providers too. Otherwise, their content would have an unfair advantage over other content providers. This should be enforced not just in the Internet, but also with cable and satellite television providers. You can either provide the pipe to the TV, or you can provide the content over that pipe.
If local providers of Internet service didn't have their own content they were pushing, there would be no issues with net neutrality.
Missing from the article, however, is the evidence that my view is a "shift" or "soften[ing]" of earlier views. That's because there isn't any such evidence. My view is the view I have always had -- whether or not it is the view of others in this debate.
I'm sure they get that just fine. Unfortunately the truth has little to do with power-hungry people trying to get their way.
Wired has a good summary of the controversy.
--"At one time, Boeing was not just an airplane manufacturer, but also owned an airline. This meant that Boeing could favor its own airline with newer equipment at cheaper rates, thus giving its airline a cost advantage over other rivals." Yes, lord help us if the consumer actually got cheaper airline tickets. Thank God the government "helped" us by making prices more expensive than they had to be.