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Verizon and Google Offer Up Net Neutrality Truce
When it comes to net neutrality, can we get along? Google and Verizon, antagonists on the question yet partners in Droid, say yes. The two companies have even teamed up to send the FCC ideas on how to handle network management disputes. 'Google/Verizon say that the Internet should function as an "open platform." That means, to them, that "when a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message," they write. The 'Net should operate as a place where no "central authority" can make rules that prescribe the possible, and where entrepreneurs and network providers are able to "innovate without permission."'"
A throttled Internet is still not a neutral network.
Actually, if it's throttling based on overall traffic, and not port/application-based, then yes, I'd say it's neutral.
"That means, to them, that "when a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message,""
This statement has no meaning if they don't include protocol in it.
Do they mean "he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to... by whatever means they choose" or
"he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to... as long as they're using only the tools and methods we tell them to"
And as someone else already pointed out, they don't mention speed either. The devil's in the details, after all.
It's an interesting start, but this is what people have come to expect from the internet in the first place. The part I worry about isn't whether there or not people will be able to reach each other. It's how the big networks will change to rules and set up restrictions, yet still convince people that what they are getting is still an 'open internet'.
In other words, they're trying to come up with something that looks open on its face, but on closer inspection keeps all the power in the hands of private interests they can control. They realized their petty squabbling could both both their businesses in jeopardy so they're pretending to get along like a big house on fire now and praying that the FCC finds something else to pick on while they muster their political allies.
It's a tactic designed expressly to weaken the FCC's support in Congress by appearing to be the victims of the FCC "control freaks", while they, the benevolent corporate interests, only want the lowest prices and best services for you, the vulnerable consumer. Cue media relations campaign in 5...4...3...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Actually, if it's throttling based on overall traffic, and not port/application-based, then yes, I'd say it's neutral.
Make that port/application/end-point and I'll agree.
Why should my HTTP packets cost more than those from one of Verizon's preferred partners?
Have gnu, will travel.
I fear that everyone is losing sight of the original problem: that websites could pay ISPs to have their accessibility increased to that ISP's customers, or pay to have their competitors slowed, or even that ISPs might start racketeering sites to protect them from being slowed to the point of inaccessibility, not cut off.
At some point, the telco lobby seems to have tricked everyone into forgetting that this is what we were originally upset about, not the more drastic idea of having access cut off completely for some reason. Simple QoS based on volume obviously makes sense, and censorship is a serious issue in net neutrality too, but we've still left a very large door open for Big Telecommunications to exploit; they can still, for example, make Google unbearably slow and Bing super-fast to manipulate their customers' usage habits if Ballmer forks over enough cash. This declaration says nothing about that kind of behaviour!
Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.
For example, on the M package, if you download 1.5 GB between 1000 and 1500, they bring you down to 200 or 300 kbps. That seems fair to ensure that nobody's encroaching on someone else's speeds (although I'm no network engineer, so someone else can confirm whether this is a legitimate line of reasoning by them).
I'm also not a network engineer, but it seems rather obvious that their system is not "fair" so long as the throttling is arbitrary and bears no relation to the available bandwidth.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!