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."'"

Comments

Throttling?

[SanityInAnarchy]

There's still this problem:

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,

Yes, but how fast?

A throttled Internet is still not a neutral network.

Re:Throttling?

[cervo]

Perhaps by saying that at least 75% of someone's network capacity has to be used to deliver all packets and the extra 25% can be re-allocated to higher priority packets or something. I'm not sure how it works.

But in principle I'm okay with throttling traffic within reasonable limits. Unfortunately due to corporate greed it is obvious what will happen. Basically people will throttle packets so slow that people like Google will have to pay, basically extortion. But still throttling has some uses if done right. A VOIP packet needs to be a higher priority than say someone's bit torrent download because it is real time. In fact most real time apps would benefit from higher quality packet.

But you need something like the operating system does. Basically in an operating system, to protect against starvation, often lower priority processes get their priority bumped up over time so that eventually they are guaranteed to get a turn at the processor. Otherwise it is possible that higher priority processes come along and cause the low priority process to starve. The same principle would need to happen on the internet.

However if you are ATT and you want to extort google, you could just make everyone's packets but google's higher priority and then google would suffer starvation of many packets and would be force to pay if a significant amount of the traffic comes through google. Rather than that I'd rather have net neutrality. But I'd be open to some type of regulations that stop people from overly slowing down other traffic (for say extortion) but using maybe the top 25% or 10% of capacity to give some special packets higher priority than others. The problem is that I don't really know how to word it exactly. And also many ways of wording it will leave the area wide open to abuse. Also remember Comcast denied it was practicing traffic management for a long time. It outright lied to everyone until it got caught. Now it claims that the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate it (which maybe it doesn't, who knows). But if the company was so sure it was in the right, why lie until caught red handed? But anyway no matter what it thinks the law is, it tries to get around it. Either it thought the FCC had the authority and tried to avoid the issue and now is trying to challenge the authority to skirt the law. Or it was just keeping to itself for customer relations.

Anyway I wouldn't necessarily mind a throttled connection at my local ISP either, as long as it says it is throttled and all the conditions. If you lie to me that's ridiculous. And if you sell $60/month throttled connections, I think you'd lose customers as they jump ship. But a throttled connection selling at a discount to a non throttled connection would probably attract some people. I think the government should start going after companies for false advertising. If you sell an "unlimited" connection then it better damn well be unlimited. Without any type of secret caps. Some companies throttle you or even cut you off after you reach a certain cap. IF that cap is not advertised clearly and it is an "unlimited" connection they should be fined/thrown in jail. If they sell a connection that says UNLIMITED to 5 GB and then throttled to 128K then that is fine. But if you sell "unlimited" then don't come whining when people use it unlimited.

Still I'm not entirely convinced that it is all network problems and not trying to set things up. Bittorrent is right now used a lot for illegal files. But ultimately when Hollywood joins the 21st century, bittorrent could be a great cheap way for them to distribute movies. Then they just need to pay for hard disk space for a movie and seed it on bittorrent. Probably much cheaper than printing out DVDs and stuff. Ultimately they could distribute a lot of older movies that are out of production due to lack of popularity. And people would probably buy them. Even TV studios can use bittorrent to distribute tv show episodes while saving a ton on bandwidth costs. N

Re:Throttling?

[derGoldstein]

Since they put up a chart and everything, and at least attempted to give some reason for their methods, it looks more like the only thing they're guilty of here is offering their customers a raw deal. I think that the main problem with throttling is when it's done without people's knowledge, and especially when they specifically target certain types of traffic.

Re:Throttling?

[Dalzhim]

But still throttling has some uses if done right. A VOIP packet needs to be a higher priority than say someone's bit torrent download because it is real time. In fact most real time apps would benefit from higher quality packet.

Then how do you determine what application needs real time and what application doesn't to provide higher quality packets? Will the next generation of P2P applications use real-time protocols to be quicker than their predecessors? Will people with legitimate real-time applications need to go through endless and costly processes to get "authorized" as real-time apps which deserve higher quality packets? Throttling is just a new tool to make oversubscription easy. It has no advantages for the everyday customer; only downsides.

Re:Throttling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our congresscritters don't have a chance at wording it right.

Are you saying they cannot word net neutrality in general right? Or they couldn't properly allow the shaping of traffic?

Both are rather incorrect. Sure, the vast majority of staff members on Capitol Hill are overworked and underpaid, but their jobs are still hyper-competitive due to the connections and prestige you build there. Based on the telecommunications staffers I have met, most of them have a pretty firm grasp of Net Neutrality (even on a numerical and technology level) and the ones that don't are working for members of congress that are just going to follow the vote of the chairman anyway. Congressional staffers also have access to a mostly unlimited supply of experts, and can phone up the government relations department at any corporation, nonprofit, think tank or other government agency and will have their questions answered in short order. They also have direct access to the Congressional Research Service, which compiles detailed reports on basically every major issue (and there are several good ones on net neutrality.

As for wording the current legislation (HR3458 to anyone interested) correctly. Numbers are rather unimportant as long as you have an arbitration body like the FCC to lean on if people start whining. So the current text seems rather reasonable. It just sets forth a number of principles for openness. For example:

(1) to protect the right of consumers to access lawful content, run lawful applications, and use lawful services of their choice on the Internet

and

(2) to preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of broadband networks and to enable consumers to connect to such networks their choice of lawful devices, as long as such devices do not harm the network

There's a number more, but this is a pretty good example of the type of language they use.

and the text ultimately leaves all of this up to the filter of "Reasonable Network Management" as "a network management practice is a reasonable practice only if it furthers a critically important interest, is narrowly tailored to further that interest, and is the means of furthering that interest that is the least restrictive, least discriminatory, and least constricting of consumer choice available". They leave the ability to arbitrate anything vague up to the FCC, which does employ a number of informed people on this subject (quite a few who likely even read /. ). I guess all I'm really trying to get at is that just because legislation deals with something technical, does not necessarily mean it will be screwed up, or that it even requires that technical of a bill. HR3458 is only a few pages and doesn't really include any technical language.

On a side note, Senate offices are usually large enough to accommodate an actual IT staff, usually of the nerdy /. reading variety. In fact, I'd wager that the legislative staffers in charge of telecom issues will be using their office's IT staff as a knowledgeable resource if the senate really gets a comparable bill going.

Re:Throttling?

[slinches]

Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.

It's not that difficult:
It's like living in Nevada and having an 80 mph speed limit on I-80 if you're going to California and a 40 mph limit if you're headed to Utah because California payed to have the speed limits changed to benefit themselves.

Worrying

[GreatBunzinni]

The way they worded their stance is very worrying. For example, this expression:

"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,"

The "message" part can be interpreted not as a packet but as any message such as email, IM or blog entry, which could be used to justify that any network traffic that crosses a network can be fiddled by the operators, even dropped, if it was sent through a connection which is communicating through protocols other than the ones officially sanctioned by the operators. So as your download isn't a message, your home-made VoIP service isn't a message or your internet gaming connection isn't a message then they would be free to just drop it as they see fit. To put it in other words, if the operators don't identify your connection traffic as being message exchanges then they can simply do what they wish with it, which, as wee have become used to, will mean that you and I are screwed.

Then, this next excerpt is also important to take notice:

" 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."

Well, that means nothing more than "and don't fuck with our business". That's terribly worrying because, together with the first stance, this reads as we get to choose what to do with our traffic and no one should ever bother us about it.

So this has the potential of being a horrible, horrible attack on today's free internet. And that is very scarry.

Re:Innovate without permission

[derGoldstein]

I noticed that phrase as well, and thought that Google should adopt it as its tagline or motto:
"Google: We Innovate* without permission. *the meaning of the word 'innovate' may change at any time"

It suits their MO perfectly. They choose to "Innovate"(disrupt) certain aspects of the market when it suits them. The "Innovate"(pour money into) projects they see as helpful to their overarching goal. They especially "Innovate"(alter privacy conventions) according to how it best suits them at any point in time. Possibly their best defense against any objection is "it's technically *not* illegal, so piss off". This is all (mostly) fine, I just hate that they do it under the "we're the good guys with the OSS and 'do no evil'" umbrella.

Wireless is the future though

[beakerMeep]

When you think about it, wireless speeds are stating to catch up to hard wired connections. Over the next 10-20 years I think we're going to see a shift away from landlines. In terms of net neutrality this should mean there will be numerous companies competing in the wireless network market (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint). This is good because ultimately users would not stand for gatekeepers that throttle -- therefore competition and user choice is paramount here. What worries me is device lock-in and two year contracts. Google's latest move with the N1 is starting to make a bit more sense now.

Re:Central Authority?

[blitzkrieg3]

RTFA, but yes:

While Google and Verizon disagree about the degree of authority the FCC has to oversee network management, they seem to concur about the agency's limited powers in other areas. Although Congress has given the Commission oversight over radio and television broadcasters, these mandates should not be transferred over to the Internet, the companies warn. There is "no sound reason to impose communications laws or regulations on the robust marketplace of Internet content, applications, and services."

This whole "Google will work it out with ISPs on a case by case basis" is probably the scariest development in net neutrality in a long time. The only reading I can have of it is that Verizon had something that Google wanted, and they said "not until you change your stance on net neutrality". Net neutrality advocates have lost a big partner here.

The obligatory car analogy

[jonaskoelker]

Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.

Not at all.

Suppose the roads were privately owned. Dominos and Pizza Hut offer competing pizza delivery services. You really like Dominos' pizzas better, but Pizza Hut has paid the road owner of your neighbourhood to only let one Dominos delivery through for every 20 Pizza Hut deliveries, so you can't get your delicious pizza.

That'd make you quite unhappy, right? You'd feel unfairly discriminated against just for living in the wrong neighbourhood, right? You'd feel the road company servicing your neighbourhood was not providing the service you expected (despite you paying them), right? Oh, but you could of course always move. To a neighbourhood that has Dominos instead of Pizza Hut, but only lets the shipping company you hate operate. Or...

I think that car analogy was pretty easy and worked pretty well.