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A Simple Guide To Net Neutrality
superapecommando writes in with a neutral introduction to net neutrality from ComputerWorld UK. While it doesn't go into a lot of technical depth, it's rare to see anything written on the subject that isn't rabid on one side or the other. "Google's recently announced plan to set up trial fiber-optic networks in the US with ultra-high-speed Internet connections puts the long running national debate over Net Neutrality back into high gear. A hot topic of discussion and debate in government and telecom circles since at least 2003, Net Neutrality, actually involves a broad array of topics, technologies and players. Here's a primer for those looking to get up to speed fast."
IMO, I'm not a huge fan of strict network neutrality, there are cases where you want advanced traffic management techniques that would be non-neutral: EG, if you are dealing with wide-area wireless, banning P2P applications is probably a very good thing, as wireless bandwidth is vastly more expensive. Likewise, token-bucket hacks which improve interactive traffic could in some ways be considered "non neutral", as the start of a transfer is given preference, but the net result is it greatly improves user experience.
But what is important is network transparency : we need to know what is happening, since without knowing what's going on, you can't distinguish between reasonable management practices and unreasonable ones, such as wireline services blocking P2P, favoring some sites over others, or blocking applications.
Additionally, there are a lot of behaviors, such as DNS wildcarding, which are non-neutral but have been overlooked in the debate by focusing solely on application transport.
Thus I believe its important to develop tools (such as, obligatory plug to the research project I'm involved with, , Netalyzr) so that we ensure transparency. We need transparency, because we need to "Trust, but verify". Otherwise, even if network neutrality was legally enforced, how do we know we are getting what we expect?
Test your net with Netalyzr
Ever searched for directions to/from your house? Sent an e-mail with your address? They probably have at least a pretty good idea of where you live anyway.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Yes you are off and this has nothing to do with peering agreements. At it's base, legislating network neutrality is dictating that the way the internet works now is the way it should work. ISP's are meant to be access points, not gatekeepers. Net neutrality legislation aims to prevent ISP's selling tiered services like cable companies do with their service. An ISP can't go and make an agreement with one content/service provider (say MS Bing) and throttle all competitors to be so slow as to be useless and turn around and say that you have to upgrade to the next package up to be able to use Google. Network neutrality prevents an ISP running a VOIP service and throttling Vonage into oblivion, unless you pay for the *special unlimited* VIOP package. Network Neutrality prevents double dipping, i.e. the ISP from charging you to access content AND charging content providers to be in the lower level tiers.
Legitimate QoS is not prevented under network neutrality. ISP's can, and should, prioritize VOIP over HTTP. They could even throttle BitTorrent if they wanted to.
BitTorrent is the big problem with the FCC's plan. They specifically allow ISP's to filter out illegal traffic. BitTorrent has many many legitimate uses, unfortunately no ISP that has filtered BT has ever recognized that fact and simply blocks it all.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Sorry. Xfinity Cable is not the same as Xfinity Internet. You are using Xfinity Cable to watch On Demand programs, not Xfinity Internet. It doesn't matter that the same wire is being used to deliver both, and your Xfinity Telephone service too.
By the way, our new 100MBPS Xfinity Internet speeds allow you to reach your undefined unlimited bandwidth limit 10 times sooner, so enjoy watching Xfinity Cable for the remainder of the month after you hit your limit with Netflix on-demand on day 3 of each month ...
Because in 2006 AT&T's CEO opened his mouth and basically stated he wanted to hold his customers hostage from Google in exchange for more money. He plainly stated that he wanted to charge both his direct customers AND people who were incidentally coming across the lines. It was made plainly obvious that corporations can and would abuse their services and their customers for the sake of making a profit, especially when they had a monopoly position in areas.
My personal preference would be to force common carrier status on all data providers.
A bunch of regional monopolies serve as the only reasonably modern gateway to the most important technology of the late 20th/early 21st century, and they're more than willing to destroy what makes it unique.
The carriers should be forcibly struck blind. They've already been caught fucking with connections, and are more than willing to host and affect their networks (and customers) with conflicts of interest that serve only themselves.
You are wrong. When cable (and before that telephone) started to roll out, the local governments in the major metropolitan areas decided that they didn't want lots of wires running through the area, so they passed laws granting local monopolies. When less densely populated areas wanted to get cable (and before that telephone) the cable companies said, "Sure, we'd be happy to run cable in your area. If you'll give us a monopoly contract for your area, so that nobody can come in and compete with us." It's a little more complicated than that as there were federal and state laws that were passed to make this legal (so that the local municipalities had the authority to forbid anyone else from running cable or telephone wire). When this happened there were lots of small players in the cable market. Over time some of them were more successful than others and they gradually bought up the smaller players (and their local monopoly deals). Once the major players got big enough, they changed the federal law taking away the local municipalities' authority to select who controlled the local monopoly. Theoretically they eliminated the local municipalities' authority to grant monopolies, but since those monopolies already existed in a defacto way, all they did was eliminate the local municipalities' ability to turn the local market over to a competitor.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison