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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."
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."
"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"
You simply don't understand what "Net Neutrality" is.
Hint: is not promoting some protocols over some others. It's about promoting some *providers* over the alternatives.
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.