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BitTorrent CEO On Net Neutrality
angry tapir writes "According to BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker, the Internet industry has to regulate itself by responding to consumer demands in the wake of the recent US federal court ruling that the Federal Communications Commission didn't have authority to enforce its net neutrality rules."
I didn't know a protocol could have a CEO. :)
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...but unless you work for, are paid by, or represent an ISP, how can you support allowing ISPs to give preferential (or detrimental) treatment to different types of Internet traffic?
Living With a Nerd
Everyone fears decentralized networks and lack of central control. It is easier to ban than to utilize what you're not creative enough to adapt to.
Doesn't "self regulation" usually result in services and pricing that always benefit the industry at the expense of the consumer?
We just GIVE the FCC the power to regulate (bitchslap) troublemaker isps like comcast.
The free market wont fix it. Nobody else will fix it. So make the FCC do something useful for a change.
Altho i'm not sure why we allowed internet provider greed to ever bring up net neutrality at all. Neutrality should just be the way things are by default.
We're just not a very bright species i guess. Or too many of us are getting paid one way or another to be tools for the isps. Sell everyone out for a buck.
In short: pimps up, ho's down.
Internet is not an industry. At most it's an infrastructure supporting industries. Is there some school in the woods that teaches those morons marketing speak?
Slight (mostly relevant) rant:
I'm a little tired of hearing "bittorrent" used as a synonym for "piracy". Do lawmakers, ISPs, and IP holders not realize that bittorrent has plenty of legitimate uses as a distributed filesharing platform? And I'm not just talking about Linux ISOs: One example is World of Warcraft, which has integrated bittorrent technology into it's patcher. For a piece of software that popular, not using bittorrent or something similar would probably bring down the patch server constantly.
Bittorrent != piracy (or copyright infringement). Stop using them in the same breath.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Much of this seems to stem from the corporations having multiple interests, e.g. Comcast wouldn't want anything that competes with their Video on Demand. Since corporations are usually interested in Money and not ethics (can't think of a better word right now), maybe we need to remove the conflict of interest? Force any company with an ISP to spin of the ISP from voice/video/music/audio/etc services. I'm kinda leery about news organizations being owned by media corporations as well... Conflict of interest. Some humans are good at dealing with it. Corporations seem to always go for the buck unless someone's in danger of death or serious injury.
they become monopolies or oligopolies, and warp the marketplace so only they benefit
the greatest enemy of the free marketplace, true capitalism, is not socialism or communism, but monopolies and oligopolies. people need to understand the difference between capitalism and corporatism
capitalism is the engine of growth of any economy, and the country that is able to keep the marketplaces as close to free as possible is the country that prospers. corporatism meanwhile is all about the larger players in the marketplace paying off the government, abusing natural defects in the marketplace, and otherwise ossifying and abusing their size to squash innovation and consumers to maximize profit. what's most important is to realize that the only tool you have against capitalism devolving into corporatism is a government with strong regulatory powers. the players in the mark place won't self-regulate, ever... well, they WILL self-regulate, if by that you mean the degenrate meaning of merely consolidating their power at the expense of the free market
the "shocking" realization for the libertarian free market fundamentalist is that the friend of the true capitalist is a strong central government with lots of regulations. it seems contradictory to the common rhetoric, but its absolutely true. perhaps the common rhetoric has been bought and paid for by corporatists. perhaps those who fight government, whether out of being propagandized or being naive, are actually working for the oligopolies whose true desire is to crush the individual and the marketplace (for then they profit more)
if you are a true libertarian, your greatest enemy are oligopolies, not communists
we need a sea change on the right in terms of seeing that large corporations are not their friends, and represent a greater threat to their beliefs and their country than any bleeding heart liberal could ever be
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm actually kind of glad it hasn't fallen under the FCC, because it just wouldn't make any sense. Whatever level of government is creating the monopolies, is who should be regulating. Cable Company has a franchise with your city? Then the city is the one who should demand neutrality (and any other necessary pros for the quids). And in the rare situations where an ISP doesn't have any monopoly force, there's no need to regulate them, because their customers and competitors can handle the job.
I know people generally hate this idea, because they don't want to get involved with local politics and only show up for general elections so they can vote party tickets, but tying the special favors directly to the restrictions is the right thing to do. If you don't like local politics, the problem is with you, not the fact that you have a local government. Get over it, face up to your responsibility, and demand some conditions the next time you use government to transfer your power to other private entities.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From TFA:
About 60 other companies distribute versions of BitTorrent software, which is open source, but the ["official BT"] company has about 70 million users out of a worldwide total of about 100 million, according to Klinker.
I must be on the wrong trackers, because I sure see a much higher representation of non "BitTorrent" clients than 30%. If anything, I'd say Klinker's official BT client represents a minority of users.
And where does that 100 million figure come from? Are there "only" 100 million BT users worldwide?
Communities are being sued for supplying internet access. Please try again.
The problem is ISP over selling their bandwidth.
Users always like their download go fast. They click on a page and it should display immediately.
Initially, ISP clients don't download much over time, only spikes when they clic on pages.
So at a given time, only 1/100th of the user are having any data flowing online.
Thus an ISP could use 100mbit/s upstream per 10'000 users and sell them "1mbit/s connections". As in fact only 100 of them will be transferring data at any given time (while the other read webpages on their screen).
Fast forward to web 2.0 and the situation has changed much.
Lots of users are constantly transferring data at full bandwidth.
The most characteristics are Peer-2-Peer like BitTorrent (no matter what they actually transfers). You launch your bittorrent client and start downloading Debian's Blueray image. Over the next few hours/days (until the image is downloaded) the client will be constantly streaming data from the web. Also, over the next few day, until you decide to shut it down because you've reached an ethically acceptable ratio no to look like a leech, the client will be constantly broadcasting data at network maximal speed.
(It also works with web radios, video streaming, video conferencing, big downloads, and even the increased clutter of webpage with large BLOB like flash. But Peer-2-Peer, especially the legal one, is the easiest to understand, because it tries to work at maximal bandwidth and generates a constant flow until shut-down)
The "bandwitdh required only during spikes" phenomenon disappears. Oh my god, the trick that the ISP have been using to oversell way much more bandwidth than they have doesn't work any more !!!
Now there are 2 possible way to react :
A. USA-way :
Find a scape goat! Blame it on bit-torrent! Start arbitrarily throttling stuff so peer-2-peer user get the crappy speed that the ISP can indeed realistically provide (a couple of 10kbit/s), while at the same time keep pretending that the other users are getting the luducrious speed their are over-paying for because in fact it only happens in short bursts.
This violate the fundamental principle behind distributed networks like internet : that all nodes should be treated equal.
B. European way :
Try to be more realistic about the bandwidth your are selling.
In France, internet connection are sold as "*up to* 25mbp/s" - not an over-exaggerated bandwidth, and wording signals that this is a best-case scenario (the worst-case scenario is mentioned in small print).
In Switzerland, internet connections are still sold as "guaranteed minimum 1mbit/s" - they are based on the worst case scenario and indeed work so even if more user start to use constant data-flow.
European ISP don't try to over-sell craptastic bandwidth with over-inflated promises.
Of course, the difference is that here we have a little bit more competition. An ISP who starts offering "200mbits" connections but whose service doesn't maintain quality as soon as users fireup some data-streaming application, will soon see all its clients flee to a concurrent with more realistic and conservative offer but with a more consistent quality.
The fault is on ISP for over-selling. So stop blaming the Bittorrent users.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Since we have no choice in what ISP to choose from since they'll all do this if one does it...couldn't we just protest by all dropping all of our providers at once? Simply use wireless hotspots for a month or two (libraries, etc...) to get "work" done and get some extra sleep at night rather than stream one last movie (or, you know, dust off your DVD/VHS/Betamax collection). Go one month without internet--if enough people go along with it and actually commit, the ISPs won't think they have it made like a drug dealer somehow legally peddling at a rehab center.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
The FCC didn't have the statutory authority to enforce network neutrality. Congress never authorized it. Do you really want the courts siding with the FCC on a precedent that could give federal agencies a de jure resumption to write regulatory laws without congressional delegation?
You know when people talk about saving democracy and all that crap?
That's precisely what the federal courts did by bitch-slapping a federal agency that claimed regulatory powers well outside the scope of its congressional mandate.
"Properly metered" is just your opinion. The industry has set itself up with a non-metered model (just like cable TV, local phone service, etc). Changing the model now would cause consumer confusion and very likely be abused by the industry to get more money from consumers.
If this were to happen, I'd expect that the lowest-usage customers will get a small savings, but I don't expect it to be a huge cut. On the other hand, I think they will try to make moderate and heavy users pay out the nose. It could have a very negative impact on digital distribution, streaming services, and many other legitimate uses of the internet that use a lot of bandwidth. It will likely kill HD streaming online as well. Also, do you expect the average user to understand how much bandwidth various sites or applications use?
Finally, Comcast will really have trouble getting sympathy from me regarding their profitability. Remember, they are the ones that just acquired majority shares in NBC.
Of course that brings up the old problem with that this can also help them give preferential treatment toward the content they want you to have. How about being metered for Hulu and Netflix, but you can have unlimited access to online shows at NBC.com?
Metering is an awful idea... Tiered pricing may be reasonable, but only if the tiers are set reasonably and take into account that the average user is using the internet for a lot more than they used to (such as watching TV online).
While ISPs are not very nice, net neutrality legislation (giving the FCC control) is not good either--for instance, how long would it take for them to implement mandatory filtering against child porn, or copyright infringement? The solution I like is to avoid net neutrality, but also deregulate enough radio spectrum to implement better wireless applications for network access, to break the natural monopoly created by the last mile.
some of you think that if there was choice, you could just choose the isp which respected net neutrality and problem would be solved.
it is anything but this. just check any sector in regard to products and services :
some corporations start some practice in their product/service. if they can get away, others start to imitate it. when the number of companies practicing it hits a noticeable level (and corresponding market share), the practice becomes de facto standard of the sector. in almost every field this is like that.
so, even if you had competition, 2-3 major isps (at&t filth etc) would start filtering their traffic, and after a while try to push it as de facto, logical nature of the industry. they can take huge losses, they have staying power, they can wait. you couldnt expect smaller isps to resist for long.
this is something like your free speech rights - you cant just skip enforcing them, and then just expect everythign to 'work out fine' by itself. some things need enforcement.
Read radical news here
Larry Seltzer wrote the following in the article's comments:
"An actual test of BitTorrent MTP (http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/bittorrent-would-rather-be-selfish-than-friendly/) indicates that BitTorrent doesn't do what Klinker says."
I found his linked article to be an excellent follow-up to this one.
Nope, that's been sued too. What happens is that the community is sued for competing.
Last I checked Coaxial cable isn't like a river, it sends signals equally in both directions.....Its not like it has some magical quality that makes electrons flow in one direction (towards your computer) much easier than the alternative (towards the net). Just because the ISP doesn't want to provide you with the bandwidth doesn't mean shit. This is exactly why important infrastructure needs to be socialized. Yes, fuck you I said it, publicly owned. Everyone pays for equal parts up and down. This is an completely artificial market.
I don't understand why neighbors don't run their own cables and routers. Every home spends 200-300 per month on phone, cable, and internet services. If people would run their own cables and routers, that could all go away, in exchange for calling a cable or router maintenance guy sporadically, when stuff breaks.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This is why it is absolutely fucking astonishing that after trying to establish that the average user screws up his own VoIP/gaming latency with unthrottled bittorent, the author puts forward ISP-imposed QoS as the solution. Presumably deep packet inspection based QoS, or else how are they to identify what connections really constitute VoIP or gaming or other "legitimate" traffic? He also condescendingly proposes this like it is some kind of original idea. Perhaps he actually thinks it is; that brings us to the next observation.
He is totally wrong on a technical level, and his solution would not work. When you trash your own connection with BT or any other bulk upload, you are the victim of your own router. It can only send out so many bits a second, and it naively queues packets in the order they are received. As a result, acks can be delayed by 100s of milliseconds, which effectively mauls (TCP) downstream bandwidth. Your ISP can give acks absolute priority, but that won't matter a whit if they don't get out of your own office for half a second!
Now, ISPs could possibly ameliorate the ignorance of their users by including better firmware on the combined router/modems that they sometimes dole out to users, but that would have absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality. The author of that post (George Ou, apparently) uses this ridiculous strawman to finally justify these remarks:
This type of solution is what I referred to as “true neutrality” where low bandwidth jitter sensitive applications are protected from other aggressive applications. It is obviously the best solution to the problem where all applications get the most performance possible and coexist in harmony. Yet the hard line Net Neutrality advocates like Free Press and Public Knowledge want us to buy into their religion of the dumb “First In First Out” (FIFO) networks.
Wow. Those hard line Net Neutrality advocates are just preventing people from enjoying their own VoIP and gaming applications! It is possible for rational people to disagree on net neutrality based on basic principles, yet here this blogger dismisses them all out of hand, and advocates traffic shaping based on a completely incorrect and even absurd technical basis.
This comment may have been somewhat strident in tone, but I would hate to believe that a slashdotter could actually find that post worthwhile, much less "excellent." The best case is that the parent AC is George Ou, shamelessly astroturfing his ignorant blog.
I will note, however, that you could make the argument that the total upstream available to users on certain ISP networks becomes saturated, increasing latency for everyone. That is not the argument made in the blog linked above. I would also argue that the best solution to that problem isn't to arbitrarily impose QoS on users' traffic, but rather to promote a system in which users actually pay for what they get (and get what they pay for). Currently, consumers have the option of paying a small monthly fee for total crapshoot service, or paying an order-of-magnitude more massive fee for a T1 which actually offers much less (theoretical) bandwidth. That is not an efficient market. And because of their monopoly or near-monopoly statuses, large ISPs have no incentive to make the market more efficient.
Insofar as Cable and
if you took new york city apart from the rest of the country, the same statistics would apply as compared to other cities
and if you included hong kong in chinese numbers or singapore in malaysian numbers, the same statistics would apply as compared to whole countries
hong kong and singapore are parasitically arranged with their surrounding countries that allows them to be more freewheeling, their security guarranteed from afar
additionally, i think if you went to singapore, you'd find it to be one of the most regimented hidebound places you'd ever go to. you don't need rules when your culture is a straightjacket
hong kong though is nice. it also has corruption, crime and mafias
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
against certain websites or Internet-based services because the steps they would have to take, he said.
Carriers already try to be gatekeepers. Comcast does, did, so with bitTorrent.
Most people basically want net neutrality, so it would be hard for carriers to justify network management measures that are seen as discriminatory, Klinker said.
This would be true but most people have no choice who they get broadband from. They either get it from either cable or telephone. And most of those don't have access to both. Without competition the only choice is the only broadband choice offered or nothing. Government has given big businesses monopolies when there is no reason for the monopoly.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Maybe in your USA but not in mine. I frequently get junk mail advertising 7, 8, even 12mbs connection speeds. Unfortunately DSL isn't available. However Qwest does have fiber in the neighborhood. I just pulled out one of the ads I got and it says 7Mbps for $25 for 12 months. Along with the offer is free Wifi, but that's through ATT and ATT already offers free wifi in some places. Such as Barnes and Noble. Just for the heck of it I entered my address into Qwest's address lookup to make sure it was available here and it was. If I could keep my current ISP and get fiber I would but my ISP doesn't offer access through Qwest.
Yeah. We're still stuck with that.
Unfortunately for most people you're right, for most it's put up with one choice or go without.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The problem is that local politics is VERY corrupt. It is very hard to influence local politics, since most voters just vote party line. Your ability to actually impact an election is small - as odd as that might seem.
All the geeks on the internet can speak with a loud voice at the national level. All the geeks in Folksville, IN would be 1-2 people most likely - good luck having an impact with that.
I know, but it's no excuse. We have to deal with it. There is no point in talking about policies unless you have a way to implement them. And I mean a sensible way -- pushing all decisions up to the feds is just sweeping dirt under the rug.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
grammar check: You meant to say "quos" for the "quids".