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Google & Verizon's Real Net Neutrality Proposal
langelgjm writes "Announced this afternoon in a joint conference call held by CEOs Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Google and Verizon have released a joint net neutrality proposal in the form of a 'suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers.' This comes on the heels of last week's assertion (and subsequent denial) that Google and Verizon were close to concluding talks that would permit Verizon to prioritize certain content in exchange for pay. A look at the actual text of the framework shows some positive net neutrality principles, but there is also some more curious content: 'Wireless broadband' is singled out for exclusion from most of the agreement, and providers would be permitted to prioritize 'additional online services... distinguishable in scope and purpose.' Public Knowledge, a watchdog group based in Washington, has criticized the agreement for these provisions."
We either get Big Corporate or Big Government deciding on what, when, how, and how fast... I am not sure I want either, and consider it the end of the Internet as we know it.
This is equivalent to writing your representative and saying "This is how I think this issue should be handled". I'd rather see companies doing this and trying to put forward workable compromises than throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbyists.
from the text:
(1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice;
(2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and
(3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or
service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service
LAWFUL? what the fuck is that all about? now, we have to have layer8, the LAWFUL INSPECTION layer, before we can send the PDU?
this is stoopid. lawful this, legal that. lets just insert a truly literal (cough) policing layer in the IP stuck. sure, why not. its now 'in the spec' (so to speak).
and point 3 is a nice gotcha: if you are using up 'too much' b/w you can be classified as 'doing harm'. if you ping to discover, you could be seen as 'doing harm'.
nice. or, should I say, nice try, assholes.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
From TFA, I am seeing a strange trend. They are making some outright statements that fit in with what the /. crowd has been discussing, often enforcing the view that the net should be neutral. Their words however, seem to hide subversive tactics. for example: "This means that for the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition. Meaning that centralized agencies can shut down - or degrade access - to "unlawful" (defined by US government) content such as wikileaks, etc. (taken from comment section from TFA) So, while this looks good on the surface, even surprisingly so, my gut is to not trust either of these entities. Cautious skepticism is the name of the game here.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
This is America. We have a long tradition of corporations writing public policy. Dick Cheney even gave them their own task force, so they could write the U.S. energy policy directly, with no need to even bother bribing a Congressman.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The first amendment gave them the right to provide a 'legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers'. Seriously, this is just plain old lobbying, and is on the more legitimate side of lobbying since they're not bribing anyone. Google still has the same rights as anyone else and they're doing absolutely nothing wrong here.
The Register has an interesting piece on Net Neutrality and Google's co-location deals. El Reg posits that Google is trying to eat its cake and have it too: appearing to be the good-guy by supporting Net Neutrality, while knowing that its own private backbone network and ISP server co-location will give it a de-facto advantage regardless:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/09/neutrality_new_net_hypergiants/
Easy! The Supreme Court.
Look up "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission"
It happened in January 2010 and gave corporations first amendment rights.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Yeah, but none that aren't monopolistic, totalitarian, asinine, or flat-out bullshit.
So? That just means Verizon needs to increase the damn network capacity!
So? Verizon shouldn't be allowed to do that!
No it's not; all possible explanations for wanting an exception for wireless networks are evil!
All telecommunications providers should be Common Carriers, with all the restrictions implied therein. Period.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There are dozens of potential reasons why there would be an exception for wireless. Most likely Verizon wasn't willing to allow any application run over wireless because they know their network couldn't handle it. Or possibly because Verizon wants to be able to dictate what devices can run on their wireless network (we know this is true). To choose one explanation without a reason is confirmation bias.
No, there really is only one reason wireless gets special treatment - it's because the wireless carriers in the USA have a much greater stranglehold on that segment than they do on the rest of the internet and they aren't about to give that up without the mother of all fights. You see it in everything they do from carrier-locked phones with deliberately crippled firmware to lawsuits against any town that wants to deploy their own public utility wireless network.
The only way I could get behind a proposal that throws wireless to the dogs like this is if competition in the wireless provider market were opened up far beyond the current FCC bidding system which has produced the current defacto oligopoly.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Umm, here's my take on this:
The reason they're doing this is because like you said, wireless is a huge growth sector. But the majority of Verizon's wired infrastructure (i.e. FiOS) can handle a HUGE amount of data - they've already invested in it. Wireless on the other hand, is a restricted data flow pipeline.
The bandwidth available for wireless transmission is determined by the range of frequencies available, divided by the number of users on that band. It's a FIXED amount. The FCC's not going to widen it just because, there are too many considerations for it.
You can only achieve a given data speed over wifi. We've improved it over time. But there is a physical limit for reliability of the signal, and that's why wireless is a different story. With wired (or land-based into wifi hotspots) you can just lay more lines in parallel, add a separate color laser to your fiber, etc. which makes it feasible to upgrade and widen the bandwidth. When you have an easily maintainable infrastructure, you don't mind letting it be used freely without priority restrictions.
Now pictures this: if wireless providers went all net neutral as per your calls, then a phone call would have the same priority as an app downloading updates in the background. Do you know you're going to always have good enough reception to guarantee call quality? Or are OS/firmware updates not more important than that stupid youtube of a dog who can't get up?
The point is that for wireless, there is a need to prioritize bandwidth, and because it's a fixed bandwidth, if you want priority over something else, you can't just claim it like you do on a landline network. The whole point here is that they're making an argument that you pay to use a cellphone, and instead of having a monthly data cap like you would with european providers (they have rates of $0.5 per Mbit after you exceed your allowance of 125, 250 or 500 MB), they're making it such that certain traffic will always work. Like maybe accessing your bank website. Or your Verizon account website to pay bills. If they'd adhered to net neutrality on wireless, it would end up in a huge problem because of LIMITED BANDWIDTH.
I'm a net neutrality supporter, big time. But there's no way to make it work on a wireless device practically to begin with. What other restrictions they impose on it afterwards remain to be seen. But I couldn't care less for browsing the web on a screen so small my fingers cover a third of what I'm trying to read/work on.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Really the Google-Verizon statement in favor of net neutrality "in principle" (but clearly not in practice!) is right up there with "Ignorance is Strength."
Utterly.
Hilarious.