AT&T Says Net Rules Must Allow 'Paid Prioritization'

suraj.sun writes "AT&T said Tuesday that any Net neutrality plan restricting its ability to engage in 'paid prioritization' of network traffic would be harmful and contrary to the fundamental principles of the Internet."

Comments

Go @#$# yourselves, AT&T..

[rotide]

"AT&T said Tuesday that any Net neutrality plan restricting its ability to engage in "paid prioritization" of network traffic would be harmful and contrary to the fundamental principles of the Internet.

Telecommunications providers need the ability to set different prices for different forms of Internet service, AT&T said, adding that it already has "hundreds" of customers who have paid extra for higher-priority services."

So you want to tier the internet. You want only certain things viewable if I "only" pay you $30/month. I'll get more, but probably not everything at $50/mo and at $100/month I'll get everything you think I should want, but of course, something will be blocked as it will probably be against your businesses interests for me to see and/or use it (competing services, etc).

Seriously, go @#$# yourselves, AT&T.

how fitting

[jollyreaper]

I love how this is the quote that came up at the bottom of the story.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. -- Aleister Crowley

More detail...

[Mongoose Disciple]

Man, that's a short summary.

Essentially, AT&T is arguing that because the idea of service classes is built into packet headers, the internet is not meant to have net neutrality.

Their opponents argue, essentially, that the service classes are there for a given end user entity to prioritize traffic by class if they choose, not for the telecom companies to do so.

Honestly, who could be surprised that AT&T reads the history/design of the internet in such a way that it seems to say exactly what they'd like it to say? This isn't any different from a corporate version of the phenomena in which a person interprets the holy text of their religion in such a way that it just happens to say that they should hate things or people that they already hate.

Re:More detail...

[Abcd1234]

Their opponents argue, essentially, that the service classes are there for a given end user entity to prioritize traffic by class if they choose, not for the telecom companies to do so.

If that's what they're arguing, frankly, they're absolutely full of shit.

Go read the RFCs. The entire point of TOS flags and DSCP bits is to give traffic engineers *in the network* the flexibility to manage traffic as needed to optimize service for various traffic classes. Of course, this requires cooperation between network operators *and* end users, but it benefits everyone, as everyone gets the best service for the type of application they're using.

Is this mechanism open for abuse? Absolutely. But AT&T is *partially* correct, in that 100% neutral packet routing has never been a core principle in the architecture of the internet. *However*, the idea that clients and servers are equal peers, and that traffic should be treated fairly regardless of source or destination, *absolutely* is, and to conclude that network neutrality is invalid based on the presence of IP-level traffic classes, is, to say the least, a twisting of the facts and the history of the internet.

As such, I think network neutrality is vitally important, and should be regulated, to ensure that everyone is routed fairly. *However*, that same regulation should not preclude the use of valid traffic engineering techniques for optimizing network performance.

Re:The point of net neutrality

[Timothy Brownawell]

AT&T objections here, while worrisome on their own, don't necessarily conflict with the principles of net neutrality.

I'm not sure they're even worrisome, from the article it sounds almost like everyone's talking past eachother. Or just talking about different things where only the news people think they're trying to talk about the same thing.

The consumer-protection people say ISPs shouldn't be able to alter service levels based on how much the external endpoint has paid. AT&T says ISPs should be able to alter service levels based on how much the internal endpoint has paid or what preferences the internal endpoint has expressed. These are perfectly compatible and both make perfect sense.

The only problem would be if AT&T is using the internal-endpoint argument to push for the ability to make external-endpoint actions. But I expect that if that were the case we'd be hearing stories highlighting their duplicity, so...

Re:Actually..

[Shakrai]

They're also lying assholes. yes, they should be able to charge more for a T1 than DSL

But should they be allowed to prioritize the traffic from that T-1 over the traffic from their DSL customers when network congestion is an issue? The T-1 customer probably got an SLA if he was smart. The DSL customer was promised nothing of the kind.

Re:Prioritization can work...

[mcgrew]

Your analogy is too deeply flawed. It more matches paying more for a T1 than a DSL line, which few would object to. What AT&T wants is like charging more for shipping a ten pound box of chocolate than shipping a ten pound box of raw sugar.