Net Pioneers Say Open Internet Should Be Separate

angry tapir writes "The US Federal Communications Commission should allow for an open Internet separate from specialized services that may prioritize IP traffic, a group of Internet and technology pioneers has recommended. The document, filed in response to an FCC request for public comments on proposed network neutrality rules, steers clear of recommending what rules should apply to the open Internet. Among the tech experts signing the document are Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Bruce Perens, founder of the open-source software movement; Clay Shirky, an author and lecturer at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program; and David Reed, a contributor to the development of TCP/IP and an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab."

Comments

Re:Internet2 was great for academia..

[snowraver1]

I bet your ISP would LOVE to sell you 2 internet connections, they might even let you 'bundle' them together... Of course, the open one would probably cost more.

Re:Internet2 was great for academia..

[Mr. Freeman]

No, I propose that the electric company upgrade their infrastructure to handle the capacity.

Of course, this creates problems. What if one guy is running an MRI machine or something that sucks up insane amounts of juice? Obviously the electric company shouldn't be required to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate that load. So where do we draw the line?

The issue is that we're not talking about one guy on the block "using up all the internet". It's the fact that bandwidth usage is increasing for EVERYONE. Games are distributed electronically, movies are streamed, music is streamed, web pages have more and more content that you can download, etc. This isn't one guy with grow lamps causing a brownout. It's everyone on the block that wants to turn on their lights at reasonable times that's causing the problem. This more closely models internet usage.

Also, there's no talk here of guaranteed electricity or bandwidth. ISPs promise "up to" such and such a limit. This means that they can give you absolutely no service because 0kb/s is still "up to" 30MB/s (or whatever the fuck they advertise). This would be like the electric company promising you "up to" some power and then not giving you enough to even run your lights. If the electric company did this, people would be rioting until it was fixed. (It's happened before)

In either case, the solution is not to implement throttling.

We can debate all day about whether or not the government should regulate the internet, but I think we can all agree that competition would result in better service for everyone. Once some company actually makes good on a plan that contains a real SLA (including minimum speeds and uptime) they'll start raking in money like none other. The problem is that there is no competition. The barrier to entry is huge, and you have large companies like comcast that have monopolies in large areas of the US and lawyers to make sure it stays that way.

Thus, I propose that the government needs to regulate the internet only to the point that it spurs lots of competition. Congress needs to introduce laws that make it easier for new ISPs to start up and limit how much control a single company can have regarding broadband service in any given area. That way, the free market takes over and we can finally get some good fucking internet service.