Could Google Fiber Save Network Neutrality?

nmpost writes "Could Google Fiber, set to launch next week, be the savior of network neutrality? Some speculate that the program is Google's answer to attacks on network neutrality by the big internet providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. These companies complain about the price of upgrading and maintaining their network, and want to charge websites like Google extra money to allow customers fast access to its sites. This practice would violate the long held spirit of the internet, where all data traffic is treated equally. Google may be out to prove that fast networks can be built and maintained at reasonable prices."

Comments

Not likely

[bearded_yak]

Even the best efforts tend to become commercialized. Look at Google Shopping's new upcoming direction.

What is to stop them 3 years later from creating a paid class system? And who would be able to honestly blame them? After all, it would be THEIR network.

Re:Not likely

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yeah this supposes that everyone in the world puts money above all other values. In reality, that only describes a subset of humanity. If it described everyone then every opportunity to commit a financially advantageous criminal act would be taken by everyone every chance they got.

The reason civilization holds together isn't because we pass laws and intimidate people into obeying them. The reason civilization holds together is because most people want to live within the boundaries society sets. In fact, the generalized will of the people is where those boundaries came from in the first place. Even draconic enforcement just couldn't coerce a population into overcoming impulses that assail them every hour of every day.

What we have in America and elsewhere is a economic system which fails to punish sociopathy early on. In fact, it does just the opposite, it rewards it differentially with career advancement. The people at the top ARE different- they're worse, much worse, than the average person.

I heard some woman talking on BBC a couple nights ago about how the CEOs involed in the LIBOR scandal are really no better or worse than you or I, they just have bigger opportunities. That is exactly wrong. The bigger the potential to wreak damage on larger numbers of people,. the MORE earnest and conscientious the average person becomes with dispatching his or her duties. That's called "having a conscience"

Of course from a sociobiological point of view, we can forgive her for talking this way. Having been selected as a commentator on the behaviour of the executives of banks means she has had and likely continues to have some opportunities for socializing with them. So of course she's going to use this interview as an opportunity to signal her willingness and availability for copulation with the powerful males in her tribe. Still, if anything other than her limbic system had had control of her mouth and behaviour, any of the above facts might have popped into her head and resulted in a smarter and more insightful interview.

Not everyone is a sociopath and consequently not everyone prioritizes the accumulation of personal wealth above all other values. I count the execs at Google amongst the more morally normal people in business.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually has helped I think.
Almost every Google ad I see is unobtrusive, Many are somewhat relevant, once in a great while clicking on the ad takes me to what I was looking for.
And Google gives me a detailed list of my history with them and allows me to remove the stuff I do not want saved. (Umm...Assuming I would ever do anything that I would want removed. Which so far has ummm never happened.)
Google, So far, has been the best massive, money making corporation I have ever come in contact with.
I am beginning to trust that they are smart enough to make a lot of money and not have to fuck their customers in the ass to do it.

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Any corporation rewards those that make money for it, it's the essence of capitalism which means that's what you get from top to bottom and the sociopaths that care about nothing else floats to the top. It might not be how people act, but it's how corporations act and Google definitively is one of them. Don't expect those executives to keep it from turning into just like every other big company.

In the case of Google, though, the top executives are also the largest shareholders and have so much money that financial rewards are effectively meaningless to them. Of course, many CEO types still keep trying to increase their net worth even after they've got more money than they could possibly ever spend, because it becomes the way to keep score, and they're all about winning. But Larry Page isn't a typical CEO type, his degrees are in computer engineering and computer science, and you just have to listen to him for 30 seconds to realize he's a geek to the core. He claims that he's motivated by the opportunity to do great things that make the world better, and that the need to make money is just a means to that end. You can call him a liar, but there's really nothing in his history to support your claim.

Of course, that's now, and Google probably will eventually come under the control of a bean counter, or of a leader whose focus is on "maximizing shareholder value" in order to maximize his own net worth. But I think that's really not what's going on now, and it won't be the case for many years.

Re:Not likely

[Raenex]

Google (whom I do not work for) does seem to me to be a company apart.

You really need to open your eyes and stop buying into propaganda. I agree to a certain extent that Google puts some effort into behaving, but at the end of the day they are a for-profit company bent on creating a digital empire.

Google have pretty much lived up to the "don't be evil" slogan, a bout of WIFI panty-sniffing excepted .

Google now has a long history of disregarding privacy, and the WiFi sniffing is just one example. Other examples are not deleting email when requested by the user, the Buzz privacy fiasco, pervasive tracking (including forcing cookies on Safari via a loophole), and keeping data around for too long. Most of these problems have been addressed after public outcry, though the pervasive tracking is still there.

Comcast and Verizon and ATT are purely evil in that they want only money and the larger society can go fuck itself. They have no sense of civic duty nor do they care about the fate of this nation or its peoples , except as a PR move.

So is that why Google dodges taxes using tax havens?

"Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google's income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich" -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries. "

What?

[BitHive]

The solution to network neutrality is to buy up tons of dark fiber in the wake of a bubble and use it to build your own national network? Does anyone else see a problem with this?

Re:Fast Networks

[AngryDeuce]

Or better yet: The state

And with those words, you would drive half the people of this country into hysterics. We can't even agree to a public option...I doubt highly that enough of us would agree to fund something like that no matter how beneficial we all know it would be. Look at what they're doing to NPR...

I want a pony

[PPH]

I've long proposed that Municipalities build their own networks,

And the Big Operators have fought that. A few early adopters have slipped by them. Tacoma, WA built the Click Network through their power PUD. But the commercial operators have put legislation in place in many jurisdictions to prevent the further spread of public networks. Where this hasn't been possible, they have recruited astroturfers to scream about the horrors of public infrastructure to frighten the public away from supporting such projects.

ISPs have become oligopolies

[Taco Cowboy]

At the beginning of the "Information Superhighway" - at least that was what they called "Internet" back then - there were a lot of people pulling cables and starting local ISPs

At that time, competition was fierce, and everyone tried to one-up each others, on price, on service, on usage, et cetera, to attract new customers

While the competition was fierce, there was a feeling of comradery and responsibility amongst the ISPs, and they did respect the "Freedom & Equality" spirit of the Net

But that golden era was not to last, for big and established players from the telephone and cable industries (AT&T / Comcast), with deep pockets, out-maneuvered the smaller players - and that's what we have today, an oligopolistic structure of the ISPs

As oligarchs go, the big players got so much power that they get to do almost everything they want to do - and as we have all witnessed - not even the government has power to reign them in
 

Some packets are more equal than others

[dgreer]

May I point out that all packets are NOT treated alike, and haven't been for over a decade. Controlling priority and limiting heavy services are common procedures in all major networks, and users should be darned thankful for it.

The original argument that started all this nonsense was complaints that TWC and Comcast were ratcheting down services like eMule and Torrent. Then somebody speculated that they may start doing it to people like google (followed about a month later by Comcast and Verizon floating just such a plan ... probably suggested to them by somebody reading the original discussion here on /. BTW) and the /.ers went crazy and started demanding that somebody in government regulate those evil ISPs.

My advice now is the same as then: let the market work. If you drag the pols into this, you will get results that you REALLY don't want because they will do what their donors (who are NOT you) want them to do. Unintended consequences will surely follow.

Google buying dark fiber to take TWC, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon on head-to-head is what my suggestion looks like. If they are successful, other investors will smell the blood in the water and we may find ourselves sitting in 1999-type network growth again (only this time, nobody will be dumb enough to say that profit doesn't matter).

Regulation will be the death of the break-neck innovation that has gotten us where we are. Is it fast enough yet? Of course not, but it isn't going to get faster if every decision has to go through some bureaucrats in DC.

Re:Some packets are more equal than others

[Altrag]

let the market work

That's only a viable option whenin markets with meaningful competition. Which in most jurisdictions, is just not there in the isp market.
Without competition, the only remaining control options are regulation or crossing your fingers for corporate benevolence (pretty likely, right?)... Or well, just giving up your net+phone+tv... And if you're willing to do that then power to you, but there's not enough people willing/able to make that sacrifice for the isps to care.
Government definitely fishes things up a lot.. but I'd rather a well-meaning half measure than an intentional fuckover..