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Robert McMillen: What Everyone Gets Wrong In the Debate Over Net Neutrality
ygslash writes "Robert McMillen of Wired claims that we have gotten Net Neutrality all wrong. While we are all busy arguing about whether there should be regulations preventing large content providers from getting preferential bandwidth, McMillen says that not only have the large content providers already had preferential bandwidth for ten years, but that by now this has become an inherent part of the structure of the Internet and in practice cannot be changed. Instead, he says, the Net Neutrality discussion should be about ensuring a free and open competitive market for bandwidth, so that anyone who wants bandwidth can purchase it at a fair price.
...but he got it right? Sure, why not.
Why can't we have both what McMillen is asking for, AND prevent fast lanes. That seems the *most* logical of all. They are not exclusive, they are two separate systemic problems.
While there might be outliers, I generally do not hear the pro-NN crowd claiming that direct peering or colocation should be outlawed, only that traffic should not be shaped based off its origin. So if some data comes in through, say, Level 3, all that should matter is that the data is coming through that pipe, not where it originated from on someone else's network.
"the Net Neutrality discussion should be about ensuring a free and open competitive market for bandwidth, so that anyone who wants bandwidth can purchase it at a fair price"
"Free and open"? As Stallman of FSF what that means and theyll probably get an answer they couldn't handle.
No. Net neutrality is about ISP's not violating their contracts with their customers.
My ISP works for ME. I pay them to provide X amount of service. As such they are legally required to provide me with X amount of service, even if take full advantage of their service and use X amount of service every single second of the day. They can't promise me 10gb/second, and then only give me 10gb/second for ten minutes a day, switching to 5 gb/second after those ten minutes.
They are perfectly allowed to give me MORE than 10gbs a second, if someone else - like say Google - offers to pay for it.
But they can decide to not give me 10gbs because netflix refuses to bow down to extortion from them, even if I am using all 10gbs every second of every day of every month. Nothing netflix or other companies do gives them permission to break their contract with me.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why does everything need a normative judgment attached to it? The interesting part of TFA is the information about the structure of the internet and how that has developed (or not) over the past ten years (as this was new to me, though it may not be to you), not the author's opinion about what he thinks are the right topics to debate and which ones are wrong.
He isn't taking the regulation far enough.
We should not only enforce fair pricing on interconnects (perhaps even require public data on them) but we should also be demanding that Quality of Service (QOS) is honored from end to end.
There are numerous applications that are running across the Internet today that require higher QOS levels but the priority gets dropped 2-3 hops out so they can only be run on local LANs or private WANs.
Our lives are already regulated by governments all the way to hell and back and look how messed up it is now.
Regulating internet will lead to more expensive and less efficient service for all. The only winning parties will be politicians and lawyers, as usual. The population always loses with regulation.
Libertarian market driven approaches of 'perfectly informed' customers having access to 'flexible supply' are only workable on paper. Sure, it would be nice if we could get there, but meanwhile our situation continuing to deteriorate. Time to abandon this quixotic quest.
What we need is "mostly works for most people most of the time", and to get there we need policy with teeth that mandates Net Neutrality. Sure, it won't prevent all abuses, but we only need to prevent worst of them and let the rest play out in courts.
...is not a worthy goal. Robert McMillen is essentially saying "the market is historically uncompetitive" (and thus broken) "but that's not the point" (i always love it when people tell me that their point is the point) "you should be able to receive [only] that broken product at a fair price". If he actually believes and understands what he's saying then he's promoting a system of government supported monopolistic and anti-capitalistic cronyism. (i'll leave it to Godwin to apply a label to that system)
When someone with technical background says "It cannot be changed" it smells corruption. There are times when things cannot be changed because technical constrains (that should fade with time), time, money, etc. Everything can be changed if it is well designed and based on something real. But this is based on money and profit, it can change, and it should be chaged, as soon as possible. This is not a technical problem or limitation, this is stupidity at the service of profit.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
The solution is NO regulation.
If you offer internet access you can't offer any vertically integratred services that will cause conflict of interest in the way you run the network.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If we wanted to go back to AOL's gated network of the 1990s we would invent a time machine and cover it with AOL CDs.
We the customers are paying for a certain amount of bandwidth to the Internet and we have long since paid for the build out of the Fiber Optic network infrastructure through our monthly payments. It is simply fraudulent to be charging customers a fixed price for bandwidth and then effectively limiting peering to other networks so as to create an incentive for other networks and content providers to pay off the Telecoms to provide that telecoms customers their content as a service... these are services we as customers are already ostensibly paying for or are requesting. It isn't like a content provider can turn on your computer or tv and make you download their content... the Internet is primarily about end users initiating some communication and either the computer on the other end responds or not. Verizon or Comcast sitting in the middle and deciding which communications should get a fast lane based upon who has the most cash is just a bad way to run a communications network and a bad way to regulate a free market.
Sure transparency in what kind of peering arrangements telecoms have with other companies all contracts regarding quality of service or internet connections could be useful for regulators who might have the time to spend years sifting through all that paperwork to figure out what is good for the free market or not, but it is no substitution for net neutrality which would assure customers that they are actually getting the bandwidth and good faith service they are paying for rather than perniciously getting fleeced at both ends with service that the telecoms feel free to effectively throttle down whenever they feel like it despite apparent contracts with their customers to provide a certain level of service.
What the author of the article gets wrong is the idea that there can ever be a "free and open" market for bandwidth. The holders of the most bandwidth are always going to be major corporations, because they can pay for the infrastructure necessary to keep them going. Sure, I'd love to have my own backbone connection and the server infrastructure to back it up, but in practice that will never happen unless I take out a bunch of loans and somehow manage to start my own ISP (and not be immediately sued out of existence by Big Telco or Big Cableco). It's a financial issue, not one of net neutrality.
The real issue here is that the United States will never have bandwidth and speeds equivalent to those seen in parts of Europe and Asia unless we start regulating what the ISPs can sell and how they can sell it. Right now, an ISP can promise a connection that goes "up to" any arbitrary amount of bandwidth and get away with it even if they never deliver speeds anywhere close to the upper limit. This allows them to charge more and more for the same inadequate connection. If we start regulating their advertising and start forcing the ISPs to upgrade infrastructure to remain competitive, that's how we'll get the connection speed other countries do. That, in my mind, is part of what net neutrality is - being able to buy comparable connection speeds for a reasonable price no matter where in the world you are or which ISP you're dealing with.
I fail to see how CDNs and direct peering agreements between ISPs and content providers are particularly relevant to the debate over Net Neutrality. As an analogy:
Comcast owns all of the land and roads in a city (or region, or neighborhood). Google wants to deliver goods to customers in that city, but their warehouse is in another city. Google and Mom-n-Pop Content Provider, Inc. both use the same publicly funded highway to get their goods into the city, and the same Comcast-owned roads to deliver to customers throughout the city. Comcast can deliver goods faster because they have a warehouse in the city. So Google pays to build an air-delivery network (peering) and a warehouse in the city (CDN). I don't see the problem with any of this. The analog to net neutrality, then, becomes whether or not to allow Comcast to (abuse its monopoly ownership of the roads to) raise or lower the speed limit for individual delivery trucks, based upon whether or not they belong to Google, Comcast, or Mom-n-Pop.
As I've said, IANANE, so feel free to point out any relevant inconsistencies in this analogy. On an 'unrelated' note, Amazon...
Telecoms are the ultimate middle-man which no one wants. They add little value to the ecosystem.
The main reason we are in this sticky situation is because we allowed one company to provide both the infrastructure and services on top of that infrastructure. A few years back Israel passed a law preventing infrastructure companies from bundling services (in essence, forcing them to split into two different companies) and it led to a substantial price drop and an increase in competition.
I am more than happy to pay infrastructure companies for the pipes, but they should have no right to charge different prices depending on what goes over those pipes.
If a services company wants to double-dip (charging both ends) I will happily switch to a different provider while retaining the same infrastructure. Their loss, not mine.
Don't you have some form of contract law where you live?
Contract law doesn't help if both wired broadband ISPs that serve your area hide behind provisions that they add to their boilerplate contracts to provide unsatisfactory service. Regulation would at least make these provisions more conspicuous, or perhaps make it easier for competitive ISPs to enter the market if the incumbent's service is unsatisfactory. For example, a service with a 300 GB/mo cap would have to be advertised as "1 Mbps burstable to 50 Mbps".
Does your mom have enough bandwidth to take in my fetid cock?
I expect better from someone in his position.
While the article doesn't come out and say "People should not support Net Neutrality because fast lanes already exist," it does feel like that is the vibe. I think that the delivery service analogy works the best in describing the situation:
* Comcast is running a package delivery service; they take a box from somewhere in the country and deliver it to your house.
* Netflix wants to send you a bunch of boxes: "Orange is the New Black" with an episode per DVD, so you pay Netflix for your boxes AND some money to Comcast to deliver 10 boxes to your house.
* However, Comcast is really peeved at all the work they have to do for Netflix; so, Comcast talks to Netflix and says "Pay us or these boxes are going to be delivered at a rate of one per month." Keep in mind that your boxes are already bought-and-paid AND you paid for the shipping.
The article is basically saying "Well, of course it is going to be delivered at the rate of one box per week; Netflix is in Alaska and the guy's house is in Florida! It has always worked this way! What Netflix SHOULD do is 1) be super rich (lucky for Netflix) and 2) pay Comcast to set up a mini-warehouse in their shipping department in Florida to guarantee a better delivery rate."
However, that is NOT the problem; the problem is that Comcast is artificially slowing the rate of delivery based on who sent the boxes.
The Net Neutrality argument is not about money, it is not about peering, it is not about the customer getting his boxes as quickly as possible. The argument is about preventing the worst-case scenarios at a very general level.
Comcast notices that they have been paid to deliver boxes filled with flattened boxes with Verizon labeling; they decide that the best way to route these boxes is through the Netherlands, then Australia, then South Africa, then Greenland, then... making sure that these boxes take what feels like MONTHS to get to your house.
.
I'm surprised that Wired fell for this false equivalence.
Sure, it is always good to publish ideas that may be in opposition to the mainstream. But I would have expected Wired to at least publish opposing ideas that are not so completely ridiculous, thereby giving those ridiculous ideas a false equivalence to the reality-based mainstream ideas.
I agree, this is really about the ISPs actually providing the product that they've sold and there's no need to get into what 'should' happen or what people 'deserve'.
I wouldn't put too much weight on the article author's description of how the Internet works. He gets some of the concepts right, but the implications wrong.
Peering is a win-win for absolutely everyone. It's not preferential treatment, it's a way for two networks to reduce both of their IP transit monthly bills. We don't need less peering, we need more peering. The only traffic that should be hitting paid transit for an ISP are packets heading for smaller networks and the other side of the globe, which are not within reach to peer with.
The US network is built on direct peering, it wouldn't work at all without it. We are slowly catching up to the EU where peering fabrics are more popular. This means that an ISP can use one port to peer with dozens or hundreds of other networks.
Peering doesn't disadvantage smaller ISPs and content providers, because it's still more affordable for them than buying transit.
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Yo, dude, when you think everyone else is wrong and you are the only one who is right, it's time to check yourself into a mental health facility.
You're wrong. Period. End of discussion.
Replying to my own comment here, but Content Delivery Networks aka Caching is also a win-win for everyone. It keeps IP traffic local and cuts down on the amount of bandwidth that has to leave the ISPs network and burn up transport bandwidth and possibly also increased transit costs. The customer gets faster service, the ISP gets reduced costs, the Content Provider has a better product. This is also something we need more of for the Internet to continue to grow.
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I have to say that while I agree that the marketing is devious, in practice my bandwidth has always been at least as good as the "up to" amount the companies have promised. I don't defend these companies in general, but the "up to" speeds & marketing is going to be a hard one to argue against if it's not currently a problem.
I think the lack of market competition is a much bigger problem than marketing techniques. Customers can't "vote with their dollars" because their only two realistic options are 1. internet or 2. no internet.
$200/month. You could do it. Cable prices are getting to that point.
Ensure true available choices and competition among consumer level ISPs and nearly all of these problems take care of themselves. Allow local monopolies on a broad scale as we have now and we give the power to do this to those ISPs because you have no choice to take your business elsewhere. The "Libertarian" self regulating market can work, but only if monopolies are not allowed.
Net neutrality isn't about forbidding high-traffic companies from finding efficient ways to handle that traffic. Doing what Netflix usually does, having a local cache server hosted within the ISP, works because it reduces the amount of traffic leaving the ISP. As long as the ISP charges the same amount to everyone doing so (0 is a good amount - it's a benefit to them - but if they want to charge a nominal fee, fair enough), it's neutral.
Net neutrality is about not letting ISPs slow down traffic unless they get paid twice.
If the only difference between two sites is that one paid the danegeld and the other didn't, they aren't making one faster - they're making the other slower. Deliberately degrading the performance of everyone else is NOT neutral.
are this.
Direct pipe connection between content providers to increase speed
vs this.
class-map payingcustomer match-any
match access-list payingcustomer
class-map nonpayingstrugglinginternetstartups match-any
match any
policy-map qos payingvsnonpaying
class payingcustomer
police bps 100000 150000 80000 conform-action transmit exceed-action set-qos-transmit 4 violate-action set-qos-transmit 0
class nonpayingstrugginginternetstartups
police bps 8000 1500 8000 conform-action set-qos-transmit 0 exceed-action drop violate-action drop
access-list payingcustomer
payingcustomer1 ip range and ports
payingcustomer2 ip range and ports
---- :))
fin
*(apologies this is meant to be somewhat accurate to actual router config but was not tested. If you find problems please keep in mind this is meant to illustrate a point not configure an actual router, and also this is not to be used as an example top configure a router, even with modification it probably won't work) (Subnote* I don't really care I am posting as an anonymous coward!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a consumer I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth. How do I make a choice if I only get that bandwidth when I use certain services and the rules are so complex that I can't figure out when I am not getting what I paid for because the provider sucks, or because I have the wrong one for the services I want.
This guy is totally wrong, on so many levels. Yeah, ok, so the last 10 years we've been seeing providers buying preferential treatment from carriers. For most of us, the common Joe, we're not going to feel this, not in 10 years. It's just happening slowly, quietly. I imagine as it progresses further, smaller content providers will be seeing the preferential treatment of larger ones forcing slow downs on them. Given more time, smaller providers and startups will face crushing competition with the big guys who can afford to buy up all the bandwidth. Don't even get me started on content providers whom are also carriers.
And saying just because it's been going on for 10 years that we can't go back? WHAAATT? Is this guy insane? So just because they've been building up contracts of preferential treatment we can't say, "Hey, you need to cut that out now." No sorry, common carrier status for all carriers and be done with this issue. I call shill.
Everyone's arguing about this or that net neutrality opinion... They're missing the big point. The internet is a miracle, and we shouldn't fuck it up.
I didn't have the internet when I grew up. When I wanted to know something, I had to go to the library and read for hours. When I wanted to communicate with someone, I had to write a letter and wait weeks. When I wanted to shop remotely, I had to get a catalog, fill out a form, send a check, and wait 4-6 weeks for delivery...
The idea of instantaneous (or near enough) access to all the knowledge and culture of humanity was a science fiction pipe dream that would only come in a fantastic future. We don't have flying cars, but we DO have access to all the knowledge and culture of humanity. That's AMAZING. That's a miracle.
We finally invented the future. It's here. We have an amazing tool. Now some assholes want to gate it off and double dip, to charge you more than they should, and to charge the giver of knowledge or culture more to be seen, even though we're both already paying for connection.
This is outrageous. This is why we need net neutrality. Real net neutrality. The pipes should not be allowed to dictate WHO gets to play in the bright future.
We should not only enforce fair pricing on interconnects (perhaps even require public data on them) but we should also be demanding that Quality of Service (QOS) is honored from end to end.
The word "fair" always worries me. Define what you mean by "fair"? Fair by what standard and to whom? I don't disagree with your general assertion but "fair" is such a nebulous abstract concept that it is effectively meaningless most of the time.
Net Neutrality is about preventing the providers from fiddling with your bandwidth simply because they want to extort money.
QoS was never part of Net Neutrality. If a Google or an Amazon wants to pay 1Mbps for a line directly to my house, that is FINE with me. They pay for the QoS and peering agreements at that point. However that does not mean the provider can now give me 9Mbps instead of 10Mbps because the Googles of this world paid for 1Mbps direct lines. And that is what this is all about. Comcast/TWC wants to sell my 10Mbps that I have over and over again to the highest bidders so I have 1Mbps to the Google, 1Mbps to the Netflix, 1Mbps to the Amazon and 7Mbps for the rest of the world. I want my 10Mbps and decide who I want to get services from.
I paid Comcast/TWC for the 10Mbps, I could reasonably assume that they give me 10Mbps to the "Internet". They pay for peering at an Internet Exchange. Google pays for peering at an IX, Netflix pays for peering at an IX. The IX makes sure that there is plenty of bandwidth at the IX to have the 10Mbps from Google to go to Netflix and TWC. The problem is now TWC wants to squeeze the Netflixes and the Googles simply because they are a large portion of the traffic they've been seeing and thus they're an easy target. TWC has been oversubscribed 1000:1 and even though data requirements have increased 10-fold, I am still at the same speed that I had 10-15 years ago. So now they need to actually get along with the rest of the world and they don't want to, they'd rather someone else pay for it (over and over again).
In a free market, I would go to whoever gave me the fastest connection to the Netflix. However in the US at least there is no choice so I am at the mercy of my provider. And even though they are a monopoly, they also don't want to be classified as a utility since then they could be regulated and forced to play fair like my other utilities.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
... McMillen gets it wrong, too.
Net neutrality isn't achieved through regulation at all. It's achieved by public ownership of the physical infrastructure and demoting the ISPs and even backbone providers to contractor status serving the common good. What would happen if American roads and highways weren't for the most part publicly owned and instead were all toll roads privately owned by the construction companies that laid them? Who would benefit from that situation, do you suppose?
"Companies that provide Internet services should treat all lawful Internet content in a neutral manner. "
from internetsociety.org
Content or data should include content or data binaries for software that provides a direct connection to DNS servers etc. for customers.
Fair price = only affordable by the established order.
McMillen doesn't seem to understand that.
Here's the thing, I have already purchased bandwidth and the sites I want to contact have as well. In order for it to be fair, I and they should actually get what was paid for,
Simple solution to everything. Consumers pay based on a bandwidth commitment and a 95th percentile.
Netflix happily provides servers to cache their content, for FREE. This solves the congestion issue which Comcast CLAIMS is the reason why Netflix had to cough up literally millions of dollars.
However Comcast REFUSED to deploy those FREE SERVERS.
Anyone who argues that is NOT extortion is an idiot.
Anyone who IGNORES the "refusal to deploy free servers" issue is an idiot.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
In "Libertarian Land" there is freedom for consumer reporting and advocating organizations (like Consumer Reports) and bloggers, etc as well as safety testing and certifying organizations (like Underwriters' Labs - the "UL" guys) so the average citizen would not need to be "perfectly informed". Far too many people today go through life in "la la land" assuming that everything is safe and good (because "like, dude, if it wasn't safe the government would ban it") so people do not pay enough attention to the truly independent people who are already available ... and yet the government is so big, bloated, slow, and corrupt that it is incapable of protecting the consumer. Government consumer protections are on par with "police protection" ... they'll be there to draw a chalk outline around your corpse. The police (like govt consumer regulators) are not necessarily evil or incompetent, it's just that there can never be enough of them for them to be there protecting each individual at all times; their job is to show up after the bad event to find out what happened and then catch and punish the guilty.
Your idea that Libertarians would throw everybody to the wolves and every consumer would have to work hard to be "perfectly-informed" is simply wrong, and an unfair portayal of the ideals they advocate. As I indicated in the subject line, I am NOT a Libertarian (I have other problems with their ideology and whether it is workable) but the simple fact is that in the area of consumer affairs you are very wrong about Libertarians. The internet has, in fact, made the Libertarian ideals for consumer marketplaces and consumer protections more-possible than ever before and IMHO we've probably crossed a line into a place where the Libertarian form of consumer protection is easier and superior to the massively-expensive heavy-handed top-down Federal government form.
Amazon wants Hachette to pay premium so it's own customers can get books from Hachette.
That is exactly what missing net-neutrality looks like.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse