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Real Net Neutrality Problem: 'Edge Provider' vs 'End User'
An anonymous reader writes At the Washington Post, Brett Frischmann elaborates on the theory that the continuing flaw with the FCC's Net-Neutrality strategy lies in the perverse distinction between "End User" and "Edge Provider". Succinctly: "The key to an open Internet is nondiscrimination and in particular, a prohibition on discrimination or prioritization based on the identity of the user (sender/receiver) or use (application/content)," and then, "Who exactly are the end users that are not edge providers? In other words, who uses the Internet but does not provide any content, application, or service? The answer is no one. All end users provide content as they engage in communications with other end users, individually or collectively. ...
Think of all the startups and small businesses run from people's homes on home Internet connections, using WordPress tools or Amazon hosting services. Are they 'end users' when they email their friends but 'edge providers' when they switch windows to check their business metrics?"
Wrong thread. Would be nice to be able to delete a post...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It sounds like they're intending to draw a distinction between nodes that principally receive data from those that principally transmit data.
If the node has a high ratio of bits received to bits transmitted, it's an "End User." If it has a high ratio of bits transmitted to bits received, it's an "edge provider."
ISPs are neither. They presumably have similar numbers of transmitted and received bits because they are mostly actiing as conduits between data sources and data sinks.
When they email their friends, how much are they arranging to charge for sex?
Maybe if I troll enough I can get my post modded down. How does this go? Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger. Don't be gentle. I'm new at this. Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigggeeerrrrrrssssss.
> ...Brett Frischmann elaborates on the theory that the continuing flaw with the FCC's Net-Neutrality strategy lies in the perverse distinction between "End User" and "Edge Provider".
Can it be?
Neutrality, as I understand it:
- pay criterion is neutral, not dependent on gender;
- selection criterion is competence, neutral regarding race;
- etc.
Neutrality means non-discriminating. Or at least I thought so.
I completely agree that the "end user" and "edge provider" distinction in this case is absolutely ridiculous...it's an non-functional abstraction layer that has absolutely nothing to do with network engineering...there is an "edge router" but the distinction between "end user" and "edge provider" is not technical
however, we cannot be tempted to think that because this confusing, stupid distinction exists, **if we fix it, we fix Net Neutrality**...that's wrong
no matter what the language, it's about the data, and the free flowing thereof
the "end user"/"edge provider" distinction is the *mechanism* for the FCC's ruling, but the cause is *****unscrupulous telecos*****
Thank you Dave Raggett
The flaw here is the FCC entertaining requests to regulate data networks to begin with.
The provides always have created an assymetric internet, in which there are users and servers. While I welcome dynamic ip addresses for privacy reasons, static ip addresses have the advantage of being... static. And with ipv6, you could create static global ip addresses with ipv6, and still have a dynamic ip address for privacy. Does one provider support this? No, because they want to separate between "end users" and "internet services".
If the internet would be fully symmetric (upload speed == download speed), the net neutrality problem wouldn't be this severe. As then p2p cdns could achieve more, and providers couldn't throttle at least popular content without throttling in their own network.
this is about artificial scarcity
how they use technical-sounding language to contextualize that fake distinction is interesting to note, but the core of the matter is that none of the distinctions are actually relevant
also "data sources and data sinks" is also equally non-technical a description of network topology
data "flows" but it doesn't pool up like water in a retaining pond
Thank you Dave Raggett
'Murican ISPs just don't want to sell you fat pipes to The Internet at all. They want to sell you some mentally-ill junk media that they own, plus some thin pipe to the internet as a bonus. In other countries they actually have fat pipes providers. And "neutrality" initially meant "irrelevance of the origin of content".
outdated, but contains lots of ideas for own work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
The internet is meant to be peer-to-peer. Sure, some realities mean that we need some dedicated servers. That doesn't change the fact that when we do anything other than treating all peers by the same standards, we impede the open use of the internet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
no matter how much you pay, no priority bit jump to get your traffic ahead of anybody else's. you can buy a gig if you want to, and it's offered in your area. but you're the same priority 0, or 2, or 3, or whatever the provider grants to non-critical traffic like VoIP or management commands, that all internet traffic users have. that's net neutrality in a nutshell, and it applies to Google as well as Billy Joe Whistlebritches and his 600 kB line ten miles out in the sticks.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
They should make a rule that an "edge provider" must maintain non-congested links or must make sure that all links have roughly the same congestion, otherwise they're unjustly discriminating. If the ISP can't handle that, then they must downgrade customer's link rates until the congestion is gone. If the ISP can't handle the traffic, then they should send the traffic to someone else who can, you know, purchase transit from Level 3 or someone. Edge providers are not responsible for congestion outside of their network, but are responsible for congestion inside or at its borders.
peer-to-peer protocols for social networking, sharing creative content
But do most home users, especially those who aren't paid for producing "creative content", have the legal right to share most of the "creative content" stored on their devices?
The last mile of a data network often operates using radio frequency spectrum, be it a licensed link between a cellular carrier and a subscriber or an unlicensed (yet still regulated) link between an 802.11 AP and individual devices in a home or place of business. Who should regulate RF transmission on U.S. soil if not the FCC?
Are they 'end users' when they email their friends but 'edge providers' when they switch windows to check their business metrics?
and that right there sums up why people who don't know how networking works, shouldn't write news articles about it.
In both cases in this example the user is consuming data. A better example would be once the user is hosting data locally, like a webpage... And then, in fact, they'd be required by nearly every ISP in the county to have a business account.
The author acts like he's come up with some novel argument that questions the basic foundations of the ISPs business model, but in fact, it's a question that was asked and answered over 20yrs ago. You want to host a website from your house? Get a T1.
Just as banking and investment should be considered distinct and often conflicting interests, so should network connectivity and content distribution. These two types of business should not be allowed to vest in the same company. Connectivity is as essential to the modern economy as transportation, and should be provided on the same fair nondiscriminatory terms to everyone.
I always defined it in terms of traffic:
An end-user is a network (possibly consisting of only one machine) or group of networks owned/controlled by a single entity that doesn't carry traffic bound for networks owned/controlled by any other entity. So a residential Internet subscriber or their home LAN would be an end-user, as would a typical corporate network that doesn't carry traffic for anyone but the company. An ISP wouldn't be, since it hands traffic off to the home networks controlled by it's subscribers or provides transit for the networks controlled by it's business customers.
An edge provider is a network which provides transit solely or primarily to end-users. Ie., it's in the business of providing service to it's own customers, not handling traffic for their customers.
If end users are all providers then they should be paying the business rate. Right now everyone is under the mistaken belief that a fair systems as an asymmetrical rate where some users who consider themselves providers are being charged far more for the same bandwidth and covering almost 100% of the cost of delivering internet while others are getting tons of bandwidth at the cost of offsetting some-all the cost for the last few miles. So if you want to claim that everyone is a provider then everyone should be paying hundreds to thousands of dollars per month for their bandwidth.
GoPro already has 1080p 120fps cameras.
Is the output of these necessarily intended to be viewed at 1080p 120fps, or is it so that the video's producer can digitally stabilize, crop, and slow-mo it in post-production?