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"The FCC Still Doesn't Know How the Internet Works" (eff.org)
An anonymous reader writes:
The EFF describes the FCC's official plan to kill net neutrality as "riddled with technical errors and factual inaccuracies," including, for example, a false distinction between "Internet access service" and "a distinct transmission service" which the EFF calls "utterly ridiculous and completely ungrounded from reality."
"Besides not understanding how Internet access works, the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer... As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." And in addition, "Like DNS, it treats caching as if it were some specialized service rather than an implementation detail and general-purpose computing technique."
"There are at least two possible explanations for all of these misunderstandings and technical errors. One is that, as we've suggested, the FCC doesn't understand how the Internet works. The second is that it doesn't care, because its real goal is simply to cobble together some technical justification for its plan to kill net neutrality. A linchpin of that plan is to reclassify broadband as an 'information service,' (rather than a 'telecommunications service,' or common carrier) and the FCC needs to offer some basis for it. So, we fear, it's making one up, and hoping no one will notice."
"We noticed," their editorial ends, urging Americans "to tell your lawmakers: Don't let the FCC sell the Internet out."
"Besides not understanding how Internet access works, the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer... As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." And in addition, "Like DNS, it treats caching as if it were some specialized service rather than an implementation detail and general-purpose computing technique."
"There are at least two possible explanations for all of these misunderstandings and technical errors. One is that, as we've suggested, the FCC doesn't understand how the Internet works. The second is that it doesn't care, because its real goal is simply to cobble together some technical justification for its plan to kill net neutrality. A linchpin of that plan is to reclassify broadband as an 'information service,' (rather than a 'telecommunications service,' or common carrier) and the FCC needs to offer some basis for it. So, we fear, it's making one up, and hoping no one will notice."
"We noticed," their editorial ends, urging Americans "to tell your lawmakers: Don't let the FCC sell the Internet out."
You have to classify traffic to prevent congestion. Congestion will break the interwebz. As soon as you're classifying traffic, which is already happening, you have no neutrality If you want a simple example of how neutrality breaks shared and limited resources, remove quotas from your file system or schedulers from CPU resource management.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rf...
Please don't be a moron. Proper network traffic management is perfectly ok under NN. Networks have to have traffic controls, you just can't have a network without it. ISPs already tried to put this forth as a reason for no NN. Where NN comes in is what traffic management ISPs are allowed to do. Doing it for network health and usability is perfectly ok. Giving some customers preferential treatment? No.
Learn the difference, stop spreading misinformation.
Obama did not make undoing the Bush presidency his own undertaking, in fact he kept a lot of Bush era policies that needed to stay in place. You're a moron.
The ISP's were considered to be "common carriers" like telephone companies. Telecom companies could charge different prices for residential/business telephone lines. They could charge for value added features like caller ID, voicemail, three-way dialing, as well as international, national, local and emergency calls, but they could not bill you according to what you were talking about or who you were talking to for a particular distance.
ISP's can charge you for particular data rates (although with ADSL/DSL that varies according to how far you are from the telephone exchange. With fibre-optic cable networks, the signals travel at a fixed bit rate, but you get a maximum data transfer rate based on your pricing option).
The fear is that they'll start trying to charge you value-added features such as bundles of websites (video, social, messaging, photographs) or even levels of video compression.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
charge the streaming service for the performance it demands from their network
They do. Do you think Netflix doesn't pay for their internet connection and the massive amounts of bandwidth they use?
beyond that which was reasonably foreseen
If they haven't managed to "foresee" streaming video by 2017, there might be a problem that no amount of legislation (or lack thereof) will fix.
charge the customer directly for the burst traffic like electricity
No, instead they'll charge the customer directly for access to Youtube, Slashdot, Facebook, New York Times, or any other site you wish to enjoy. Video sites are $5/mo each. Social media sites are $4/mo each. Other lesser-known sites are $2/mo each. On a site-by-site basis or perhaps even with TV-style "packages" that are intentionally constructed such that sites featuring similar interests are spread across multiple packages to ensure everyone has to purchase as many packages as possible.
Of course they wouldn't actually block the sites you don't pay for. But your bandwidth to them will be capped at 1mb/sec down and 128kb/sec up. You will no longer get to choose whether you need 20mb/s or 100mb/s. You get whatever Comcast thinks is good enough for each "package" you choose.
Of course you can always buy their business package and get a flat bandwidth rate starting at $250/mo for a 20mb/s connection and jumping to $1000/mo for a 50mb/s connection. With overages if you exceed your 10gb/mo data.
charge EVERYONE regardless of whether they use the streaming service or not
Almost everyone uses some high-bandwidth service or other. Whether you use Netflix or Youtube or listen to streaming music or torrent things or watch porn (or someone else in your household does any of these things.) Your argument is like walkers complaining that they have to pay for public roads. They're not necessarily wrong but they're so few in number that its still an overall benefit to have road construction centrally organized and funded in order to prevent 6 different people building basically the same road side by side while having no roads at all half a mile away.
Remember that its in the ISP's best interest to supply you with the least service possible at the highest price they can manage without you completely cutting off your internet and going back to living like its 1992. And you can't blame them.. their mandate is to make a profit no matter what, just like any other business. The difference is that in most other businesses, competition is an opposing force preventing the companies from completely screwing you -- they can only screw you as much as their competition will allow. But ISPs have little to no (meaningful) competition in most jurisdictions, so the only opposing force to them screwing you is legislation. Its why we must legislate things like "don't break the internet." Otherwise they will break the internet. Its not a question of "if," its a question of "when."