...you're in a situation where, to get decent service, you HAVE TO be able to afford [to pay for premium bandwidth]. So you've created a barrier to entry for the little guys....I'm worried about, say, wikisecrets not being able to afford decent service. That's where the "subsidy" part I waved arms about comes in. You build in a floor of access to bandwidth, by reducing the pool of "market rate" bandwidth to some level probably defined thru the political process. Kinda like "affordable housing" schemes so hotly pursued here in S.F.... except they ain't making any more San Francisco real estate, so doing this for Internet bandwidth, which is relatively easy to add, should be easier. This is a compromise position between enforced neutrality, which encourages greed and waste (spammers like it), and a laissez-faire market, which prices out the little guy.
We've gotten used to the cheap capacity left over from the dot-com bubble. Scarcity feels weird and brings back all that unpleasant economic stuff.
Good article you cited. I have noticed the "consumerization" of the Internet. I think Walker made the wrong call on DRM though: It's hard to beat "free", esp. if you offer nothing of value for what you charge. I'm for more accountability... I always liked D. Chaum's work on blind signatures (marketed by the now-defunct DigiCash), because they act to reveal "just enough" authentication of the subject for the purpose, i.e. confidence that the subject is indeed over 21, or holds the right to use a particular payment instrument. Fun stuff.
...all _I_ want is that you can "discriminate" on the basis of type of traffic, or basically anything else you like for QoS. You just can't do it on the basis of source or destination. i.e., you can't decide to make yahoo work faster than google 'cause of a side deal you have with Yahoo....
OK, say we have one ISP whose business model favors, say, video traffic. Another, audio. Another, email. Etc. The market evolves, some types of traffic grow in popularity, and others stagnate or shrink. So the ISPs that favor the popular types can raise prices, the others probably can't. Seems like a big dose of inefficiency. Why can't one ISP just charge more to move what people want, or less per unit to move larger amounts of it? Why should the ISP subsidize the traffic of Google (not exactly a charity case) if Yahoo is willing to pay more?
Oh, I thought you were talking about the "Free Market" in the US, Europe or Asia.
You should have clarified that you were referring to a "free market" that has never existed.
As someone said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." And, "Politics is the art of the possible." I'd rather have a system that comes close to the ideal than something unspecified that might work out OK. I haven't read a net-neutrality argument yet that explains how bandwidth is to be allocated economically. A free-for-all doesn't mean the "good guys" win or the "bad guys" lose; it reward greed, in fact.
You might want to talk to some of the people at major universities and research institutions who started the whole thing, after all, or maybe the Defense Department.
I'm aware of the history. The synergy of universities and researchers with technology arms of the government in the early days was a great success story and critical to creating the Internet standard. But those days have mostly given way to build-out of the standardized technology stack by commercial entities.
We depend on private companies to build our Internet. Maybe we should rethink this approach. I don't share your belief in "The Market" being a magical force for good.
There's no magic to markets. With transparency and correction for over-investment, under-investment and abuses, they have proven to be the best overall way to allocate resources. Given the incompetence and ignorance practiced by the federal government in recent years, I would be loath to hand it more technical responsibility for the Internet. I like the idea of industrial policy in this area, but I'm not sure how to do it in this country without the govt. turning it into a political tool.
Please pardon the reps, first-time/. poster here...
Unless some effort is made to separate the hardware and structure of the internet from the content of the internet, we will lose everything that's so valuable and special about the internet.
It seems the QoS field in the IPv6 header runs counter to that spirit. AFAIK, it's specifically intended to mark packets for bandwidth preference. What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences? Market forces, coupled with some mechanism for non-profit subsidy, etc. Since we depend on private companies to build our Internet, they're going to want some flexibility to charge for it. We could have more government involvement, a la S. Korea & Japan "industrial policy", but imagine the kind of content interference that could bring, in the Bush era.
I think there's a distinction between "positive" traffic management, which doesn't look at content but allocates bandwidth as an economic resource, and "negative", which does look at content and other things to decide whom to choke off.
Unless some effort is made to separate the hardware and structure of the internet from the content of the internet, we will lose everything that's so valuable and special about the internet.
It seems the QoS field in the IPv6 header runs counter to that spirit. AFAIK, it's specifically intended to mark packets for bandwidth preference. What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences? Market forces, coupled with some mechanism for non-profit subsidy, etc. Since we depend on private companies to build our Internet, they're going to want some flexibility to charge for it. We could have more government involvement, a la S. Korea & Japan "industrial policy", but imagine the kind of content interference that could bring, in the Bush era.
I think there's a distinction between "positive" traffic management, which doesn't look at content but allocates bandwidth as an economic resource, and "negative", which does look at content and other things to decide whom to choke off.
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...you're in a situation where, to get decent service, you HAVE TO be able to afford [to pay for premium bandwidth]. So you've created a barrier to entry for the little guys....I'm worried about, say, wikisecrets not being able to afford decent service. That's where the "subsidy" part I waved arms about comes in. You build in a floor of access to bandwidth, by reducing the pool of "market rate" bandwidth to some level probably defined thru the political process. Kinda like "affordable housing" schemes so hotly pursued here in S.F.... except they ain't making any more San Francisco real estate, so doing this for Internet bandwidth, which is relatively easy to add, should be easier. This is a compromise position between enforced neutrality, which encourages greed and waste (spammers like it), and a laissez-faire market, which prices out the little guy. We've gotten used to the cheap capacity left over from the dot-com bubble. Scarcity feels weird and brings back all that unpleasant economic stuff. Good article you cited. I have noticed the "consumerization" of the Internet. I think Walker made the wrong call on DRM though: It's hard to beat "free", esp. if you offer nothing of value for what you charge. I'm for more accountability... I always liked D. Chaum's work on blind signatures (marketed by the now-defunct DigiCash), because they act to reveal "just enough" authentication of the subject for the purpose, i.e. confidence that the subject is indeed over 21, or holds the right to use a particular payment instrument. Fun stuff.
...all _I_ want is that you can "discriminate" on the basis of type of traffic, or basically anything else you like for QoS. You just can't do it on the basis of source or destination. i.e., you can't decide to make yahoo work faster than google 'cause of a side deal you have with Yahoo....OK, say we have one ISP whose business model favors, say, video traffic. Another, audio. Another, email. Etc. The market evolves, some types of traffic grow in popularity, and others stagnate or shrink. So the ISPs that favor the popular types can raise prices, the others probably can't. Seems like a big dose of inefficiency. Why can't one ISP just charge more to move what people want, or less per unit to move larger amounts of it? Why should the ISP subsidize the traffic of Google (not exactly a charity case) if Yahoo is willing to pay more?
Oh, I thought you were talking about the "Free Market" in the US, Europe or Asia.
You should have clarified that you were referring to a "free market" that has never existed.
As someone said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." And, "Politics is the art of the possible." I'd rather have a system that comes close to the ideal than something unspecified that might work out OK. I haven't read a net-neutrality argument yet that explains how bandwidth is to be allocated economically. A free-for-all doesn't mean the "good guys" win or the "bad guys" lose; it reward greed, in fact.
I'm aware of the history. The synergy of universities and researchers with technology arms of the government in the early days was a great success story and critical to creating the Internet standard. But those days have mostly given way to build-out of the standardized technology stack by commercial entities.
We depend on private companies to build our Internet. Maybe we should rethink this approach. I don't share your belief in "The Market" being a magical force for good.There's no magic to markets. With transparency and correction for over-investment, under-investment and abuses, they have proven to be the best overall way to allocate resources. Given the incompetence and ignorance practiced by the federal government in recent years, I would be loath to hand it more technical responsibility for the Internet. I like the idea of industrial policy in this area, but I'm not sure how to do it in this country without the govt. turning it into a political tool.
It seems the QoS field in the IPv6 header runs counter to that spirit. AFAIK, it's specifically intended to mark packets for bandwidth preference. What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences? Market forces, coupled with some mechanism for non-profit subsidy, etc. Since we depend on private companies to build our Internet, they're going to want some flexibility to charge for it. We could have more government involvement, a la S. Korea & Japan "industrial policy", but imagine the kind of content interference that could bring, in the Bush era.
I think there's a distinction between "positive" traffic management, which doesn't look at content but allocates bandwidth as an economic resource, and "negative", which does look at content and other things to decide whom to choke off.
It seems the QoS field in the IPv6 header runs counter to that spirit. AFAIK, it's specifically intended to mark packets for bandwidth preference. What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences? Market forces, coupled with some mechanism for non-profit subsidy, etc. Since we depend on private companies to build our Internet, they're going to want some flexibility to charge for it. We could have more government involvement, a la S. Korea & Japan "industrial policy", but imagine the kind of content interference that could bring, in the Bush era.
I think there's a distinction between "positive" traffic management, which doesn't look at content but allocates bandwidth as an economic resource, and "negative", which does look at content and other things to decide whom to choke off.