On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Kenneth Burgener <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi fellow PLUG members, > > A friend and I were discussing Net Neutrality and wanted to research the > topic a bit more. The more I read about Net Neutrality the less I feel > I actually know what the issue is. I believe what the proponents want are: > > * fair bandwidth for all > * no destination/source discrimination > * no data discrimination > * no tired service > > Does this correctly sum up the wants? I have seen numerous threads all > touting the brilliance and benefits of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality > has become a banner for great Internet ideology, but it begs the > question, what does the opposition actually want to change?
Not quite. Net Neutrality is not about overall bandwidth limiting or tiered bandwidth pricing. It's about anti-discrimination and tiered service providing (eg. this plan gets you Google, Yahoo, *and* MSN, other plans only give you MSN). > Regarding fair bandwidth for all. If everyone were a good net citizen > and shared the bandwidth respectfully, I would agree with fair > bandwidth. Unfortunately, there is a problem of "bandwidth hogs". For > example, if 10 people on the block all use an ISP, and 1 user is a > "bandwidth" hog, consistently slowing down the 9 other connections, and > the ISP wants to "manage their network" by limiting the one "bandwidth" > hog, is this an okay practice? Me being one of the other 9 would really > like to not have the 1 slow my connection down. This is what Comcast > did with the torrent problem. Should Comcast not be allowed to manage > their networks to keep the 9 other people happy? Net Neutrality is not about "bandwidth hogs". Also it didn't start as a response to Comcast's actions on BitTorrent users. Though the principles would apply to this. Comcast says they are doing these actions to keep their networks happy for all users, but the Net Neutrality principles apply here because they are only limiting BitTorrent, which is discrimination. If Comcast were to simply limit all traffic of the overusing hogs, then it wouldn't be discrimination. > Regarding destination/source and tired service discrimination. Don't we > already have this in place. The more you pay the higher the bandwidth > you get. This works the same way on both ends of the connection. Is > Net Neutrality advocates pushing to make all Internet free, or one price > for all? No we don't have any anti-discrimination rules in place. There have been no rules. But there hasn't been any problems since there has been no discrimination until recently. > Is there a critical point about Net Neutrality I am missing? Please > educate me if I am incorrect. The principles of Net Neutrality are attempting to prevent ISPs from discriminating what types and destinations of traffic you can use and how you use it. Recently, there have been threats made by Tier 1 ISPs to offer preferential treatment to web sites that pay them extra money. This way these ISPs get paid twice, by the customer of their service, and by the web site they visit. Also, paying websites have an unfair advantage over their competitors. And the end-user is then pushed in one direction. In Canada, Rogers, their largest ISP, was limiting traffic to VOIP providers other than their own solution. Forcing it's customers into paying Rogers instead of Vonage, Skype, etc. They stopped after too much flack from customers, and government, and threats of legislation in Canada. Proponents of Net Neutrality are trying to legislate companies against these kinds of discriminatory actions. Opponents primarily don't want Governments involved in forcing ISPs to do anything. I'm on the fence myself. I see it this way: Pros: * These slimy actions of ISPs are prevented * Users get to choose what companies they get their services from * Market pressure doesn't work due to limited alternatives (eg. It took Government involvement, to quash Rogers in Canada) Cons: * Laws always have loopholes and other un-intended consequences Since that one Con is so huge, it would take a very well written Bill before I would be contacting my Gov't reps. --lonnie /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
