----- Original Message ----- From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 11:38 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Re: Fwd: Tonight: Join SavetheInternet.com on PBS
> This is an issue which needs further study for sure. The sky is not > falling I do not believe. Taking action to force complete neutrality on > all net traffic is not in the best interest of a commercial ISP who has > to make some tough decisions when looking at issues like peer to peer > traffic and such. I am not interested in forcing myself to adhere to an > "all bits are created equal" philosophy unless there are provisions that > allow me to filter viruses, spam, limit excessive abusive traffic, etc. John, I have been looking for the words to describe my gut instinct here, and you came up with them with a precision far beyond anything I had been able to think up. Thanks. > I think everyone needs to study the issue fully and then start thinking > about how best to proceed. In the meantime we need to get a feel for > what the possibility is of us all getting shafted at peering locations. > I see this as the biggest threat to what we do as an industry. If we > have to start paying prices like the old days or higher for bandwidth > then this could get ugly real fast. > Scriv Well, I think we should get a bunch of us into a huddle and start some rational analysis and see if we can arrive at scenarios where there REALLY is a risk to consumers or to business, or to us as WISP's. Danger to consumers: What if several larger providers... Let's say, the 3 largest providers of cable and dsl connectivity suddenly announced a new, low priced service: Broadband for half price, but those content providers NOT on the "approved" list (read: having paid the carriers money) will have thier content rate limited to dialup speed. Will consumers go for it? Will content providers "pay up"? Are any of the largish connectivity providers part of a media company? LEt's say Comcast bought a streaming movies for subscription provider, a music for subscription provider, and a couple news and entertainment providers online, and then proceeded to prioritieze thier own sites, and also rate limiting everyone else's. Is this possible? Wouldn't that be illegal under price fixing laws, or other anti-conspiracy statutes? In Comcast's hypothetical, as long as they inform the consumer of what's going on, is that really a problem? I harken back to the days of not so long ago, when I ran a BBS, and was actively searching for a provider to get a fractional T-1 in... This was in the mid to late 90's. I recall a big selling point at the time was "unfiltered". Back then, many of the people who were selling connections to the internet were schools or businesses, and were actively involved in blocking various content, some even blocked all "overseas" traffic, as it was considered "nuisance". Some just blocked certain ports to ensure that your connection was only used for what they allowed it to be used for. I don't see that anymore, instead I see a glut of "commodity" bandwidht sellers who have the "all bits are equal" philosophy when it comes to connectivity. Danger to US: what percentage of WISP's use a provider of retail connectivity as thier bandwidth provider? If, like the first situation above, OUR bandwidth was limited, content prioritiezed and deprioritized by our upstream, what would be our rights? Sad to say, I dont' think we actually HAVE any. I would like to see an ISP / NSP / backbone provider / other group get to gether and discuss this, people who have an interest in what's going on and wish to retain the ability to get what we paid for without someone else's demands concerning priorities and who's bits are worth what. And while we're on the subject, perhaps the REAL solution is not one of governmetn restricting or forcing actions on the part of ISP's in regards to how they run their networks. MAybe all that's really needed, like in the instance at first where I named Comcast, is that ISP's simply be required to state if they employ any means of prioritizing or deprioritizing traffic based upon content, application, or provider to the consumer, and be required to reveal who gets priority and who doesn't. Frankly, I think business would boom for the small guys, if the big guys decided to try to screw the consumers over by limiting access based upon what content provider ponied up and bought priority. Like political campaigns... I don't really care how much someone gives some guy running for office. Disclosure is good enough for me. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ neofast.net - fast internet for North East Oregon and South East Washington email me at mark at neofast dot net 541-969-8200 Direct commercial inquiries to purchasing at neofast dot net -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
