Technology Review
Some see it as a positive step--others see loopholes.
Earlier this week, Google and Verizon released a joint proposal for legislation to govern how Internet service providers manage online traffic. Though the companies touted their support of an open Internet, the proposal has come under criticism for providing loopholes that some say could allow Internet service providers--or large Web companies--to grab an unfair advantage by prioritizing certain Web content.
The proposal has ignited a firestorm of debate around "net neutrality," the principle that Internet service providers should not be able to prioritize how content, such as streaming video or peer-to-peer content--or traffic from a particular customer--is delivered. The debate has also centered on how companies could, by extension, limit the types of applications users can access, or what devices they can connect to a network.
The issue came to a head in April this year, when a court ruling limited the Federal Communications Commission's ability to regulate how carriers handle traffic. The FCC had sought to stop Comcast from throttling traffic from the file-sharing service BitTorrent on its network.
Google and Verizon's new proposal calls for the FCC to investigate claims of unfair treatment, and for a standards-setting body to outline the difference between actions that must be taken to reasonably manage network traffic and actions that stack the deck in favor of a particular party.
Both companies say that the proposal works in favor of an open Internet. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a press conference that the legislation "would establish a new and enforceable prohibition against discrimination for wireline and broadband Internet services, specifically, no discrimination against or prioritizing of lawful Internet content apps or services in a way that harms users or competition, no blocking or degrading of Internet content and applications."
Some experts say the proposal could help produce a real resolution on net neutrality.
"I would hope that the Verizon-Google proposal breaks the logjam on network neutrality, by showing there is room for compromise," says Kevin Werbach, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the technology consulting firm Supernova Group. "The proposal has problems, but it's a real effort to find common ground between network operators and companies that innovate on top of the Internet."
But two aspects of the document have watchdogs worried. One is a provision that would let broadband providers offer "additional, differentiated services," that would be not be subject to the same rules as the open internet. These would possibly include "health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options." The other is the absence of any rules regarding wireless Internet traffic. The proposal points to the "still-nascent nature of the wireless broadband marketplace" and suggests requiring carriers to be transparent to users about how they handle wireless traffic, but imposes no additional rules.
Experts have debated what these exceptions may mean and what the two companies are really proposing.
Legitimacy, corruption and innovation
There are two broad problems with any regulation of internet: one is principled and the other utilitarian.
In principle, it is not clear what would even give government or its FCC arm legitimacy in regulating the internet. The first step in regulation, under harmless pretense, opens the door to further intervention, which politicians will no doubt propose (incentives to grow their power and look good with voters).
On utilitarian grounds, competitive forces provide stronger and safer safeguard than regulations, without interfering with innovation. Central planning and price controls are known to produce bad results, as economic theory and history demonstrate.
Finally, it should be suspect to anyone to attempt to supposedly protect from abuse of hypothetical monopoly power by use of an actual (and very large) monopoly power (ie. government). It should be clear this will only invite corporations seeking special privileges as competitive advantages, as we already start seeing with the Google/Verizon proposal. In practice, the more power is claimed by government, the more crooked corporations gain and the more citizens and honest corporations lose.
Re: Legitimacy, corruption and innovation
@dumky
The thought that a Democracy cannot take hold of it's destiny and control its own airwaves because it is incapable is absolutly moronic in whatever terms you want to package it.
the post above is nonsense.Have we not just experienced what unregulated market forces have produced in the last few years. We are in the middle of a recession that might get worst because of the above type thinking.
Further proof is Louisana's gulf coast. the lack of regulation caused that also,Or we can discuss the Monopolies in Healthcare,
energy,agriculture,communication and trade as further examples of unregulated markets.that are now showing their weaknesess or does a female fetus have to have double-D's before you wake up.
In each of these markets gross corruption and greed have created solutions that only benefit the corporation's and politicians.
The benefit's to a society with open and free communication clearly outweigh the costs and pay for themselves many times over through efficiencies and savings.
This is essentially the theft of the internet.regulating a whole class of people who cannot pay to use a resuorce where most of the business and functions of a society will be carried out is the equivilant to economic slavery.
Just like google gives out it's search for free and makes money off of advertising. Why can't a democracy give it's citizen's free communication and make it's return from savings also.
Re: Legitimacy, corruption and innovation
@Gcanno
You bring up too many erroneous arguments to address, but I'll take the biggest ones.
Regarding the gulf oil spill, as it stands, government is the owner of the property were the pollution originated, not BP, and therefore bears the ultimate responsibility. This is hardly the unregulated free-market which is to be blamed.
Regarding healthcare, we also hardly have a free-market situation, as 50% of healthcare spending comes from government. Also government licenses doctors (AMA), regulates hospitals, licenses drugs (FDA), ... Healthcare would be more available, innovative and cheaper if not for those interventions.
Regarding the current recession, the major causes of the bubble (and the resulting bust) were government policies: credit expansion (low Fed interest rate, fractional reserve banking) and risk-inducing incentives (FDIC, Freddie/Fannie insurance programs, bailouts).
To get back on the topic of communications, I don't doubt that "communication" (a vague and undefined product) is generally useful and worth the cost for most people. But there is not just one "communication" product. Because government is not subject to competitive pressure, it will no doubt make a pretty bad cost/benefit deal. The deal may not be a complete loss, but it will be less cost effective than if private communication. Various studies have shown a factor of 2 or 3 in cost savings gained when privatizing industries (post office, railroads, etc.). Public service are not free, they actually cost more than the private alternatives, because they are not subject to competitive forces.
You are misusing the term theft, as the rightful owner of internet pipes are the owners of internet pipes, not you or me. Your assuming ownership of the telecom's legitimate property on the other hand *is* theft.
Regarding your final point, what you really meant was: why can't government take the pipes from the individuals who currently own and operate them, to "give" them to the voting majority?
I keep wondering why people rightly condemn theft at the local scale, but somehow accept or condone it at a higher level (stealing from many people to give to many people). How does stealing bigger units somehow right a wrong?
Net Neutrality is a serious global picture topic that cannot afford passion-driven argumentation.
If we were still in the Telco era where an incumbent Post and Telegraph company manages exclusively the Telecom services, then Net Neutrality can be considered as an unquestionable right.
However, the Telecom landscape is now led by private investments and a more and more open markets. The rough competition and unpredictable evolution of the ICT technologies makes the business control factors even more intense.
The Internet service business model for example has evolved to a fixed packaged pricing way almost everywhere. So, whatever you use HTTP browsing, VoIP, Video or P2P, you just pay a fixed price for your chosen Mbps bandwidth. This method has contributed to the popularity of Internet and to all the economic and social impacts driven by it. Yet, the profitability of such a model is being challenged in many countries and operators are seeking for more intelligent methods to survive.
So, for example, different market segments are addressed in different ways: SLA-based contracts are signed with professional customers, VoIP service is sold as an extra offer, MPLS VPN channels are provided to enterprises for inter-site communications, etc. And all this is beared on the same infrastructure composed of access equipments and different levels of switch/router facilities.
Calling for Net Neutrality means that the Operator (investor) must treat the P2P file sharing monster in an equal way as its professional services and other Internet traffic. Treating equally means that if P2P traffic explodes and start compromising other services, the operator must invest in more infrastructure to fulfill its implicit and explicit SLA engagements instead of restricting P2P.
If such thing happens, it will lead to the end of profit for the Internet service delivery business and we would even see a Telco-like model popping up back to the foreground.
Not to mention the convergence process between Mobile and Fixed broadband access. In fact, in many cases, the mobile broadband data will access the same infrastructure as the fixed broadband, which adds even more challenge to the operator. And the new trend of offloading the mobile broadband data to fixed line through Femtocell and Wifi will make it difficult to restrict the Net Neutrality talk to the fixed access, because Mobile access will also be part of the game.
And here, trying to consider Net Neutrality on the wireless side will be a total non-sense that may corrupt the whole mobile business.
Net Neutrality is an idea driven by ethical passion. But its realization on the field is restricted by strategical business and regulatory facts that cannot be bypassed.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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mattgroom
284 Comments
Traffic flows.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/tk543/tk766/technologies_white_paper09186a00800a3e2f.html
They will no doubt put google (web) apps at a higher priority like AF31 and microsoft at AF32/AF33.
Faster to use layer3/4 ports rather than unwrapping the packets further for layer 7 app information. So they will be slowing all traffic just to slow others traffic even more.
Sounds like a (microsoft) spiteful thing to do to me!
Traffic (flow) throttling is not prioritisation and shouldnt be allowed period. I dont know how ISPs can get away with it in USA, must have had bad lawyers in the prosecution corner.
Frankly the case is easy, no throttling should be allowed beyond the traffic shaping of a persons entitled limit. Eg they have 1Mb/s in total not 128kb of this and 64k of that and 2k of this and 256k of that only. I believe this is WRONG. ISP's should be ashamed getting away with this.
As regards prioritisation that is simply a timing formula that keeps traffic flowing by sending traffic before its timer expires. HPT has a low timer than LPT. Expedited traffic has a timer of zero (like voice traffic) that is sent immediately.
Voice traffic therefore suffers from the lowest possible jitter.
Even so extensive testing has ascertained that there should be (ABSOLUTELY) no more than 30% voice traffic on any pipe. This is because its about combined data and voice and if you dont have limits, voice calls would take all the bandwidth and noone could possibly work.
Data should be given 70% of the pipe and within this it is prioritised accordingly.
If people havent implemented these divisions (derived from extensive live testing) they would have to have done there own testing to justify a variation of it.
Again i cant believe ISPs get away with throttling traffic flows of a certain data type, its just wrong.
Reply
arnetwork
85 Comments
Re: Traffic flows.
mattgroom:
I didn't understand your first three paragraphs. If you want to convince users (who are voters) rather than just technicians you may want to try to explain some of your comments.
I'm familiar with the seven layers but didn't understand the significance of unwrapping them. The rest of the first part of the message was meaningless to me.
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mattgroom
284 Comments
Carriers paid off lawyers to ignore 1st amendment!
Sure im happy to explain the 7 layers better.
When a person uses a networked application that data is sent by packets.
Ie the packet is wrapped in layer 7 header, then layer 6 header, then layer 5 header, then layer 4 header, then layer 3, layer 2, and finally its ready to go out onto whatever medium its going on.
When you recieve a packet of data the packet is unwrapped. Starting at the bottom, so network specific headers are removed, then the internet information is extracted, then the transport information is extracted, and finally the application layers (tcp/ip model application layer = layers 5-7 of iso7). The applications layers(5-7) hold what specific application is used.
For instance i can show the difference with one command-line.
Type in netstat in a windows command-line, youll get information from the 1-4 layers. Now do a netstat -nb, youll get which application that information belongs to. The first only unwrapped the packets first 4 layers. The second had to unwrap the packet completely.
When youre a router/switch unwrapping unnecessary layers is time-consuming. No point seeing layer 7 information about which application sent the data if all you want is what port its coming from.
Now going back to my point, if google wanted to prioritise say info from google chrome, tcp port 80, instead of iexplorer...also tcp port 80. The only way to tell them apart is goign up to the layer 5-7 information. At those layers you know which application is sending the data.
We talking a small time indeed to unwrap the data, however google talks about improving speed over the internet and these two concepts are at odds. When youre talking about the global internet a small time can be an eternity for a page load.
Once you have the layer information you can prioritise your traffic within routers which control the traffic flows around the world.
The comment i made before was for the voters...
Frankly the case is easy, no throttling should be allowed beyond the traffic "shaping" of a persons entitled limit. Eg they have 1Mb/s in total not 128kb of this and 64k of that and 2k of this and 256k of that only. I believe this is WRONG. ISP's should be ashamed getting away with this.
This identifies that a person has bought 1MB/s bandwidth from the carrier and is entitled under the 1st amendment to use that bandwidth how they see fit. It is impossible for this to be any other way and how the prosecution didnt win this case on this point means they actually had crappy lawyers who knew nothing of the constitution of their country or how to apply it.
The 1st amendment guarantees the right of free speech (within reason of course) and this certainly applies to the unlawful throttling of specific data types or information (information is speech)
Im not even american and i can see the FCC has been short changed on that one. Bought judges as well no doubt and defense lawyers paid in the millions for the best.
I bet they used a state lawyer for the prosecution perhaps from the inland revenue division so no one cared what he said.
Again i can't see how the 1st amendment was completely disregarded in the USA!
You tell me how they did it please?
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