NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Neutrality in Perspective
It seems to me that when we get down to brass tacks, there isn't as much disagreement about what network neutrality really is as some players would have us believe. In essence, most of the arguments are indeed about how much non-neutrality is "necessary" or otherwise should be permitted by ISPs, and how much collateral damage to innocent users should be permitted under any given scenario. For example, there is absolutely no good reason why a well-behaved residential dynamic service user shouldn't be able to operate their own mail servers over port 25. There are utterly valid privacy and security reasons for wanting to do this, not to mention much better control over mail handling overall. The problem comes up when ISPs simply declare that an entire class of users can't use this port or that protocol as designed, without taking into account the variation between users. It might be argued that blocking port 25 for dynamic IP addresses *by default* may not be unreasonable, so long as that block would be removed upon request by a well-behaved, obviously non-spamming user. There are some ISPs that will do this, but they are way in the minority, as far as I know. So the good guy customers are treated in advance like crooks in most cases in this respect. The same reasoning extends to many other aspects of the neutrality debate. Many of these problems have been created by the artificial scarcity in real choice of last mile high speed (broadband) ISPs for most users. In major metro areas you can typically choose among the giant phone company and the giant cable company, who tend to impose their own rules often on a nationwide basis. Satellite Internet is relatively expensive and suffers severe bandwidth limitations at the consumer level. Telcos and cable companies have in general fought to make it difficult for third party resellers to make use of their outside physical plant, thereby ensuring that third party resale access services remain limited and in some cases of questionable longterm viability. In more rural areas, high speed Internet access choices are typically even more constrained, sometimes reaching zero. Perhaps the best recent hope of additional options in these regards was Google's original spectrum resale proposal, but the vested telecoms successfully fought that back tooth and nail at the FCC. So when we talk about what sorts of restrictions on users are reasonable for ISPs to impose, and whether or not any given restriction or similar activity by an ISP should be viewed as unacceptable, I believe that it's important to keep in mind that the ISPs are by and large not innocent bystanders being victimized, but to a major extent have themselves created the present environment by virtue of their various business-related decisions and motives over time. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator