NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Comments on NNSquad Purpose
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Phil Karn <karn@ka9q.net> wrote:
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Net neutrality is neutrality with respect to the meaning and destination of the bits that I send and receive. This is completely distinct from the number of bits that I send and receive.
It is perfectly reasonable for carriers to charge by the bit, though many users would prefer to pay a flat rate even though they end up paying more to get a predictable bill. But when you do pay by the bit, the carrier has even less of an excuse to tell me what I can do with those bits.
Yes. So far, on this list, and in the newspapers, one of the excuses given for abusive "network management" is that Net connection companies cannot just charge by the bit. The excuse runs "We cannot charge by the bit because, if we did, sometimes people would hit a limit, or get a big bill. So instead we declare that certain users are bad users, doing bad things, and these bad users' packet streams we suppress. Also, being honest about our practice would lose us customers, so we systematically mislead.". This excuse is ridiculous on its face. To recur to the old POTS network, it ran under common carriage rules, and certainly users were charged for call time. Charging by the bit, as you have laid out in an earlier post, will often help alleviate the difficulties the Net connection company owner complains of.
ad old PSTN: The "make a circuit" style of the old PSTN itself, as contrasted with the "let's try to get these packets here through the pipes" style of the Net, eased some of the problems Brett Glass worries about. As Vint Cerf pointed out, the busy signal is a clear and simple signal. A busy signal gives less occasion for confusion about such matters as "what's my bandwidth?", "abuse of the network", "massive copyright infringement", "bad users", etc..
oo--JS.
[ I'm going to end this thread shortly and -- fair warning -- will be increasingly merciless with the more "philosophical" discussions on the mailing list. However, pretty much anything related (and polite) is fair game over at the NNSquad forum ( http://www.nnsquad.org/forum ). Thanks.