[ NNSquad ] Re: Odlyzko: "The delusions of net neutrality"

["Robb Topolski" <robb@funchords.com>]

   [ Robb, since some of the charges you make below are
     quite serious, I think it would be appropriate if
     you were more specific about which vendors and
     ISPs you're talking about, so that they can have
     an opportunity to defend themselves.  Hmm,
     is the reference to "brand x" an unintended pun?

       -- Lauren Weinstein
          NNSquad Moderator ]

          

Hi Kriss,

DPI appliance vendors and service providers haven't behaved responsibly, and
the end result has been predictably bad for the 'net.

I can list examples -- from a major ISP that does use DPI to prioritize VOIP
(but only their own), to two vendors that spy for advertising, to another
ISP that literally intercepts Gnutella searches and returns "no match found"
as a response, and etc..

I'm really worried.

One side effect is that just about every connectivity problem, odd routing,
slowness or latency -- cannot rule out DPI.

An employee for a major VOIP provider has assured me that one ISP adds
latency to its packets.

Many of the behaviors being changed are Layer 2/3/4 behaviors, but none of
these are going through the IETF and none are sufficiently disclosed enough
or consistent enough to help network application providers ensure
interoperability.

In the networking perspective, DPI is awesome power, and with great power
comes great responsibility.  Instead, I'm seeing great haste -- haste to
rush products out to market, haste to beat the competition in feature sets,
and haste to turn these on regardless of their appropriateness.

I'm a little worried too that the ISPs misunderstand what they've bought
into.  They act as if they own the Internet, that it's theirs to 'enhance'
or wall off as they see fit.  Yet they sign up customers who are asking for
access to the Internet -- not "brand x's" version of it.


-- 
Robb Topolski (robb@funchords.com)
Hillsboro, Oregon USA
http://www.funchords.com/