[ NNSquad ] Re: Irish Times: "A modest proposal on internet neutrality"

["George Ou" <george_ou@lanarchitect.net>]

Acceptance by who?  RFC 2475 says:

"Service differentiation is desired to accommodate heterogeneous application
requirements and user expectations, and to permit differentiated pricing of
Internet service."

Furthermore, this is already an accepted practice on the Internet.  ISPs
like TeliaSonera already sell access to Blizzard with enhanced priority.
Business connections routinely have enhanced priority.  Global Crossing
sells enhanced priority to business customers and they even extend that
priority to partner networks in Asia and this has been happening for a while
now.  Who is Google or anyone to say this is wrong?


The FCC's NPRM proposal bans charges for "enhanced or prioritized" access to
content/application/service providers and that is a pretty broad paint
brush.  That potentially outlaws a number of beneficial models I outlined
here
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/preserving-the-open-and-competitive-ba
ndwidth-market/.

If you're a content provider, why are you no longer a "business"?  

Furthermore, a ban on Paid Peering harms smaller websites that can't build
their own infrastructure and negotiate free peering.  Is it a coincidence
that this harms Google's competitors?  Wait, I thought Google cared about
the "two guys in a garage"?  Oh wait, that was just lip service and Google
actually doesn't care.
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/the-hypocrisy-of-google-and-skype/. 


Lastly, Net Neutrality doesn't even allow for user-approved prioritization.
If a user explicitly gives an ISP permission to prioritize a particular
website or a general class of applications, who are you or anyone else to
say no?  Would you suggest that user isn't smart enough to know what's good
for himself or herself?  As far as I'm concerned, a user should be allowed
to discriminate in favor of content he/she likes or against content they
don't care about when it comes to their own broadband service.  They should
be allowed to implement this discrimination themselves or authorize someone
else (like the ISP) to do it for them.



George Ou

-----Original Message-----
From: Vint Cerf [mailto:vint@google.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 6:59 PM
To: George Ou
Cc: Lauren Weinstein; nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Subject: Re: [ NNSquad ] Re: Irish Times: "A modest proposal on internet
neutrality"

George,

I think that there is acceptance that charging more for more capacity
(bits/sec) but that differential charging for priority, regardless of
the type of traffic (eg real time, low delay or file transfer, or
...), could lead to anti-competitive consequences in which established
competitors might prevent new competitors from gaining adequate access
simply by consuming available capacity at high priority to squeeze out
the competition.

vint



On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 1:47 PM, George Ou <george_ou@lanarchitect.net>
wrote:
> "You pay your service provider a fixed charge, and it mostly keeps no eye
on
> who you connect to, or who connects to you. In a non-neutral world, the
ISP
> could block your access to a popular website until you paid an extra fee
> (like extra satellite or cable channels)"
>
> That is clearly a clueless and misleading statement for anyone that's even
> semi up to date on the actual policy debate.  The FCC's net neutrality
> proposal actually doesn't prohibit broadband providers for charging
> customers for higher priority; it prohibits broadband providers from
> offering "enhanced or prioritized" services to content/app/service
providers
> on a truly voluntary basis.  That's the real sticking point that many
> reasonable people have a problem with.
>
>
>
> George
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org
> [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] On Behalf
Of
> Lauren Weinstein
> Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 8:56 AM
> To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Irish Times: "A modest proposal on internet
neutrality"
>
>
> Irish Times: "A modest proposal on internet neutrality"
>
> http://bit.ly/bm2rw7  (Irish Times)
>
> --Lauren--
> NNSquad Moderator
>
>