Net Neutrality

[Alex]

There is a difference between Net Neutrality in the sense being talked about here and the difference in performance levels between types of connections.


Imagine if you will the highway system in the greater Los Angeles area. There are roads that have different speed limits and you can make choices about which speed limits are best for you (I know, nobody would but you could). However, once you've chosen a particular road, the speed limit is the same for everybody. It doesn't matter what kind of car you drive, where you actually live, or how much money you make. The speed limit is still the same.

But Anaheim wants to make some more money so they say if you live in Anaheim the speed limit is 20 miles per hour higher on every street and non-Anaheim residents must pull over to let Anaheim residents by. For $500 a year, non-Anaheim residents can purchase a sticker that will let them act like an Anaheim resident.

The road network is no longer content neutral. It was never path neutral (I-5 through Anaheim was faster than Katella) but it was content neutral.

That is what is being proposed by the backbone operators. They want to be able to decide who gets treated like an Anehim resident (and charge for the privelege). So, both YouTube and Google Videos hit the market at the same time. Both provide content and service that is preferred by 50% of users. However, Google uses its massive wealth to reach a deal with Comcast so that its content will be preferred over YouTube's. As a result, an identical video being requested by the same Comcast customer might take three times as long to download from YouTube as from Google Video.

It is then made even muddier because to get to you from the Google server it may go over backbone owned by many different pipes (AT&T to Sprint to Comcast, for example) and each could have reached a different deal with the content owner. Kind of like taking a drive through Somalia and having to stop at a check point every five miles to pay a different bribe.

There is already some dings to network neutrality. For me, content from Comcast downloads much faster than similar content from other parts of the internet but this is a mixing of network neutrality and path neutrality issues.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I'm bumping this ancient thread because I don't want to fully explain net neutrality if I don't have to.

Comcast takes the first shot.

I know this may be confusing but I really want everyone to think about this. Have a look at savetheinternet.com . It's really a scary prospect - the internet could become just like cable, with providers choosing what you can and can't see, how much each "package" costs ("Honey, if we get Package III for an extra 7 bucks a month we can get an extra 10 megs per second, plus access to both Digg.com AND imdb!").

If you have Comcast, please write them an email, send a real letter, make a phone call, cause some ruckus. I'm going to write them a letter myself even though I don't have their services. If we're not on the ball they could slay the golden goose right in front of our eyes.

[RStar]

Wow, this really sucks! Thanks CP, I never understood it until I read this. I'll take a look at what I can do.

I shudder thinking about how they will get us to pay taxes on internet purchases outside of the state we are in. Now this.....

[Moonliner]

Moonliner: Proudly Comcast free since June 2007.

[Snowflake]

I'm sbcglobal, but I do find this worrisome. Thanks GC and CP and ML, I'm adding my voice.

I only have Comcast cable and it sucketh, bigtime. That is another matter entirely.