I NEED THIS T-SHIRT! YOU NEED THIS T-SHIRT!
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I listened to an interesting podcast (http://twit.tv/show/security-now/457) where Brett Glass gave his take on Net Neutrality from the ISP side.
Anyone else listen to this one?
He was talking about how he felt that service providers who provide large case services (Netflix was the main one) should have to give part of their fee to the ISPs since the customer won't pay the ISP extra for the extra load they are now putting on the ISP.
Brett's primary complaint is that customers won't pay the fees if the ISP's raise their rates to cover the costs of the customers higher usage. While I don't entirely disagree with him, he not right either. Just look at cell phone companies - they've been tiered charging since the beginning and still are. It's nearly impossible to find an 'unlimited' data plan.
Furthermore, many ISPs have changed their TOS to remove the unlimited plans from their customers as well.
It was easy for an ISP to tell their customers that a broadband plan was unlimited back when the average user used maybe 2 GB of bandwidth a month, but in light of things like Netflix - it's easy to chew up 100+ GB a month, and what's worse, the usage isn't spread over the entire day, it's almost all crammed into the timeframe of 5 PM - 2AM EST.
Frankly - we don't need net neutrality - if the ISPs need to charge more to stay solvent, then they need to do just that! Charge more!
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Climbing off my soap box.
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I just want to point out that the Consumer ISP level is completely different than the backbone peering level and different rules have always applied there.
Quick definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#How_peering_works -
@JaredBusch said:
I just want to point out that the Consumer ISP level is completely different than the backbone peering level and different rules have always applied there.
Quick definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#How_peering_worksI'm just catching up... I do understand that ISP level and backbone levels are different, but I'm not sure how they apply?
If my ISP (Cox) is providing unlimited internet access (at least they used to claim as much) than what's the problem? Why does my streaming of Netflix 24x7x365 matter - Of course I understand why it matters - Cox sold me a bill of goods which they thought I would next fully tax, therefore they charged me a lower rate because in reality they were able to oversell their network many times over (this is the same as banks who borrow X amount from the Fed and turn around and loan it out to 100X value). And this whole situation is fine as long as the masses don't want to start using the entire amount of bandwidth they have purchased (which we do now).
ug.. do I really need to go on? lol
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
I just want to point out that the Consumer ISP level is completely different than the backbone peering level and different rules have always applied there.
Quick definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#How_peering_worksI'm just catching up... I do understand that ISP level and backbone levels are different, but I'm not sure how they apply?
If my ISP (Cox) is providing unlimited internet access (at least they used to claim as much) than what's the problem? Why does my streaming of Netflix 24x7x365 matter - Of course I understand why it matters - Cox sold me a bill of goods which they thought I would next fully tax, therefore they charged me a lower rate because in reality they were able to oversell their network many times over (this is the same as banks who borrow X amount from the Fed and turn around and loan it out to 100X value). And this whole situation is fine as long as the masses don't want to start using the entire amount of bandwidth they have purchased (which we do now).
ug.. do I really need to go on? lol
Your ISP sold you a 50mbps/10mbps pipe from their network to your network. Period. End of discussion. They did not sell you a direct connection to weather.gov or netflix.com.
The connection from their network to other networks has nothing to do with what you paid for.
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I need this t-shirt
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@JaredBusch said:
Your ISP sold you a 50mbps/10mbps pipe from their network to your network. Period. End of discussion. They did not sell you a direct connection to weather.gov or netflix.com.
The connection from their network to other networks has nothing to do with what you paid for.
hmm.. that's an interesting thought.. so I bought a 50 mbps connection to them (my ISP) and a no guarantee connection to the internet itself? Come on.. really? While I'm sure you're right legally, this is definitely not the expectation of the consumer!
You are right though, they didn't sell me a direct connect to someone else's network. But they did sell me 50 mbps to the internet, unless the upstream providers of my ISP have legitimate bottlenecks, or the service on the side (let's say netflix) is bottlenecked or throttled I should get my full bandwidth to whomever I choose.
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@Dashrender said:
hmm.. that's an interesting thought.. so I bought a 50 mbps connection to them (my ISP) and a no guarantee connection to the internet itself? Come on.. really? While I'm sure you're right legally, this is definitely not the expectation of the consumer!
Network Neutrality means that your ISP cannot modify traffic inside their network to prefer one type of traffic over another. So you the consumer should get the same basic performance to any other network that the ISP is connected to.
Network Neutrality does not mean that your ISP is required to peer with any specific network. This means that if media company A wants to ensure the best performance to the customers of your ISP, it is in the media company's interest to strike a direct peering agreement (free exchange of similar traffic loads) or strike a paid agreement (for unbalanced traffic loads generally) instead of relying on the traffic to route through other networks prior to getting to your ISP in a best effort fashion.
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I do understand what you are saying @JaredBusch, and I mostly agree with you. But the current proposals that I've read about do allow just that, the ISPs can make a 'fast lane' with specific content providers assuming an agreement can be made - not the opposite, which is what everyone wants, which should be a free and open best effort with no intentional roadblocks like Comcast was doing before Comcast and Netflix came to a paid agreement. It was obvious from data flow charts that Comcast was restricting flow rates on Netflix traffic before that agreement...
They do the same thing today to bit torrents and other P2P sharing protocols.
Perhaps we do need net neutrality - but certainly not in the current form being presented....
It's like the Patriot Act - it's anything but patriotic as it strips you and I from our constitutional rights...
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@Dashrender said:
I do understand what you are saying @JaredBusch, and I mostly agree with you. But the current proposals that I've read about do allow just that, the ISPs can make a 'fast lane' with specific content providers assuming an agreement can be made - not the opposite, which is what everyone wants, which should be a free and open best effort with no intentional roadblocks like Comcast was doing before Comcast and Netflix came to a paid agreement. It was obvious from data flow charts that Comcast was restricting flow rates on Netflix traffic before that agreement...
They do the same thing today to bit torrents and other P2P sharing protocols.
Perhaps we do need net neutrality - but certainly not in the current form being presented....
It's like the Patriot Act - it's anything but patriotic as it strips you and I from our constitutional rights...
Network Neutrality is a thing that is needed. I agree 100% and submitted my own comments using the process above.
The problem is that most people have no idea what they are talking about. They are repeating buzzwords. The concept of making Netflix pay for a connection direct to the Comcast network is 100% consistent with the way the internet has always functioned. The supposition (likely true based on current public circumstantial evidence) that Comcast was intentionally slowing the connection from the Netflix CDN provider that they were using prior to the agreement for direct connection is what violates Network Neutrality. Comcast has a peering agreement with that CDN company. That agreement, until renegotiated, means that traffic from that network should come through with zero interference. That is what Neutrality should mean on the "other side" of the pipe from the consumer.The internet has always been about network agreements, not all of them are free peering agreements. Many of them are paid connections for XX amount of traffic.
