Alex,
You bring up some good points. Let me see if I can tease out the
logic here, because I think that you (and I'm sure many others) are
confused about what Net Neutrality really means.
When we speak of internet access, there are really 3 separate
components we are talking about:
1) The backbone - the massive pipes that carry all of the traffic of
the internet, and connect ISP to ISP (these are mostly fiber optic)
2) The last mile - the lines that connect end users (thats you, me,
and google) to the backbone (these are cable, copper, and fiber, and
sometimes wireless-Wi-Fi/WiMax/EVDO/etc.)
3) The internet service that runs on the last mile - THESE are ISPs
like bway, pilosoft, and aol, and these companies DO NOT own the
physical lines that make up the last mile
some ISPs are (1) and (2) (WISPs especially, as well as Verizon and
cablecos).
(1) is mostly AT&T (before SBC bought it) and MCI Worldcom (was
UUNET, now owned by Verizon), Sprint, and Level 3.
When (1) and (2) were separate companies, and when internet services
weren't converging with phone and tv services, Network Neutrality was
a given, because the marketplace where all the (2)s were competing
and purchasing capacity and carriage from the (3)s ensured that no
single (2) could exert unfair market power.
Then we had Vonage and other VOIP, which is a service that works
better when its packets are prioritized over other data packets. This
points to a need for a small reconfiguration of packet carriage, and
with a basic upgrade, all (1)s, (2)s, and (3)s can respect
prioritization of some data packets over other data packets based
entirely on the packet headers. There is a standard IP extension,
802.1p (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service), and all
business level, many consumer level, and all backbone level equipment
can process data that contains 802.1p optimization.
This is part 1 of Network Neutrality: any service that requests QoS,
when carried by a (1), (2), and (3) that can route and handle 802.1p,
should respect and follow such packet instructions, regardless of the
origin or destination of the packet, so long as it doesn't damage the
routing of other packets. In the case of pilosoft, Alex, this means
that you certainly can provide pilosoft VOIP service, and the packets
that carry that service should be optimized appropriately. But, by
putting into place equipment that provides this functionality, you
must also appropriately process any other QoS optimized packets, even
if they don't originate or terminate with you.
As a consumer, this is important because it means that, even though
you, as my ISP, may provide VoIP service, I am not required to only
get such service through you. You can offer benefits if I do buy
through you, such as discounts/bundling or converged billing or
enhanced voicemail that delivers directly to my email inbox. But you
cannot leverage your status as an ISP to offer an optimized service
and block that same optimization from being used by a third party
service.
Continuing on, SBC bought AT&T and Verizon bough MCI Worldcom. Now,
two of the biggest backbone networks are owned by the two biggest
telcos. (1) and (2) are now the same company. So the marketplace
dynamics that ensured that no (2) could leverage unfair market power
over another (2) in terms of backbone traffic.
This is part 2 of Network Neutrality: backbone providers (1) cannot
leverage their ownership of last mile networks (2) (funded by
taxpayers to the tune of $2000 per person over the past decade or so)
to favor or discourage traffic from any origin to any destination.
This means that if I pay for a 5mbps connection, I can use that 5mbps
connection for whatever traffic I choose, so long as it doesn't
damage the network, to its fullest capacity. This also means that if
Google pays for a 1gbps connection to the backbone, whatever they pay
for that connectivity also pays for carriage to any endpoint, to the
fullest extent of the capacity of the network, without the threat
that their traffic will be artificially reduced in capacity or speed
due to failure to pay additional fees for entry to a network.
Alex, this is the part of Net Neutrality that has absolutely nothing
to do with how you operate your "network", except that it will
prevent AT&T and Verizon from unfairly competing against you using
their ownership of both backbone and last mile connectivity.
What Verizon and AT&T are likely to do (especially since they
publicly stated about as much), is that they will require Google and
others to pay additional fees to get higher speed access to their end
user networks. They will be able to do this since they own the
networks between Google's ISP and the end user. Since you (and all
other ISPs) don't own any backbone, you can't offer this enhanced
speed access for Google and other content providers over your
network. You are stuck getting the slow speed version. And given all
of the past behavior of the telcos, this is exactly what they would
do with this power.
This wouldn't be an issue if SBC and Verizon didn't own the backbone,
since the backbone providers either would never offer this optimized
service, or would offer it equally to you and SBC/Verizon.
Dana Spiegel
Executive Director
NYCwireless
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.NYCwireless.net
+1 917 402 0422
Read the Wireless Community blog: http://www.wirelesscommunity.info
On Mar 18, 2006, at 4:42 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Dana Spiegel wrote:
And here is where we have the astroturf statements. Network
Neutrality
IS NOT regulation of the internet. It is a means of PRESERVING
internet
freedom.
This doublespeak is being promoted solely by telcos and their
astroturf
organizations. Private individuals have not been concerned with
attacking Net Neutrality. However astroturf organizations have
been able
to mis-represent Net Neutrality as government regulation. It is not.
The ONLY people who benefit from NOT having Net Neutrality are the
telcos and the cablecos. Private individuals and most business
BENEFIT
from having Net Neutrality.
Who said?
As an ISP, I am *against* any kind of net neutrality that would
apply to
my network. I don't want government to tell me what I can and what I
cannot do with my customer's traffic. Yes, most likely, I will not
touch
any kind of packets, but if I choose to give higher priority on
*my* IP
network to PilosoftVOIP packets, I should have this choice.
If your suggestion is that "Net Neutrality" should only apply to
ILECs and
cablecos - oh I'm all for it...But it kind of seems unfair, doesn't
it?
Not being a biggest fan of the incumbents, it does seem somewhat
silly to
hamstring them.
The "right" thing of course would be to reverse the TRO and mandate
ILECs
to provide unmolested layer2 DSL transport to third-parties. But that
battle seems to be lost.
Possibly, the only condition when net neutrality makes (sort of)
sense is
that ILEC would have to choose between providing access to competitors
like us, or to be bound by net neutrality provisions.
--
Alex Pilosov | DSL, Colocation, Hosting Services
President | [EMAIL PROTECTED] 877-PILOSOFT x601
Pilosoft, Inc. | http://www.pilosoft.com
--
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