On Mon, 15 May 2006, Dustin Goodwin wrote: > While Washington DC types try to figure out a solution to the Network > Neutrality problem. NYCwireless continues to drive the industry towards > NN via the NYCwireless Network Neutrality Broadband Challenge Please > contact your ISP and ask them to pledge their support. Link: > http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-index.php?page=BroadbandChallenge > Government regulation is the wrong solution! Consumers must speak up and > drive change from within the industry. > > The first 2 ISPs that have pledge to support the NN principles are NYC > based. This is a great example of the tremendous courage and vision of > NYC based businesses. Please reward them with your business: Bway.net > (http://www.bway.net) Panix (http://www.panix.com) Where do I register my agreement to the "4 principles" with a note that "You will take the right to control traffic on my network from of my cold dead hands"?
My customer's right to use my network end right where my right to control what goes on my network begins. You don't like it - use someone else's network. The principles are hollow, as there are loads of things that are *bad*, and that everyone filters, yet they remain lawful. Examples: 1) CAN-SPAM compliant bulk mail - technically, it is legal, and would be covered by your principle #1. So, should I be able to send "CAN-SPAM" compliant mail through any ISP subscribing to your policy? I can list many things that are filtered by most ISPs as a matter of course: a) NetBIOS traffic (tcp port 137-139) - that'll block "applications and services of their choice", if this application is netbios filesharing. However, every ISP recognizes that few people use insecure filesharing and that blocking of junk traveling on port 139 is more important. b) Blocking of MS-SQL port 1434 - while I'm sure its a legitimate application to connect to a remote ms-sql server, it is also an attack vector of sql-slammer worm, and has been blocked for past 3 years by every ISP with clue. I'm sure if I check more filters, I'll find more examples of "things that are perfectly legal but commonly blocked". 2) Bway's anonymous DSL http://www.bway.net/bway/dsl/anondsl.html flies in the face on #2 - anonymous access is designed to stifle law enforcement. 3) While I have no real opposition to #3, I believe that 'do not harm the network' is a vague and hollow standard. Who determines what harms the network or not? If it is ISP, how is it different from controlling what CPE can and cannot be used on the network. Remember, Ma Bell's original justification for not permitting customer-owned phones is that they the phones would "hurt the network" Don't get me wrong, I have respect for bway and for panix - but I think their support of this misguided initiative is wrong. For one, I'm saddened that nycwireless is moving to the bandcamp of 'consumer protection' instead of promoting competition between the ISPs so consumer can choose wisely. The bottom line is, you will never be able to write rules that are both "protecting the consumer's right to use network as they see fit" and "protecting the ISP officers' fiduciary responsibility to use the network to obtain highest return for the shareholders", so the only logical consequence is to "let ISPs do whatever they want, and let consumers choose wisely". -alex -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
