Net Neutrality Links
I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
FROM PDF: Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality by Edward M. Felten, Center for Information Technology, Princeton University, was released in July 2006.
In this essay, Mr. Felten presents unpacks the murky mysteries of Net Neutrality. The paper is unemotional, understandable, unbiased, and well-written. His stance is detached and instructional stance which leads to a detached, observer’s conclusion.
Read this and Mr. Felten’s work if you need to know what Net Neutrality is about. If you want to know what to do, read MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet.
Ed Felten Explains, Then Is Silent
Mr. Felten begins his essay by saying
One of the reasons the network neutrality debate is so murky is that relatively few people understand the mechanics of network discrimination. In reasoning about net neutrality it helps to understand the technical motivations for discrimination, the various kinds of discrimination and how they would actually be put into practice, and what countermeasures would then be available to users and regulators. These are what I want to explain in this essay.
Felten offers seven core issues that underpin the discussion. I summarize them here.
- The Argument Is Partly about Controlling Innovation. Unlike most networks, the Internet is built with the intelligence at the edges. Routers in the “center” transmit and receive. Three advantages of this are that the intelligence is where the resources — computers, memory, processing power — are; network users own and control the computers at the edge; innovation usually happens faster at the edge.
Those for Net Neutrality tend to be at the edge. Those against tend to be in the center. Both groups want to control the intelligence and thereby control innovation.
- Minimal Discrimination Is a Necessity; Non-Minimal Discrimination Is Purely Economical. When a router in the “center” receives more than it can transmit, it “buffers” incoming packets in memory to wait for an outgoing link. If the buffer is full, the router must discard a packet — any packet.
One way a router might choose which packet to drop is by assigning priorities. In what Felten calls minimal discrimination the router only discards packets when congestion requires it. A second way, or non-minimal discrimination, drops low-priority packets when they could be sent through. Minimal discrimination is an engineering necessity. Non-minimal discriminatiion is an economic choice.
- VoIP Services Are Vulnerable to Delay Discrimination. A router can forward packets in more than one order. If a router was programmed always to forward high-priority packets first, low-priority packets would suffer an extra delay. This delay discrimination would hurt online gaming, VoIP (telephony), and any application that relies on steady streaming.
- Anti-Discrimination Policies Are Difficult to Write, Detect, or Enforce. It’s hard to sort what causes performance problems on the Internet.
- Discrimination Will Have Unknown Effects .Users and applications will change behaviors in unpredictable ways.
- Encryption to Avoid Discrimination Could Lead to Countermeasures by ISPs ISPs would look for ways to control their stake. Users would get caught in more complicated discrimination scenarios in such attempts. Resources would be wasted on both sides of the problem, possibly causing harm to the Internet.
- Quality of Service Guarantees Are Made to Sound Important. Applications that need to go faster than the Internet won’t be helped by QoS. Video and audio don’t need QoS. They use buffers. Most VoIP already work without QoS guarantees.
Mr. Felten’s concluded his essay this way.
Readers looking here for a simple policy prescription will be disappointed. The network neutrality issue is more complex and subtle than most of the advocates on either side would have you believe. Net neutrality advocates are right to worry that ISPs can
discriminateââ¬âand have the means and motive to do soââ¬âin ways that might be difficult to stop. Opponents are right to say that enforcing neutrality rules may be difficult and error-prone. Both sides are right to say that making the wrong decision can lead to unintended side-effects and hamper the Internetââ¬â¢s development.The present situation, with the network neutrality issue on the table in Washington but no rules yet adopted, is in many ways ideal. ISPs, knowing that discriminating now would make regulation seem more necessary, are on their best behavior; and with no rules yet adopted we donââ¬â¢t have to face the difficult issues of linedrawing and enforcement. Enacting strong regulation now would risk side-effects, and passing toothless regulation now would remove the threat of regulation. If it is possible to maintain the threat of regulation while leaving the issue unresolved, time will teach us more about what regulation, if any, is needed.
Mr. Felten wrote this piece in July. What would be Felten’s conclusion today? He appears to be silent. I couldn’t find a quote. I’m no deep journalist, but His own blog doesn’t mention Net Neutrality after July 2006.
Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be able to get the telcos, cablecoms and the government to stand still.
Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet ââ¬â Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE
