And if core values are threatened, why not have laws narrowly tailored to that danger? Why not just make it illegal for ISP's to discriminate against websites based on politics, race, etc? Surely that'd be easier to get passed, and people would be happy, if that's what this all was really about.
Because that isn't what this is. The arguments between these massive companies are deciding the future of peer-to-peer communications on the internet.
If the ones who own the wires win, the internet will be officially divided into two classes: servers and clients. Netflix will still be as fast as it ever was (if not faster) if it pays, and if it doesn't, the wire-owners' new replacements will be just as fast as Netflix was. All of the current players will be making massive content and distribution deals with each other, and the internet will become cable TV.
There's no technical reason that the internet has to be structured that way. This is all just massive incumbents locking out all small fry, and consequently all newcomers. The scale this is being played out in is so large that Netflix is really the newcomer in the situation; this is not just a matter of protecting an oligarchy of entertainment providers, but even a war between content producers and content distributors that has implications that affect how fast the traffic between you and your mother will be, and what programs you will be allowed to use to produce and receive that traffic.
Ultimately it's a defense of a primitive accumulation. Some people own the wires because they were first. We can either let them manipulate the market so all of their vendors have razor-thin margins and all of their consumers have the most constrained agreements and highest prices, or restrict the right of the owners to shape and filter traffic for business purposes.
I quite agree that letting the people who own the wires do what they want will have an effect on the margins of companies who depend on those wires to reach customers. But doesn't that reinforce my point: there is something disingenuous about certain companies taking up the mantle of free speech and internet Utopianism to lobby for policy that is primarily targeted at fattening their own profit margins?
I don't see any reason to pick sides, certainly. I am equally skeptical of lobbying by ISP's that invoke the public interest or consumer protection to justify regulation excluding competitors from their markets.
I have no care about whether Apple can get its websites shown - Apple can take care of itself.
I do care whether I or other entrepreneurs can continue to publish our ideas without suddenly needing to bribe ISPs to not ruin the experience of customers using the site by throttling bandwidth as soon as it gets popular.
This simply isn't how the internet works.
Everyone pays for bandwidth, You all pay an ISP for x amount of bits per second, and y amount of transit. You pay more, for more. Unless you live in the US and you've been fucked by the incumbent monopoly.
If you're netflix, you pay a tier 1 carrier for bandwidth. as you get bigger you pay for an CDN. Bigger still, you make your own. (YMMV of course.)
to make it super cost effective, you negotiate your own peering agreement directly, as its cheaper than using cogent/level3 + akami and the like. (hence why google has so much dark fiber.)
The whole two tier internet business, has always been the case. Thats why there is both UDP and TCP. Thats why there is a priority header. Thats why there is QoS.
Yes people say that peering is free. They are simply wrong. To peer you need bandwith, which requires cables in the ground. Places like LONAP and LINX exist for mutual benefit. However at LINX private interchange traffic has been much larger than "public" interchange for years
Your statement about UDP is wrong though. TCP vs UDP is not a two-tier mechanism for quality. UDP delivers more effective throughput in most cases, as long as the application doesn't need the features that TCP provides. Consider that most TCP connections start with a UDP exchange for the DNS resolution. Even in conditions where you own all the bandwidth you may wish to use UDP.
Of course, there's still speaking fees.
I'm not quite sure where to advertise it, does HN have any suggestions?
So I'm a packet, leaving my computer...what happens now and what laws govern me?
So for the NN supporters have been very high on rhetoric and appalling low on details, which is always a prescription for legislative disaster.
If you actually understand neither the technical details, or the legal aspects, maybe you should take responsibility for educating yourself?
or, at the very least, avoid making deprecating comments about those who know more than yourself?
There is plenty of information and details out there supporting this idea, how it could and should be implemented, along with this being, as the article says, a "generally accepted norm" for a long time now.
Neither political storms nor greed nor trickery nor monopolies stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed routes. - Internet Service creed
I'd recommend applying for http://taskforce.is and sending Sina an email(his contact details are available on the application form). Ask for access to our mailing list and shoot off a group message, we have a wide ranged of politically devout developers.
Neglecting the fact the fact digging up the ground to place cable, which is what the customer is actually paying for is entirely different from wiring up interconnects at core exchanges, which costs virtually nothing in comparison.
The customer pays the last mile provider to go fetch with the understanding that what they pay covers everything the provider is supposed to go fetch with some profit added on. Then the provider goes to stiff the content provider for a share of their income, or else throttles the content provider which is essentially robbing the customer of a service they've already paid for.
Why can't the NY Times put it this plainly and simply?
I mean, its like Hulu Plus. The fact they charge a fee doesn't preclude them from charging advertisers to market to you.
If Comcast wants the extra money they're trying to get from Netflix/Level 3/etc, but is politically prohibited from doing so, then can't they still just raise end-user's prices? That would look worse from a Comcast PR perspective, but with no competition—which lets them get away with letting the quality of service degrade—does that really matter?
This (especially in terms of Netflix vs Comcast) seems like a massive distraction from the underlying competition issue. A distraction Comcast is probably happy to have.
Comcast is trying to block Netflix probably because people are stopping paying for cable TV, not because of costs. Thus thinking about costs and revenue will send you on the wrong avenue.
Even more, most NN supporters cannot actually state what they envision such laws to even do. If you ask, they will give you handwavy answers like "provide equal access"...then they will be unable / unwilling to answer any of the obvious questions that follow on from that (ie. what if I pay for faster access, what does that mean for others who don't? Is all QoS illegal now? How will NN be monitored, government installed monitoring stations in ISP? etc etc etc)
This is a political wet-dream though, lots of people clamoring for "more regulation" without any real knowledge of the details or effects. It was the same sort of lazy, unfocused clamor that brought us the Patriot Act, so be prepared.
Of course they can, and will. That wouldn't divide the internet into fast lanes and slow lanes, though, and would be transparent.
If customer's Netflix speeds are degraded it should be because contention at the customer end is slowing down Netflix speeds, not throttling at the ISP's end.
Is there anything high volume enough at customer's ends to interfere with Netflix or other video download speeds?
Greed or ignorance are generally my first guesses when trying to analyze what appears to be propaganda.
If it is ignorance it is usually an editorial decision. I mean, you can't have idealistic and conscientious writers influencing public opinion against Big Co if you need their ad spending, can you?
