[governance] What is Network Neutrality

[nancyp at yorku.ca]

Hi all,

A neutral network must ensure that data is reachable from anywhere on the
internet network. At present the internet has no minimum standard of acceptable
performance for reachability of websites and data. The internet as an
information tool is useless without clarifying standards of reachability. Is it
a tool for edutainment or for information?

The most famous example of non-neutrality in Canada occurred during the Telus
labour dispute (2005). (Benkler, 2006)  Telus blocked access to a pro-union
website by blocking the server on which it was hosted. Researchers at Harvard,
Cambridge and the University of Toronto, Munk Centre, OpenNet Initiative found
that the action resulted in an additional 766 unrelated sites also being
blocked for subscribers. (OpenNet Initiative Bulletin 010, 2005).

Another important example of the unreachability of data took place in March 2008
at York University. A professor using the on-campus network attempted to reach
an internet website located somewhere in Europe that was important to his
research.  After repeated attempts, he still could not reach the site so he
contacted the IT (Information Technology) department at the university. They
were mystified why this would be the case. When the professor went home,
however, he found that he could reach the website. After several days the IT
department found out that the university’s bandwidth supplier Cogent had
severed a peering relationship with a bandwidth provider in Europe called Telia
which was the bandwidth network provider for the website that the Professor was
trying to reach. (Miller, 2008) Cogent did not proactively inform the
University of the issue and the loss of connectivity.

Reachability is a net neutrality question. The policy concept of common carriage
evolved into net neutrality through deregulation in the context of a transition
from analog to digital communications. Unreachability of internet data may be
due to geo-political factors, uncontrollable technical reasons as well as human
error, but unreachability due to hidden arbitrariness in commercial peering is
unacceptable. The problem of the lack of transparency in commercial internet
interconnection is largely a US problem as the US is the main battleground for
carriers refusing peering.

Nancy Paterson
PhD Comm program, YorkU
Toronto Canada

Quoting JFC Morfin <jefsey at jefsey.com>:

> At 16:01 08/01/2009, George Sadowsky wrote:
> >All,
> >I like very much Carlos' suggested approach of focusing on net
> >neutrality.  In addition to addressing edge-content manipulation by
> >ISPs for whatever reason, it addresses the issue where (1) XXX is a
> >government, and packets in one or both directions may just end up in
> >the gulag (and sometimes with their senders and recipients, too!);
> >and (2) the potentially more beneficial case where SIPs are trying
> >to do spam control or other damage control of some kind.  Note that
> >this would also diversion of traffic to alternate recipients, or
> >simply inspection of traffic in transit (e.g. the Great Chinese Firewall)
>
> Dear George,
> I am afraid you are only partly correct. Every debate about Net
> Neutraility is pure nonsense, until one starts openly documenting
> legally, societally, technically, internationally, and politically
> (the 5 WSIS governance poles) what are:
> - the Internet
> - what is the "Net"
> - what is "Neutrality"
> - by who
> - where
> and everyone involved has read, fully understood and appreciated the
> positive/negative impact of RFC 3238, 3752, 3835, 3836, 3837, 3838,
> 3897, 3914, 4037, 4236, 4496 and 4902.
>
> Then and only by then one could try to evaluate if "Net Neutrality"
> differs from "Life Neutrality" and if it makes sense. Or if we want
> to talk about Net Life Quality, Protection, Ecology, Consistency, etc...
>
> >There are, of course, different definitions of net neutrality, and
> >there are some thoughtful and challenging papers that address the
> >subject.  It's probably worth at least establishing and contrasting
> >definitions, but more important, understanding what they imply for
> >users in areas such as privacy, confidentiality, and accuracy.  I
> >agree with Carlos in that much of what I've seen does not
> >concentrate upon implications for the user.
>
> Question is not so much to dispute what we do not want, but to obtain
> what we want. This means understanding what is possible, deciding,
> and acting logically enough to obtain it.
>
> >I have never seen from an ISP a clear statement by an ISP of what
> >the ISP does with respect to traffic manipulation (if anything), and
> >I would think that a reasonable goal should be to establish a
> >framework that allows/requires an ISP to declare, in simple language
> >or languages, its policies with respect to content manipulation and
> >delivery.  This is most necessary and useful at the local level,
> >where there is one path to the user's computer.
>
> This is the datacom last mile problem - another part with economy,
> multilinguistics, technology convergence, etc. of the access issue.
> Lax SSL management, lack of presentation layer, poor network usage
> architecture, confusion between the "Internet" and its many many
> "networks", etc. make all this extermely confuse. We need first to
> clarify all this new cross-subzidization issue. Locally in the US and
> for the rest of the world.
>
> >Although higher tier ISPs have the capability to make the same
> >declaration, it's not useful to the user in that the routes
> >traversed by packets are likely to belong to multiple carriers and
> >in theory may even vary, packet by packet.
> >
> >This is a REAL Internet governance topic.
>
> Yes. This is why it must be considered as an intergovernance
> multilateral issue in the context of the current financial crisis,
> economical intelligence and unrestricted warfare. Etc.
> jfc
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>      governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
>
> For all list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
>


____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance