[governance] What is Network Neutrality

[Ralf Bendrath]

> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> 
> wrote:

>> I see Internet's primary value and its basic characteristic, as a 
>> revolutionary democratic media, in the fact that unlike say 
>> interactive cable TV it can accommodate unlimited content,
But not unlimited traffic. Congestion at the last mile or on cables
to Africa is an issue. Of course people can buy gaginozillionbytes of
server space and put stuff on it, but it can not be delivered all at once.
This is the network issue, and this is what we should discuss here.

>> in a manner that all of it is accessible to the user at exactly the 
>> same level and ease,
Again: Fox News can buy more upstream bandwidth than mom and pop. What's
the issue with this? Is there any?
(I thought we were beyond this point already...?)

>> which puts the control and choice of what she wants to access 
>> completely in the user's hand.
Of course not. If a streaming video server only allows 1000 connections,
and I get in line as number 1001, I have no control over this. ;-)

>> However, if one can pay to push ones content extra hard at the user,
>> 
Define "push ones content extra hard at the user", please. This reminds me
of DDOS attacks, but I guess it's not what you mean. ;-)

>> at the cost of other competing content,
Define this too, please.

>> Now, if some content providers are able to pay and line their content
>>  up closer to the user relative to other content, without her 
>> exercise of such a choice, it obviously constraints her freedom and 
>> choice.

McTim schrieb:
> Now that's just silly.
Agree. Thanks for the illustrations, McTim!

> We WANT more edge and local caches.  Our brothers in Nairobi have root
> server instances, an Akamai server AND a Google cache.  That means that
> the networks connected to them ALL have access to cached content, which
> gives users better experiences, but also saves them money, as the
> content is only downloaded to EAfrica once and distributed from there
> to users.  This brings the cost of connectivity down for all.
It is even better for people in North America or Europe, because it frees
up Google's servers there AND at the same time frees up backbone bandwidth
there. So even users outside of Africa benefit from this.

> In your quest for some brand of egalitarianism, you have actually taken
> a deeply anti-development stance on this issue.
Interesting twist. ;-)

I still have the feeling that your argument is more serious than it looks
at first sight, Parminder. But I am afraid you have to define it more
precisely, especially in technical terms.
(It reminds me of the NWICO debate, but with the internet, the story is
really different I think. Especially because there is no fundamental
scarcity of offering content by anybody, as you mentioned. But I leave it
up to you to explain better what you mean yourself.)

> <pissing match twixt you and Milton snipped>
Thanks!

Ralf
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