[governance] What is Network Neutrality

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 12 janv. 09 à 17:37, McTim a écrit :

> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 6:55 PM, Meryem Marzouki  
> <marzouki at ras.eu.org> wrote:
>>
>> Le 12 janv. 09 à 15:15, McTim a écrit :
>>
>>> Parminder,
>>>
>>>  And, consequently, it turns the basic
>>>>
>>>> logic of the Internet on its head.
>>>
>>> no, it IS the basic logic of the Internet.  User types in a url, DNS
>>> resolves it, web page requested by browser, web page delivered  
>>> over x
>>> networks.  making x a smaller number is good for everyone.
>>
>> yes, definitely, provided that x is not only smaller for everyone  
>> but also
>> smaller for any web page accessed by the same person.
>
> Now you are talking about something that would be possible to
> engineer, but would cost many billions of Euros to implement and
> monitor.  It's completely out of the question IMHO.  It would require
> mandatory edge and squid caches at every ISP, no matter how small.

True and indeed, this is out of reach. That was simply to say that  
this couldn't be satisfactory for everyone, but only for those  
satisfied with access to mainstream content. Since we all agree that  
this is out of reasonable reach (e.g. there will always be, e.g.,  
Akamai users willing and able to pay for this caching services),  
let's concentrate on what is within reasonable reach, i.e. avoiding  
those artificial intervention of some routes that makes them wider  
for some at the expense of others, or even that cuts some of them: a  
"must (neutrally) carry" obligation. The whole debate now on this  
list if to identify: (1) on which actors this obligation should be  
reasonably put and, correlatively (2) which content/data this should  
reasonably concern.

>  Otherwise, people will
>> access only (or mainly) the content that is best (lest costly)  
>> accessed.
>
> That doesn't follow at all.  People will access the content they want,
> just as they do now.  Some of that content will come to them faster if
> cached, just as it does now (You can access a page hosted in France
> faster than you can access a page hosted here in Africa).

My whole point is that the content which is easier to access will be  
the content read by most people. This is a democracy issue, an old  
debate in the media sphere (and, Ralf, yes, it's normal that this  
reminds you the old NWICO debat: fundamentally, the same issue is at  
stake, although taking a new form, because of a new medium and all  
the technical consequences, starting from the theoretical absence of  
the resource scarcity problem).

>> Although this is entirely different from a technical point of  
>> view, it's
>> conceptually the same problem with google results appearing on the  
>> first
>> page vs. those appearing on the 30th page, with the same query.
>
> Isn't it that "people will access only (or mainly) the content that is
> best" for them, thus they choose Google or Yahoo or whatever search
> engine they prefer.

If you know exactly which, say, website you want to access, then yes.  
If you don't, and you want to access information about something,  
then you might only (meaning: in reasonable access conditions) get  
one-sided reports.

> Who would
>> bother checking all 29 result pages before reaching the potentially
>> alternative views provided on the 30th page? Note that this 30th  
>> page result
>> is not only still technically reachable, but also quickly and  
>> directly
>> accessible if I decide, say, that as a matter of principle I would  
>> always
>> give some privilege to the results appearing on the 30th page  
>> instead of
>> relying on google search algorithms. In case we want to make a better
>> analogy, then we should suppose that one can only access the 30th  
>> pages
>> results after having gone through the 29 previous pages. Who  
>> wouldn't give
>> up far before reaching the 30th page? (and actually, as studies  
>> have shown,
>> everyone does..).
>>
>
> If they chose another search engine, they would get different results
> (or perhaps the same results ordered differently). Still the freedom
> to choose is there.

We might have a different understanding of what 'freedom' is.

>>> As an experiment, I just tried to view the content of the NGO  
>>> which is
> my next door neighbor.  I ran a Google query for "Cesvi"at the same
> time as I typed in cesvi.org (a guess as to the domain name).  Google
> lost in terms of speed (perhaps because of a squid cache?), I am
> viewing the content via the direct surfing, not via Google.

:) You might also have tried to knock at their door, sit at their  
office and had a chat with them: probably even better results, taking  
into account the cup of coffee they would certainly have given you..
Now, try another experiment with the next-next door NGO, i.e. one  
located in the African country closest to Uganda and showing average  
intra-Africa bandwidth.____________________________________________________________
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