[governance] Re: What is Network Neutrality

[McTim]

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> See a new item about Comcast's Phone/ Internet practises, given below
> (
> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/20/technology/AP-FCC-Comcast.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
> )
>
> to quote "Comcast's Web site says that its own phone service is routed over
> a separate network instead of the public Internet and won't be affected by
> its new network management practices."
>
> This has great relevance to some issues which were raised in this discussion
> a few days back. Excuse me to quote from my email to Avri
>
> "a 'content provider' is just anyone on the Internet. Whereby, telecoms
> should not be able to prioritize the transmission of any content/traffic on
> the basis of higher charges. This should be the defining principle of a
> public Internet. On the other hand IP is an open technology allowed for
> private uses, and carriers can be allowed to run VPN kind of special, and
> more privately-oriented (with higher private-ness) services, subject to a
> different regulatory regime, if necessary, regarding private IP based
> services. But just don't name them Internet, this is the 'global public'
> claim on the Internet - that we all know in a particular way, and cherish."
>
> Interesting, the quoted news item further says that such managed IP based
> services should have a different regulatory regime.
>
>>The FCC said that if Comcast isn't routing calls over its broadband
>> network, the phone service could be classified as a telecommunications
>> service subject to >regulation and intercarrier fees that phone companies
>> currently pay.
>
> Extending the above argument it is possible to have
>
> (1) a (public) Internet, based on a conception of network neutrality (NN)
> that is guided by democratic media principles - this means absolutely no
> content discrimination -  ie no fast lanes for different content, no tiered
> Internet etc
>
> (2) Seperate IP based networks that can carry QoS sensitive commercial
> applications, that can (an open issue ?) be priced in an open market on a
> non-exclusionary basis. These networks should be subject to anti-trust based
> NN principles, which will be especially stringent  because telecom is a
> oligopolistic business. These networks may also be required to keep a
> tier/channel free to application providers to use, which is paid for only by
> consumers on bandwidth cost basis.
>
> The above is  a bare sketch of a possible new framework to look at the NN
> issue that comes to my mind. There are of course many issues and
> complications here that will need to be further worked on in this respect.

The above is a bare sketch of a 2 tiered Internet.  We should not
advocate for this.

Here are 2 links (from the NN list) addressing the specific issue and
the more general.

http://telephonyonline.com/residential_services/news/comcast-congestion-0123/

http://lauren.vortex.com/ACM209.pdf

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
http://stateoftheinternetin.ug
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