[governance] Net neutrality: Definitions

[Karl Auerbach]

On 08/17/2010 02:22 AM, parminder wrote:

>> I suggest that absent some sort of expropriation that the best you
>> could possibly achieve is some sort of >non-discriminatory
>> common-carriage regime to defined classes of service but that different
>> classes of service would >come at different prices.

> Such a common carriage network has traditionally been called as a public
> network as in '/public switched telephone network', even when operated
> by private operators. /

As Milton M. would point out (I'm sure he is lurking around the edges of 
this conversation) those private companies in the US that operate as 
"public utilities" frequently (and perhaps always) took that route, or 
allowed it to be imposed onto them, as part of a substantial 
quid-pro-quo that includes things like anti-trust immunity and access to 
public powers like eminent domain acquisition of lands or easements.)

By-the-way, I have no objection to the notion that network packet 
contents ought to be treated as inviolable by providers.  (However, I 
still use end-to-end encryption for most of my network packets. ;-)

> The real problem is with a narrow way of looking at the meaning of
> public, which simply does not hold in the present discussion, and is
> IMHO only succeeding in making the discussion on public interest
> regulation of the Internet even more confusing .

I'm not trying to confuse things, I'm merely trying to point out that 
when someone writing a policy, particularly an author who is commercial, 
that the word "public" when prefixed to the word "internet" is a signal 
to count fingers and to make sure that some slight-of-hand isn't being 
perpetrated.

	--karl--
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