[governance] Net neutrality: Definitions

[McTim]

All,

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:22 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> Karl,
>
>> But finally, this whole thread started when someone said that the phrase
>> "public internet" was the whole internet.
>
> This goes back to definitions, that we started to attempt.
>
> One can call any traffic carried over IP as Internet, and to me you seem to
> think so. (Please correct me if I am wrong).

As you note below, there are private networks that do IP networking
that are not connected to the Internet.  For example, the large auto
manufacturers have huge networks for themselves and their suppliers
that parallel the "Internet", but are not "On the Internet".   These
are "Internetworks", but not Internet as we commonly refer to it.

>
> Verizon- Google uses the term non-Internet for IP traffic which is carried
> through entirely private agreements, and public Internet for IP traffic
> which is subject to certain levels/ kinds of universal access, transmission
> etc - which we may call as bound by a 'public contract', or by some degree
> of publicness.

I would prefer the term "publicly reachable" to "public Internet".

>
> I agree with this separation of meanings between non-Internet and the
> Internet as a public space/ entity. However, as argued earlier, degrees or
> manners of publicness characterizing a public space/ entity is different in
> different contexts - like public parks, public roads, public schools, public
> utility, public universities etc. Not all - for instance, in many cases
> public utilities - are owned or operated by a public agency. Such different
> uses of the term 'public' does not take away its meaning.
>
> There can be private enclaves within a public space, or the latter can be
> connecting private spaces. For instance, a private conversation in a public
> park and a road connecting houses respectively. In the case of the Internet,
> similarly, the publicness of the Internet does not overrule the privateness
> of an email carried by it, and also Internet of course does connect private
> networks, including those using IP.

Here is where you (and others) differ from folk like Karl and I in our
perspective.  Karl and I know that the Internet is simply, a network
of networks, each run by their owner according to local policy.  These
owners have no public obligation to make their networks available to
all and sundry.  Your perspective (I think) is more on the
epiphenomenal aspects of Internetworking, those that are publicly
beneficial.

BTW, your email is not "private" (unless encrypted) in the sense that
it can be read by some MITM on the "public Internet".

>
> In this context, like those who wrote the Verizon-Google agreement, I am
> completely able to understand the meaning of Internet as a 'public
> Internet'.
>
> However, the agreement makes distinction between the levels of (or nature
> of) publicness of the wired Internet and wireless and I do not agree with
> this distinction.



>
> You yourself speak of, what i see as, a public Internet in your email.
>
>>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.


Correct, and as Karl has already pointed out, telephony networks
evolved in to utilities over many decades, and after being given
privileged positions in the market.

The Internet differs significantly in a variety of ways.  IP (layer 3)
can run over the physical infra of the PSTN (Layer  1 and 2).  There
is no international settlement regime for the Internet as there is for
the PSTN, the subscriber billing system is dissimilar, it's a best
effort network,  etc, etc.


>
> 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 .
>
> Quoting from one of your earlier emails
>
>>However, one can take an alternative view and look at the term "public
>> internet" to describe only that portion of the net >that is owned or
>> operated by a public entity.

Again, I prefer "publicly reachable" to "public".

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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