fedward, tumbling

Title for my paper

tbridge:

“Network Neutrality: Threat or Menace?” 

What do you think?

I would avoid using the term “Network Neutrality” except to deconstruct it, since it has become laden with half-truths and propaganda.  And I’d be tempted to use a Simpsons reference, something like “Argle-Bargle or Fooferaw?” instead of “Threat or Menace?”  If you insist on using the two words “Network” and “Neutrality” together like that, though, I’d probably do something like, “Everything You Know About Network Neutrality Is Wrong (and so is everything you didn’t know and were afraid to ask).”

Things worth remembering when talking about network neutrality, on one side:

1. The ISPs would like nothing more than to double-dip, charging twice or more for the same transmission of data.  The end user is already paying what should be a fair price for their own usage; the content provider has paid to get the content delivered to the ISP in the first place. Arguments about how the content providers are using the ISP’s networks “for free” are disingenuous.
2. Claims about “bandwidth shaping” and “protocol limiting” can be used to mask business decisions and/or force users to use preferred or premium services the ISP makes extra profit on.

And on the other side:

1. Content providers talk out of both sides of their mouths. They desire not to have their usage capped or surcharged, because they have their own contracts with other ISPs and networks to protect. Hulu benefits from unrestricted, unmetered access, but it also has made arrangements with presumably every network to protect everybody’s profits.  It’s also theoretically possible that a Hulu-like site could be pushing more content through its own peers than they were expecting when they signed the contracts, but that’s not the end ISP’s problem.
2. While there are substantial legal uses of BitTorrent and the like (downloaded a Linux distro lately?), it is undeniable that heavy users of these protocols are a drain on network resources, and acting as if piracy isn’t really all that big a problem weakens the validity of one’s arguments.

I don’t think anybody can talk intelligently about network neutrality unless they understand how peering and transit work, and very few people even know what those things are, much less how they work.  The people who could actually have a reasonable discussion on the merits could fit into a large conference room.   FWIW, my own exposure to peering and transit was both tertiary to my actual job and so long ago that I’d have to study up just to be able to follow along.