Do you support Net Neutrality?

Feel free to explain your reasoning pro or con.

:D

Just "shape" their traffic so they've got the equivalent of a 300baud modem. :evilgrin:

eventually someone here will either vote for it, or argue in favor of it.

:spank:

Every time I see the topic discussed I'll see people who are against it because they don't understand it. One pops up in every discussion. That's why you'll always get at least one person who votes no.

Without it, we wouldn't know what's going on. We'd be subjected to the propaganda of the corporatists.

We wouldn't have polls like this one...

I was going to post that very thing. :D

:thumbsup:

Things like 911 calls and emergency services need to take priority over people playing World of Warcraft and downloading torrents.

It's not even a related matter. WTF?

How does net neutrality interfere with emergency services?

"net neutrality" means handling all network traffic at the same routing priority regardless of the source, destination, or protocol.

We don't do that for physical roads, we let the ambulances by when they flash their lights and sound the sirens. Our networks should operate the same way.

How about we give priority to just them and treat everything else neutrally?

I'm not convinced that that's even necessary. I don't personally have VOIP but I have family who have their phone service through Comcast, and their calls go just as fast as regular old Verizon analog copper wire.

and the Communications Act of 1934 for you.

While I understand what you're trying to convey, I'm pretty sure there are already measures in place that would insure that emergency services would take priority in case of an actual emergency. Meaning (I guess) that if the Internet gets congested, priority for packets emanating from and traveling to IPs, designated as part of local and state facilities, would have precedence.

You do realize that's not what the fight over Net Neutrality is about, don't you?

Excuse me for looking at this like an engineer and not like an activist.

I'm all for people being able to download their porn and their torrents, but let's not get anyone killed over it.

Government could allow priority for emergency services if it becomes necessary.

Small sites get bundle deals anyways and are treated as big sites.

Giving priority to 911 calls, for example, will result in high prices?

The original Communications Act of 1934 was set up to insure that communication services never favored private interests over public safety. It's the very spirit of the Act.

It appears that there explicitly are not allowances for emergency services.

Based on my cursory research so far, I do not see a compelling reason to impose net neutrality, but I do see a compelling reason not to do so. A prioritized network will provide services to unprioritized network traffic that might not be available at all - the network might not be built - without the economic justification that prioritization supplies.

I can see the possibility of future developments that could make net neutrality, or some limited form thereof, desirable, but in the present I can state that it is distinctly non-desirable.

You see, I do Internet work for a living, the whole spectrum - networks, servers, applications - and having read more logs than I would ever inflict on anyone, there are obvious reasons to prioritize some traffic over others. There is a great deal of traffic, a very significant percentage of the overall, which is related to crime. Spammers' and hackers' traffic should be deprioritized, IMO. Since I pay for my Internet connection, I would sure hope that the service of a request - say, the HTTP request for this thread - should have priority over an ICMP packet from a hacker in China.

While I've personally wired my own system to forward hostile traffic to the FBI, or to John McCain's comments page* (depending on the type of attack), I wouldn't expect very many people to be able to do that.



*not kidding on that either, all traffic from identified web spam sources gets directed there

This is about whether or not corporations can make the decisions about the flow of internet traffic based on what's in their best interests.

Spammers and hackers can be blocked and often are.

I'm curious how you've "wired" your system to forward hostile traffic to the FBI and just what you think that accomplishes. Forwarding that stuff (as opposed to just blocking it at the firewall) adds more traffic to the net, not less.

Private property is not something to blow off on a whim. The assurance of protection for private property is a large part of the reason why these networks exist at all. Who would make the massive investment in building one if someone else could come in and tell you how to run it?

I drive my car based on my own best interests. Should it be up to the government when and how I should drive it?

If the networks were publicly owned, that would be a different story.

By the way, the blocking of spammers and hackers, where it is done (and trust me, it isn't done except by private individuals protecting themselves - put up a server on an unfiltered network, wait a week, and go read the network log if you want to see for yourself) is one of those things that would be made illegal by net neutrality. Hell's bells, if I read the doctrine correctly, even spam filtering, if done on the network level, would be made illegal. (This is one of the problems with political activists thinking they can make decisions best left to engineers.)

With regards to my own configuration, I get paid to reveal the secrets of how I do what I do :evilgrin: I know it's completely ineffective - but it would be effective if the FBI/McCain were doing its/his job. It's more of a "if you're going to ignore the problem I'm going to make it your problem, then maybe you'll take the actions you should have been taking already" tactic than an actual expectation of a solution.

The government doesn't set limits on what speed you can drive on the roads? That's a real poor analogy you're using there. I'd say the roads more closely match what you're talking about, and the governments own those. And your contention that the corporations own those networks is false as well I believe.

They are leased via contract from the Federal Government.

We have rules about privately owned phone networks. We have rules about privately owned electric utilities. We have rules about water and sewer systems, some of which are privately owned. We do this because they are important to the public welfare. Regulation of utilities is not some new insidious un-American attack on private property.

Spam is a whole issue in itself and needs to be addressed more effectively, but that's a separate issue. Laws can be passed to allow more effective control, but we shouldn't let the current situation regarding spam stop us from preventing corporate takeover and control of the internet.

Well, the FCC sure does.

Start here:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/net-neutrality-announcement/

Whether or not your own idea of a global Internet routing overhaul is sound, please bear in mind that we're currently discussing a proposal that would take power away from the citizen/consumer and place that power into the hands of Comcast, et al.

Is that really the side you wish to be fighting for?

sure, I'd be on the side of the citizen/consumer first.

IF net neutrality is desirable (and no case has been made here that it is), then it is something that ought to be addressed by the states individually and not the federal government, which already can't handle the responsibilities and expenses it has assumed.

As far as the FCC goes, they can quite sincerely suck my dick to kingdom's come. If you were thinking that a bureaucratic opinion would influence mine positively, you are quite mistaken. That they even exist is a big middle finger to the First Amendment.

If even such a soul-sucking, waste-of-space, tax-dollar-burning, in-the-corporate-pocket bureaucracy as the FC-freakin'-C is supporting Net Neutrality, isn't it time to delve just a little deeper into the Pro arguments on the subject?

And the idea of leaving net neutrality up to the states is...well, "disastrous" would be putting it mildly. I'd rather not have the LDS church decide what websites and cloud services I can and cannot use when I'm traveling through Utah, thanks!

Sometimes people are wrong for the right reasons, and others are right for the wrong reasons.

As an independent-thinking person, I choose not to get my opinions provided to me by other parties, and instead examine the evidence and come to a conclusion based on the merits.

Given that I clearly have a far more comprehensive engineering and networking background than anyone else on this thread, perhaps you all should delve a little deeper into my arguments, rather than digging into a position you haven't the background knowledge to argue effectively.

We'll start there.

goto line 28

Are you being deliberately abstruse?

But I'm certainly not smart enough to be taken as a reliable source. ;)

people are getting hysterical and a little more than silly here, I think any serious discussion has just about ended, anyway.

Certainly not the person you just responded to. I'm not sure why Ignis deserved such a response.

I'm not used to being defended on DU. Stop it, you'll make me blush!

:blush:

just a bit frustrated with what appears to be a determined ignorance by some of the others. Apologies if it came across like that.

Opening the pipes like net neutrality suggests will not deliver the reliable service that seems to be the motivating factor. What these people really want is an explicit and enforceable service level agreement, choices of products that will serve their communication needs on an individual basis, that will get them what they want.

*k-pow*.

Very nice.

I try to be patient and compassionate with my fellow humans, but most times the best I can manage is "tit for tat." :D

You still use goto statements?

But who knows what the really, really, really smart people call it? :shrug:

that you know with such certainty that you have a much better technical background than anyone else in this thread. Have you gone over everyone's resumes?

Then explain why that technical background makes you superior to everyone else here in arguing this particular issue. Perhaps those of us who are to stupid for you should not have a political voice on this issue?

If anyone else here were doing that you'd see more detailed discussion.

Having a technical background does in fact put you in a superior position to discuss technical issues (of which this is definitely one), that's why we have this thing called education. I'm also apparently in a superior position to discuss the economics of the matter due to my strong interest in that subject and the absence of any similar concern on this thread.

I certainly think you should be able to have a political voice on any issue it pleases you to have one. The existence of a political voice, however, does not make it smart, wise, correct, or legal to heed what that voice would have one do.

There are limits to the political voice. These things are called "rights", something no vote of a polarized and ill-informed mob should be able to take away from you, such as your right to have that voice, or to use your own property in the way you see fit.

Let me advise with the wisdom of my meager years, that there are subjects far more deserving of our nation's attention, where, if you are ready to stand for something and fight, that's the place to do it. For example, auditing the Fed, bringing down all the financial Ponzi and vampire schemes which create false scarcity and set us against one another for the scraps. Starting a new fight over property rights on something that really won't make a difference in too many peoples' lives, I think that's a foolish, Quixotian quest and ultimately a waste of time at a time when we can no longer afford such luxury.

You have no idea what the background is of other people on this thread. From what I can see there are other technically astute people here. Just because they don't share your opinion doesn't mean that you are better educated or more knowledgeable than them.

Just because they aren't arguing the technical issues (actually some of them are...) doesn't mean that they can't. It may simply mean that they know that they aren't really all that relevant to the overall issue.

What am I to make of my husband, the DUer who happens to be an engineer very much for net neutrality?

It's common among people who have proficient and comprehensive networking and engineering skills. As if it isn't possible for people from other backgrounds to understand this oh so complicated subject. However, it's true that there tend to be quite a few progressives in the field as well. So, if you think you're just going to sit in this thread and educate a bunch of unwashed masses here at DU, I think you're going to learn a valuable lesson shortly. It will be amusing to watch.

Something about the Libertarian philosophy (and I use the term loosely) seems to "click" with techies at a certain point in their personal development.

Most of us get better, eventually.

Despite having been the (very hands-on) Director of IT at one of the earliest ASPs on the 'net back in the Wild West days, I think I'll just back away slowly and let you enjoy your self-stimulation via argumentum ad verecundiam.

:hi:

That quip was just a witty riposte to the argumentum ad populam thrown at me.

All I'm saying is that they don't understand what it means to impose a doctrine of net neutrality, they dream it's a wonderland of "all my stuff goes full speed all the time" and don't understand what having an open, dumb pipe really means.

I'm not trying to self stimulate here, I'm just horrified at the technical implications of this policy. Maybe one of these eager volunteers would like to try their hand at putting it into practice?

Hopefully not my link to the FCC endorsement. If so, you're misapplying that fallacy label.

Also, I hardly think that anyone in this thread has asked for the sort of six-sigma SLA strawman against which you're arguing. But net neutrality would indirectly provide some remediation for the (currently unregulated!) throttling and filtering practiced by some of the large corporate players in this arena.

You can't expect the average consumer to know MAE West from MAE East, but you can certainly expect them to notice when their ISP promises one thing and delivers another.

There is one internet. You cannot have it being a state by state basis.

Also, the end of net neutrality means corporations being allowed to block certain sites they don't like when you buy their service. Now that's a big middle finger to the first amendment.

to the internet that they can't alter our access to the internet for their own purposes, financial or political. That's it. Nothing you're talking about has anything to do with that.

Link please?

Frankly, when it boils down to what providers do at the routing level, you guys can shut down entire IP blocks and user ports and have always been able to do so in the name of malicious traffic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

Seems like an even-handed summary of arguments.

This plus the FCC notice someone provided above seems to indicate that net neutrality would make that illegal too.

If providers are shutting down entire IP blocks, they are doing a piss-poor job of it, given, say, the traffic out of the 89.149 Class B network, which appears to be exclusive to network pirates.

If you claim; "This plus the FCC notice someone provided above seems to indicate that net neutrality would make that illegal too.", then you didn't read the wiki summary.

Please show us how Net Neutrality would make wikipedia 'illegal'.

:hide:

the word 'that' refers to your mention of taking out IP blocks.

Tell me what "net neutrality" would "make illegal".

Don't fuck with me on this, I'll cut through bullshit like a lightsaber and send Lucas $5 every time.

"Based on my cursory research so far, I do not see a compelling reason to impose net neutrality"

Ummm... I really hate to break this to you, but 'Net Neutrality' is something we already have.


All 'Net Neutrality' means is that if it's connected to the internet, and you have a connection, you can access it.

That's it.


What the telecom companies are trying to 'impose' is the ability for them to decide what you can and cannot access. They want to 'dual tier' the internet so that their subscribers have to pay more for better access while companies that want everyone to have access to their websites would have to pay a premium to the ISP's so they would offer it to 'low tier' customers.

The end of net neutrality means mega-profits for the telecoms... not to mention the control factor.

what we have now in no way is net neutrality.

If there's another version of the concept which actually takes into account operational realities, please direct me to it and I will consider it.

If the definition I see now is all there is, then I can assure you it is not what we have now, and would make a lot of routine IT security illegal.

and who is downloading lots of data files and linux distros?

Net neutrality is an attempt by AT&T to get a monopoly status again. The excuse for this legislation is that the companies manage their traffic how they please. Meaning they give priority to video and voice data over packets sent for loading sites and such. It's being spun as they are trying to exclude people with a message they do not like from participating in networking. The way our infrastructure is made that is pretty much impossible to prevent. The few cases where they attempted this there was HUGE blow back and they were forced to change their actions.

I don't think ISP can stand up to internet techies.

However if you look at what the new legislation is going to do it will establish a new panel that will be able to cap some of the cost saving practices that ISPs use to compete. This means we will revisit the "same standard" mantra that allowed AT&T to maintain it's monopoly over telephone services.

If any regulation is needed it is too take away contracts from geographically based ISPs and introduce bid wars for their fiber lines.

It's not a subject I care much about let me see if I can dig it up.

I messaged the persons in question for some academic info. I'll bump this if I get a reply.

Comcast is one of the biggest enemies of net neutrality.

http://www.freepress.net/comcast

I live in the boonies and have satellite internet (and dial-up backup) for my business.

I have the ProPlan and am allowed a certain MB download per 24 hours/day (with free DL 11pm-4am Whoopie!!) on my plan FAP (Fair Access Policy) and if I go over, it slows me down to slower than dial-up.

Recently they have given us a free "get out of FAP Hell" token per month and you can buy additional ones if you go over again within the month.

How will NN help satellite users?

Here's the thing with Sat based "broadband" - it's VERY expensive to move data through it. this is why the fair access policy is rather strict - the service really isn't designed to keep up with seriously heavy users, so they will take fairly swift action against the super heavy users.

From what i understand having a bunch of real heavy users can seriously ruin the quality of service for everyone.

The short version - this is between you and your provider. Net Neutrality won't change your terms of service or fair access policy. It will just ensure than any web site you wish to visit will be delivered to you by your provider as equally as any other web site.

Hope you can get a proper broadband solution some day :)

The broadcast tv (what there is of it) is on a translater. No hope of DSL or cable in my lifetime.

OTOH, I live on 30 acres of beautiful desert, surrounded on three sides by buttes and look south to the San Bernardino mountain range (Big Bear) on 7 miles of dirt road. Wouldn't trade that for broadband!

I'm an old-timer, and this is one I really haven't paid much attention to. From what I have read posted (granted, mostly here), if we don't get Net Neutrality, evil corporations will control everything we see, stop all flow of traffic, basically ruin the world....... but, do we have it now? If so, is there a movement to strip it away, if not, how come life isn't crashing down around our ears as I type this?

If anyone cares to answer those simple questions, keep in mind I'm old, and not the most technologically advanced poster here. Use the KISS principle, (many acronyms fit that, lets stay with Keep It Simple, Sport)if possible.

If anyone cares to go off on a tirade about how obtuse I must be, not to see it... take a number and stand in line. I got a back log of people who want to yell at me. :evilgrin:

The problem is that all of the Net Neutrality arguments forwarded by activists demand a hands-off attitude towards packet prioritization. I have no problem with QoS prioritization to give certain types of applications routing precedence over applications which are latency neutral. A person requesting a webpage will never notice if some of their packets get queued for 100ms, but someone using a VOIP telephone would. Granting higher priority to low latency streaming services makes sense, and is really required if we're going to move the Internet into a truly multimedia oriented communications medium.

That said, I don't support some proposals from some providers to de-prioritize content for providers on other networks to gain commercial advanvantage. Slowing down access to Google in the hopes that more people will use your own service isn't cool. Neither are demands by some backbone providers that content providers begin paying to have their content accessed on their networks. Converting the Internet into a series of competing private networks doesn't help anyone.

So, basically, I accept many of the tenets of Net Neutrality, but not all of them.

The problem, of course, is dumbing-down the issue enough that your average Congresscritter can understand the technical ramifications. :D

QoS is not a bad thing, but it has the potential to be abused badly. The argument, so far, seems to be exclusively between the Neutralists who want to prohibit ALL QoS scheduling, and the corporatists who want to QoS everything in a way that will line their pocketbooks.

We need the middle ground, because we ALL lose if either of these positions win.

It's only due to Comcast and others having abused the current lack of regulations that we're having this public debate now. So it's understandable that there's a lot of resentment and distrust on that side, even if the big ISPs do start negotiating in good faith.

But yeah, I'd love for the GAO or someone to step in and analyze the situation a little more dispassionately before we start passing sweeping regulations.

You give corporate control to the flow of content on the web and its probably game over for not being competely in the dark, for one thing.