Net Neutrality - Somebody Get John McCain A VoIP Clue Phone

I largely agree with Mr. Ashley's sentiment, but for different reasons. The Internet is too important to allow ISPs to go messing it up. Yet, I ultimately find myself siding with Senator McCain on this one, and it's not because I want AT&T to "get a bailout". Rather, it's my desire to see the government have as little regulatory control of the Internet as possible.

This is the same government, if you'll recall, that wanted to legislate that the President be given "emergency powers" to take control of any Internet-connected network, be it public or private. I'm not going to entertain any fever swamp conspiracy theories here. I'm just going to say that it's not necessary for the government to step in and control my network under any circumstances, even during a national emergency. If my network is under a cyber attack, or if assets on my network have been compromised by a cyber attack, I can always isolate affected segments until the threat is contained. Putting broad controls over our technology infrastructure in the hands of those who don't comprehend technology is dangerous.

Finally, I would like to float the notion that there is a mechanism at work capable of defeating Telco meddling without government regulation. It's called market forces, and it has already been successful in thwarting Telco mischief. I seem to recall a relatively recent news story where a large ISP wanted to cap broadband usage and create multiple pricing tiers based on consumption. The ISP's customers howled, and the ISP backed off. Market forces work very well, and will continue to do so. Want a BlackBerry Storm 2, but are unhappy with AT&T's restrictions on its use as a VoIP phone? Buy a Storm 2 from Verizon instead, where there are no such restrictions.

Find the Telco or ISP that meets your needs and buy from them. If a Telco or ISP starts losing money because of their stupid policies, they'll change them because they want to make money again.

Mr. Ashley:
Once again I find myself in the middle of a technical brouhaha (a well known technical term) that pits two equally stubborn, selfish or clueless adversaries.
1) If the bandwidth providers removed all network management today, the Internet would melt down. You mention VOIP right after McCain, and when a number of file sharing users start downloading movies your VOIP call will be the first thing to go.
2) It’s not a content question it’s a capacity, and throughput, and latency question. I agree wholeheartedly that, for example, a voice provider should not be allowed to impede another voice providers’ traffic on their network to reduce competition. That doesn’t mean that they should not be allowed to manage the overall flow of traffic through their network to optimize the consumer experience.
3) The ISPs were absolutely shortsighted and foolish to advertise “all-you-can-eat” bandwidth packages that are unsupportable at current pricing models.
4) In regards to the hard drive analogy, the manufacturers were allowed to charge more for a larger drive while there is tearing of hair every time an ISP mentions that they will need to charge more to build out these larger networks, or charge based on usage.
5) I just loved the statement from Mr. Genachowski that “consumers are entitled to access any legal Internet content”. He clearly doesn’t get a lot of RIAA complaints resulting from Bit-Torrent file sharing.
6) Net Neutrality is absolutely necessary and the only question is when and if we can agree on a good definition.
Innocent not

I find myself befuddled (another technical term) with the network neutrality issue. What is currently broke which the legislation is fixing other than device portability between Cell Service providers?

I do not work for an ISP, but I understand the need to tune the network based on the need of varying types of traffic. Transaction based traffic should be considered “normal”, VoIP high priority, and file transfers low priority. This concept is just basic queuing theory. The network would crawl if all traffic was equally prioritized.

I strongly disagree that a carrier should be restricted from charging a premium for premium services they offer. For example would a carrier invest in a toll quality VoIP solution if they were not allowed a competitive advantage for that service? My expectations from my Skype account are that its VoIP traffic travels with standard real-time traffic. My expectation for my paid VoIP service from my ISP is that its VoIP is treated with a higher priority. Premium paid, premium delivered.

I do not see how government regulation of the Internet will be an enabler for future advancements. As possibilities for competitive advantages are stripped from corporations (ISPs), will as much research dollars and upgrade dollars be made available?

I’m over 50 and have the old belief that paying for services is a good thing. I realize that today the expectation is all Internet services should be mostly free and provide premium characteristics to all users and corporate competitors. ISPs should stop offering a high quality services that distinguishes them from their competitors. And if they develop something that distinguished them from a competitor, then it must also be given away to competitors for “fairness” sake. ISP have fallen into traits that lead to the sin of profit, employment, and advancement through research! They must be stopped, become completely neutral (neutered?)

The purpose of Net Neutrality legislation is not to take control over the Internet, it's to prevent Telcos from turning the Internet into the only medium they understand: a value-add medium. You get what they allow you to have, when they allow you to have it, and for the price they tell you to pay.

Basic package gets you Yahoo, MSN, and Wikipedia. - $49.95
Plus package gets you that plus Google, Blogger, Myspace, and Facebook - $79.95
Super package gets you all that plus instant messaging, email, chatrooms, and YouTube - $129.95
For $69.95 a month extra, you can have adult sites as well.

Don't let these scumbags turn the Internet into Cable Television. The Internet doesn't need "channels", or "pay per view". If the telcos get their way, that's what it will be. Maybe not immediately, but the groundwork is already in place. It would only be a matter of time, and the Internet as we know it, and DEPEND on it... would cease to exist.

They will cease to peer with smaller independent ISPs - they offer the whole Internet for a low price, and that's bad for business. If they cut them off, they have nothing to offer, and they go away forever.

Are you beginning to understand why this is so important? It's not about restricting them from charging for premium service - it's about preventing them from overcharging for every single "feature" possible.

When you pay your ISP their monthly bill, you're paying for an uplink to the Internet. What you do with that is your business - NOT your ISP's. They have no right to say "well, if you want access to Hulu, you have to pay an extra $24.95 a month". Of course they want to be able to do that, because Hulu competes directly with their "On-Demand" crap.

Do you really think your ISP treats your VoIP packets with a higher priority than someone's 5GB torrent? I consistently achieve my maximum available bandwidth while downloading torrents. And you know what? The "digital phone" which we pay $29.95 a month for doesn't work too well if I've got something downloading. Skype works great, though.

The problem here is that the delivery of Internet services is being handled by corporations who never should have been involved with data to begin with, over infrastructure that was never meant to transmit data to begin with. Rather than building new parallel infrastructure to deal with the special needs of network data transmission, the major Telcos instead whined about bandwidth usage and BitTorrent and YouTube.

They even received Federal money to build vast fiber networks to "upgrade the Internet". Where did that go? Seems to me like it was pocketed rather than invested.

Don't allow these scumbags to say "no fair!" when their entire business model's foundation is built on cheating and fleecing the consumer.

I am by no means a "liberal", but anyone knows right from wrong. John McCain is a dumb old geezer who doesn't know an ethernet jack from a liver spot, and he has absolutely no business determining the future of the very backbone of modern business and communications.

This is too important to allow a bunch of braindead big-business fluffers to touch.