Net Neutrality (was Re: [sllug-members]: Comcast has problems)

[Knight Walker]

On Wed, 2007-01-24 at 18:16 -0700, Lonnie Olson wrote:
> I still believe that these Cable only, no DSL areas are such a small 
> percentage of the total area of the country that laws are extreme.  Your 
> example alone proves that these areas are continuing to shrink.

Actually, they're a huge area of the country, but you never hear about
them because they're sparsely populated or people who live in those
areas aren't your customers.

And yes, those areas are continuing to shrink, but not because telcos
want to service everyone.  For those who've been following the UTOPIA
project, you may remember when Taylorsville pulled out of UTOPIA because
Qwest promised them much better service.  I have friends in Taylorsville
who still have crappy DSL (I'm talking 128k upstream) because Qwest is
only making enough effort to keep themselves out of court ("See? We're
rolling out DSL to new areas! We're keeping our promise!  Please pay no
attention to the reports of extended wait times, poor customer service,
and 'It's not our problem' service 'resolutions' because suing us would
be too much work.")

> Agreed, that is why I said "almost".  Satellite doesn't quite count.

But the thing is, opponents of fair dealing with regards to Internet
traffic like to point to the mere existence of satellite to support
their arguments.

> But you aren't getting the point.  Even backbone providers need 
> customers.  End-users choose their ISP, and ISPs choose their backbone 
> providers.  Since I work for an ISP I understand this concept very well. 

I AM getting the point.  Yes backbone providers need customers, but I've
also seen customers stick with a crappy provider just because they
thought that any other provider would be just the same, or switching
providers involves an uncomfortable level of cost, time, and effort.

Since you work for an ISP, let me ask you this.  How hard would it be to
switch your back-haul provider?  How long would it need to be planned,
QA'd, and how high up the food chain would the approvals need to go?
And what happens if the other provider has similar policies in place?
How many providers do you really have to choose from?

>   I would never choose a backbone provider that will cause me to lose 
> customers.

What if you can't find one?  Or what happens if your two back-haul
providers have conflicting policies? Do you set routes through one and
not the other and give up multi-homing and redundancy?  What if a
"neutral" back-haul provider charges significantly more than a
non-neutral one?

> This means that one customer's complaint (since it reflects that of many 
> other silent ones as well) can influence choice of backbone providers. 
> Malicious backbone providers will lose clients.  They *need* Google and 
> Yahoo just as much as Google and Yahoo *need* them.

True, but try explaining that to them when they think they're being
"robbed" because they don't get paid by Google or Yahoo because those
services use another backbone.  The whole Net Neutrality tempest started
after the CEO of Verizon (IIRC) complained publicly about a situation
like this.

> That customer will complain to their ISP, their ISP will complain to the 
> backbone provider, the backbone provider with either fix it, or lose a 
> customer.

Provided the ISP has somewhere else to go, yes.

> I don't see a need for legislation right now, but I am not completely 
> opposed to it.  As long as there is choice, it isn't necessary.  When 
> that choice is gone, legislation will be necessary.

I'm afraid that by the time that happens it will be too late.  When
there is no choice, then those who like it that way will pay lobbyists
to convince the public officials that they should be permitted to keep
it that way. Because requiring neutrality or at least fair dealing would
hurt them financially and by extension the entire economy. Since after
all, if they can't charge their "current" prices or charge both ends for
faster speeds, they'll lose money and may go out of business and that
would be bad for all those millions of faceless constituents who read
the senator's blog or watch his vlog.  They of course will not mention
that if they changed some of their business practices, they could save
more money.  I mean, they NEED to sign those multi-million-dollar golden
parachute clauses into their C-level execs contracts or they'll never
find anyone good...

> My biggest problem with legislation proposed so far is that it would 
> limit legitimate ISPs from doing good traffic shaping.  It's effects 
> reached way too far.  Too dangerous.  Any Net Neutrality (horrible name 
> by the way) legislation has to be very carefully written with lots of 
> input from informed sources on both sides of the fence.

That's my biggest problem with the legislation as it has been written
thus far as well.  It looks to go too far in the other direction.  The
thing is I don't see why it couldn't be carefully written, since
Congress has taken to passing laws written by lobbyists or special
interest groups, rather than the senators/representatives themselves.

The bigger picture, as most pro-neutrality people I've talked to see it,
is that the system is breaking down, becoming more corrupt.  Greedy
telcos see greedy entertainment industries raking in giant mountains of
cash through unfair but legal means, and they want to do it too.  They
see cell phone companies locking customers into mandatory two-year
contracts (They all have two-year contracts now.  Where did that choice
go?) and extracting huge payments when the cell phone company doesn't
deliver on what their salesmen sold.  And the public officials appear to
be bending more and more to the will of moneyed interests, so if we
don't do something now, then the chance of anything good being done
diminishes with each passing month.

-KW