The major providers like to pretend that they're in a wonderful competitive market where, if only they were allowed to discriminate on traffic more, there would be more competition, prices would be lowered, and investment in infrastructure would grow due to the competition.
This is a nice rosy view of things, but it's just not accurate. They're de facto infrastructure builders, and for their efforts they want a monopoly on that infrastructure, with all the powers it comes with (e.g. favoring some traffic over others). The problem is that everybody long ago realized that infrastructure monopolies are a bad idea because they destroy both competition and infrastructure growth. It's why major roads aren't owned by private companies, it's why the electric company can't charge you more if they don't like the brand of your TV, and it's why public transportation services like trains and buses can't charge you more if you're partners.
Letting private businesses compete in various niche ways is fine as long as they are (1) actually private and (2) actually in a working free market. Telecoms in the U.S. are neither. They're so heavily subsidized and regulated that they function more as pseudo-government entities who should be entrusted with very serious business of maintaining public infrastructure. But they should definitely be prevented from rampantly discriminating against their customers to profit. The whole point of infrastructure is that it is a common public good, available to everyone equally without discrimination.
>>" It's why major roads aren't owned by private companies"
In the US, many major roads are owned by private companies like Cintra [1] to give one example, and they charge tolls [2] on those roads.
It's become common practice in many US states that any new highway construction must have a toll on it and then the state sells the road to a private company.
I had a bit of back-and-forth with Marc on this topic and I think he's underestimating the difficulty of regulating a non-neutral 'net such that competition (and, therefore, innovation) isn't stifled.
I can't help thinking that if, 20 years ago, Microsoft had struck a deal with the major ISPs to prioritise packets being downloaded to Internet Explorer over those being downloaded to Netscape browsers, Marc would have had a very different take on net neutraliy.
Exactly. I think that the woeful state of US broadband and wireless infrastructure today is the strongest proof of the failure of a poorly regulated private sector that effectively has captured telecom governance. That sunny world of virtual worlds and holographic telepresence will happen in Singapore a lot sooner than in the US if government allows the Internet to look like Cable TV.
I consider Andreesson to have zero credibility in this matter, for reasons stated above and more. Why not allow rich and powerful corporations to control access to US consumers? Our smartest consumer startups, denied US consumers, will start to build Twitter and Pinterest and other services for consumers outside of AT&T and Verizon's control, and we will be more and more irrelevant as a market and a technology innovator.
> I can't help thinking that if, 20 years ago, Microsoft had struck a deal with the major ISPs to prioritise packets being downloaded to Internet Explorer over those being downloaded to Netscape browsers, Marc would have had a very different take on net neutraliy.
Interesting point. However, imagine if regulators had dictated the web browser as a "common carrier" and defined exactly what it can and can't do, we might never have had all of the new tech that makes the modern web so much better than the IE5 days.
So the argument seems to be that the more money these companies believe they can make, the more likely they are to build infrastructure that will ultimately reduce the costs for consumers.
This is a highly idealized view, which does not mesh well with synonymous real world systems like cable TV and cell phone networks. Those two examples alone prove to me that these companies would prefer to collude to keep prices artificially high than to use their monopolistic infrastructures to provide cheap and high quality service to consumers.
Besides which, America has already paid $200 billion to these companies in the name of infrastructure improvement, and all they did with that was take the money and run.
What is the technical definition of net neutrality? I look at a lot of these articles and they seem to imply people are using the same term for multiple things.
Indeed. You can imagine pretty expansive definitions, and whatever definition you come up with can create potentially undesirable incentives.
I don't know whether Comcast is using IP to deliver their video-on-demand services to your cable box, but let's assume they are. That IP bandwidth is above and beyond whatever you're paying for as a "broadband" connection, but that's just accounting: It's all packets in the end. Is it "neutral" for Comcast to be able to use that bandwidth to provide you with movies and TV while restricting NetFlix to your capped/metered "Internet" bandwidth?
If NN would disallow such restrictions, then Comcast really is a low margin dumb pipe provider. Some people love that idea, but it doesn't encourage any of the existing broadband providers (maybe sans Google) to keep spending tens of billions of dollars to roll out faster and faster networks.
If NN doesn't apply to these services, then of course Comcast will simply package up as much of their IP-based applications and content as possible into proprietary interfaces with your TV and other devices while making the bandwidth available to "open" IP applications commensurately smaller.
Network neutrality rules prevent the network providers from cutting preferential deals with content providers. The pipe providers must remain neutral regarding the data flowing through their pipes.
If you want to know what the world looks like without network neutrality just go back to the days of Compuserve, Prodigy, Genie, AOL, et al. Dismal does't even begin to describe the situation.
We could ultimately replace our internet infrastructure with something more distributed which makes it difficult for ISPs to determine what traffic they're carrying. Ultimately traffic analysis works right now because the ISPs can detect where the traffic is coming from. In a more distributed internet, that wouldn't be the case. If all packets are encrypted, it would also make it harder to snoop and shape traffic that way.
Bit Torrent already does this with Message Stream Encryption/Protocol Encryption, and it can potentially hide on port 80/443. But why stop at just Bit Torrent traffic? Why not build a new web out of something more akin to this?
Hiding the source or destination of traffic (which is one of the major things ISPs want to discriminate on) requires onion routing which will make things ~2x slower and more expensive. If we end up in a situation where a significant fraction of Internet traffic is being onion routed I would consider that a massive failure.
I don't know how Marc squares his free markets love with his presence at the table being substantially enabled by the government (internet + UIUC + NCSA).
Surely people have not forgotten what it was like pre-neutrality (Compuserve, Prodigy, Genie, AOL, et al)?
I don't really understand the fear. The Compuserves and Prodigys of the world died because they weren't open and it didn't take a government dictate to kill them.
Completely OT: Is there any reason why all their content is SCREAMING? I'm stuck on IE 8 in the office, do they have some js or something that produces normal text on non-outdated browsers?
[+] [-] john_b|12 years ago|reply
This is a nice rosy view of things, but it's just not accurate. They're de facto infrastructure builders, and for their efforts they want a monopoly on that infrastructure, with all the powers it comes with (e.g. favoring some traffic over others). The problem is that everybody long ago realized that infrastructure monopolies are a bad idea because they destroy both competition and infrastructure growth. It's why major roads aren't owned by private companies, it's why the electric company can't charge you more if they don't like the brand of your TV, and it's why public transportation services like trains and buses can't charge you more if you're partners.
Letting private businesses compete in various niche ways is fine as long as they are (1) actually private and (2) actually in a working free market. Telecoms in the U.S. are neither. They're so heavily subsidized and regulated that they function more as pseudo-government entities who should be entrusted with very serious business of maintaining public infrastructure. But they should definitely be prevented from rampantly discriminating against their customers to profit. The whole point of infrastructure is that it is a common public good, available to everyone equally without discrimination.
[+] [-] alberth|12 years ago|reply
In the US, many major roads are owned by private companies like Cintra [1] to give one example, and they charge tolls [2] on those roads.
It's become common practice in many US states that any new highway construction must have a toll on it and then the state sells the road to a private company.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cintra [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_road
[+] [-] jackgavigan|12 years ago|reply
I can't help thinking that if, 20 years ago, Microsoft had struck a deal with the major ISPs to prioritise packets being downloaded to Internet Explorer over those being downloaded to Netscape browsers, Marc would have had a very different take on net neutraliy.
[+] [-] billiam|12 years ago|reply
I consider Andreesson to have zero credibility in this matter, for reasons stated above and more. Why not allow rich and powerful corporations to control access to US consumers? Our smartest consumer startups, denied US consumers, will start to build Twitter and Pinterest and other services for consumers outside of AT&T and Verizon's control, and we will be more and more irrelevant as a market and a technology innovator.
[+] [-] crazy1van|12 years ago|reply
Interesting point. However, imagine if regulators had dictated the web browser as a "common carrier" and defined exactly what it can and can't do, we might never have had all of the new tech that makes the modern web so much better than the IE5 days.
[+] [-] calroc|12 years ago|reply
The idea that we won't get enough bandwidth in the future unless the telecos et. el. are allowed to play gatekeeper makes no sense to me.
[+] [-] roin|12 years ago|reply
That's not to say that net neutrality is bad or wrong on balance, but no cons at all?
[+] [-] Zikes|12 years ago|reply
This is a highly idealized view, which does not mesh well with synonymous real world systems like cable TV and cell phone networks. Those two examples alone prove to me that these companies would prefer to collude to keep prices artificially high than to use their monopolistic infrastructures to provide cheap and high quality service to consumers.
Besides which, America has already paid $200 billion to these companies in the name of infrastructure improvement, and all they did with that was take the money and run.
[+] [-] protomyth|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twoodfin|12 years ago|reply
I don't know whether Comcast is using IP to deliver their video-on-demand services to your cable box, but let's assume they are. That IP bandwidth is above and beyond whatever you're paying for as a "broadband" connection, but that's just accounting: It's all packets in the end. Is it "neutral" for Comcast to be able to use that bandwidth to provide you with movies and TV while restricting NetFlix to your capped/metered "Internet" bandwidth?
If NN would disallow such restrictions, then Comcast really is a low margin dumb pipe provider. Some people love that idea, but it doesn't encourage any of the existing broadband providers (maybe sans Google) to keep spending tens of billions of dollars to roll out faster and faster networks.
If NN doesn't apply to these services, then of course Comcast will simply package up as much of their IP-based applications and content as possible into proprietary interfaces with your TV and other devices while making the bandwidth available to "open" IP applications commensurately smaller.
[+] [-] pbreit|12 years ago|reply
If you want to know what the world looks like without network neutrality just go back to the days of Compuserve, Prodigy, Genie, AOL, et al. Dismal does't even begin to describe the situation.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] higherpurpose|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Patrick_Devine|12 years ago|reply
Bit Torrent already does this with Message Stream Encryption/Protocol Encryption, and it can potentially hide on port 80/443. But why stop at just Bit Torrent traffic? Why not build a new web out of something more akin to this?
[+] [-] wmf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbreit|12 years ago|reply
Surely people have not forgotten what it was like pre-neutrality (Compuserve, Prodigy, Genie, AOL, et al)?
[+] [-] crazy1van|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jtsummers|12 years ago|reply