tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post5868580076277028593..comments2024-03-29T11:00:39.953+00:00Comments on RevK<sup>®</sup>'s ramblings: Net Neutrality - what is it?RevKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12369263214193333422noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-79632850643308865472011-12-01T15:18:22.902+00:002011-12-01T15:18:22.902+00:00I think the operational definition of Net Neutrali...I think the operational definition of Net Neutrality is that you don't deliberately *worsen* quality of service - I have never heard of any NN advocate who objects to peering or CDNs or who complains about rate limiting tcp/25 on the gateways or implementing BCP38 on the edge routers.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-47358535437939227892011-11-28T11:55:52.696+00:002011-11-28T11:55:52.696+00:00At a very deep level, the US Net Neutrality proble...At a very deep level, the US Net Neutrality problem boils down to a lack of competition.<br /><br />In the UK, we have neutral last-mile wholesale providers; it's relatively easy for a last-mile wholesaler to be "neutral", as they can do it by charging the ISP for interconnect to their backhaul in some form proportional to costs, and charging per-tail. This is also easy for Ofcom to enforce - if an ISP (and AAISP would be quite likely to do this) can show that a wholesale provider is treating some classes of traffic differently without instructions from the ISP, Ofcom can take action.<br /><br />We also have a wide variety of retail providers building on this neutral last-mile; from premium providers like AAISP, through cheap-and-cheerful like Plusnet, to specialist providers (some companies run an "ISP" that uses BT DSL to link their branch offices to their datacentre, and hence to head office).<br /><br />With that in place, all that's needed in the UK to avoid a problem is a requirement that ISPs are transparent about the limitations they put on you. I named Plusnet and AAISP earlier - they are both transparent about their offerings, with AAISP giving you a service that gets out of the way, but costs you, and Plusnet keeping the costs down, but reducing quality of service to handle this. You get to choose - do you want to pay for a good service, or have a reduced quality service for less money?<br /><br />The US has a far more painful problem - most areas have one or two retail providers, and if those retail providers choose to discriminate, you have no options. There's already some evidence of big retail providers in the US running their transit links at capacity 24/7 (with resulting latency spikes at busy times), and charging for peering, in an attempt to force anyone who wants reasonable latency to pay them - network neutrality aims to stop this sort of trick becoming blatant (i.e. run transit links at a reasonable latency, but artificially slow traffic unless you pay extra).Simon Farnsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15190608047563530091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-22105501535929590772011-11-28T09:15:44.593+00:002011-11-28T09:15:44.593+00:00The current OFCOM position on this seems worryingl...The current OFCOM position on this seems worryingly sensible. Far more sensible than the rabid net neutrality fans that seem to occupy so much of the internet. Far more sensible than their views on a lot of things. <br /><br />Fundamentally though I want an ISP that:<br /><br />1 - has good peering<br />2 - has sensibly physically located infrastructure (latency would presumably be a way of discriminating against some services but also has some inescapable minimums)<br />3 - when they are a source of contention for traffic, prioritises interactive traffic over bulk traffic in some meaningful way.<br /><br />Those three things can never be completely "neutral" but are critical to the realistic robust operation of any network.gone from herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01573559364505238273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-23694287458318595482011-11-26T08:20:10.336+00:002011-11-26T08:20:10.336+00:00Yes, I was not saying we have laws on his in the U...Yes, I was not saying we have laws on his in the UK yet, but OFCOM are looking at it.RevKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369263214193333422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-5001999582988675382011-11-26T01:15:03.817+00:002011-11-26T01:15:03.817+00:00I was under the impression that "Net Neutrali...I was under the impression that "Net Neutrality", with capital letters, was something that was a purely American (USA) concern. Specifically, NN was around the US laws that say something along the lines of "ISPs are not allowed to form contracts with content suppliers to deliberately penalize other suppliers". Specifically, paying for QOS and "negotiated exclusion of others". Of course, I'm not well versed in the specifics, and I've carefully worded my paraphrase above to allow, for example, peering.<br /><br />This is one of the articles I remember reading about it: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=617<br /><br />As far as I was aware, these laws do not exist in the UK.<br /><br />Of course, "net neutrality" seems to have gotten itself a much more common definition that starts to involve things that all ISPs have always done such as traffic shaping, peering and even firewalling (to, for example, access to their mail server from outside their network).<br /><br />Please... enlighten me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-80035096401775043572011-11-25T10:31:29.751+00:002011-11-25T10:31:29.751+00:00Personally, I'd say that providing a set level...Personally, I'd say that providing a set level of access to "The Internet" and then adding services on top is just fine.<br /><br />Cutting down access to certain parts of the internet (without a court order) isn't fine by me.<br /><br />And personally I prefer a system that charges people for what they use, even though I use more than many people do, because I see it as fairer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com