Trucks, Tubes and Net Neutrality

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/38816/' target='_blank'>http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/38816/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"...Verizon is covertly preparing its newest customers for a world without network neutrality. A few weeks ago the telecommunications giant announced it would be installing fancy new routers with its high-speed fiber-optic cable service known as FiOS... Sounds great, right? Not so much. The router that comes with new installs of FiOS, according to Verizon's press release, "supports remote management that uses new industry standards known as TR-069, enabling Verizon to perform troubleshooting without having to dispatch a technician." Whenever I see the phrase "remote management," I get antsy. That means Verizon can talk to your router from its local offices, which the company claims is all for the good of the consumer. However, if you actually read the TR-069 standard, you'll see that Verizon can do a lot more than just troubleshoot. It can literally reflash all the memory in your router, essentially reprogramming your entire home entertainment system. As a result, Verizon can alter its service delivery options at any time. Even if you've signed up for a network-neutral FiOS that sends you to whatever Web sites you like and routes your peer-to-peer traffic the same way it routes your e-mail, Verizon can change that on a whim. With one "remote management" event, the company can change the settings in your router to deliver Fox News faster than NPR. It can block all traffic coming from France or prevent you from using Internet phones that aren't controlled by Verizon. Verizon's new router is also great news for anyone who wants to wiretap your Internet traffic. All a bad guy has to do is masquerade as the Verizon "remote manager" and he or she can fool your nifty router into sending all your data through his or her spy computer. The more people allow companies like Verizon to take arbitrary control of their "personal Internets," the less freedom they'll have -- and the more vulnerable they'll be."</i><br /><br />A little off-topic here, but Annalee's got a fantastic point. If 'net neutrality' is defeated, how long do you think it will be before free services are outbid by big corporations and we no longer have reasonable access to them? Programs like Picasa or something as benign as Google Earth could be put in jeaopardy if someone like AOL decides to make their own and bid for placement in your pipeline. Now, at the moment, this kind of control is limited to the fiber-optic access Verizon is offering, but it probably won't be too long before this sort of thing shows up in regular cable modems, all in the name of customer service. :evil: <br /><br />Personally, I think something like the Internet belongs to all of us (the world) and it's debatable whether we (the U.S.) even have the right to legislate it in the first place. What do you think?

[Felix Torres]

Uh, I'm sorry but those are two separate topics.
Net neutrality is about whether the US government regulates the terms of service of bandwidth providers to users within the US. The servers, routers, switches, and *customers* impacted by such legislation are all american and it is nobody else's business how we choose to regulate (or not) those products or services.
Net neutrality has nothing with the censorship/taxation of content which is the reason why the euro-chinese axis wants to strip control of the internet root servers from ICANN.

As for who the internet belongs to, the first answer is nobody. The internet is essentially a potlatch party where everybody brings their own bandwidth and content to the party.
The second answer is the US government built the core infrastructure and made it available for free to anybody who chose to join the party. Nobody was forced the join. Nobody is being forced to use it. Anybody who is unhappy with the status quo is free to go home and build their own internet. But they are not entitled to tell anybody else what can or cannot be on the net, much less the hosts who built the thing and graciously allow the party crashers to freeload.

The value of the internet is the lack of regulation.
Anybody who advocates increased regulation, for whatever reason, is decreasing the value of the net and they had better advance a valid, concrete reason, not mere paranoid delusions of what somebody might or not possibly do some day in some hypothetical future.

To date, neither the net neutrality advocates nor the anti-american axis have provided any concrete evidence supporting sacrificing the freedom of the internet.

$0.02, for whatever its worth.

[Damion Chaplin]

Boy, I was temped to end that post with "Felix?" :wink:

Net neutrality is about whether the US government regulates the terms of service of bandwidth providers to users within the US. The servers, routers, switches, and *customers* impacted by such legislation are all american and it is nobody else's business how we choose to regulate (or not) those products or services.
Net neutrality has nothing with the censorship/taxation of content which is the reason why the euro-chinese axis wants to strip control of the internet root servers from ICANN.

Yes, it's just us Americans who are affected by such legislation, but I'm not sure that invalidates my point. Since I live in a "free" country, I naturally expect to have a "free" internet. In practice of course that's not the case. I wasn't implying the government would do such a thing, or that that was the intent behind net neutrality. Corporations are free to exploit you though, depending on however their views swing. Giving more bandwidth to Fox News instead of NPR because they could pay more is just the first example.

As for who the internet belongs to, the first answer is nobody. The internet is essentially a potlatch party where everybody brings their own bandwidth and content to the party.
The second answer is the US government built the core infrastructure and made it available for free to anybody who chose to join the party. Nobody was forced the join. Nobody is being forced to use it. Anybody who is unhappy with the status quo is free to go home and build their own internet. But they are not entitled to tell anybody else what can or cannot be on the net, much less the hosts who built the thing and graciously allow the party crashers to freeload.

I like the first answer. :wink: Sure, nobody's forced to use it, but that's like saying no one's forced to use the Bay Bridge. We really aren't free to go home and build our own.

The value of the internet is the lack of regulation.
Anybody who advocates increased regulation, for whatever reason, is decreasing the value of the net and they had better advance a valid, concrete reason, not mere paranoid delusions of what somebody might or not possibly do some day in some hypothetical future.

I agree, though you kinda lost me at the paranoid delusion part...

To date, neither the net neutrality advocates nor the anti-american axis have provided any concrete evidence supporting sacrificing the freedom of the internet.

That's the thing about freedom. It leaks away slowly when no one's paying attention, so concrete evidence of loss of freedom is hard to find.

[Jason Dunn]

There sure is a lot of confusion about net neutrality - and I'm one of the confused ones. I keep hearing so many different sites of the story, I don't know which one is accurate.

[gdoerr56]

Regardless of how your local router/gateway/whatever is managed or configured, you have ZERO control of how your traffic is routed. As long as Verizon or any other carrier manages the routers in the core of their network, they can send traffic anywhere they want.

TR-069 is actually very secure and spoofing is very difficult unless you have access to the core network. I worked on the original specification and built one of the very first prototype OAM&amp;P systems for my employer.

As for me, I would rather have a Verizon tech in a call center somewhere be able to fix a problem remotely that to have them dispatch a 'technician' who often works on 1,000 other products and services at the same time. I can't tell you how many times I've had to have mutliple site visits because either the tech was over his head, didn't have the right tools, etc.

I personally don't think this has anything to do with net neutrality or censorship. By the way, your cable modem (if that's your thing) has had remote management for years in the form of the DOCSIS spec.

[Felix Torres]

The reason net neutrality is a muddy issue is because it is not a consumer issue at all; it is a corporate vs corporate issue.

The impact of variable bandwidth allocations on *new* services (it doesn't even have anything to do with basic net transports) is on the business model of the advertising-supported portals more than anybody else, which is why the fight is Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc vs the expanding bandwidth providers, primary the telecons.

And the reason why nobody can identify any harm is because none has occurred; nobody is implementing or even thinking of implementing it yet.
It is all hypothetical, something that *might* happen if somebody wanted to get nasty. Of course, there are all sorts of nasty hypotheticals that a reasonably educated person can think of (did you know mustard gas is relatively easy to cook up? Easier than crystal meth. Good thing terrorists are by nature idiots.) but a rational person doesn't spend all their time trying to plug every potential threat before it happens. Trying to eliminate all risk from life is outright pathological.

Life is risk. You'll never find a risk-free society that is worth living in.

And, of all the nasty tech industry things that one could worry about, as a consumer, net neutrality is way down the list and not at all relevant *as long as there is competition in the bandwidth business*. Instead of worrying about how a single vendor might allocate its bandwidth, worry about ensuring we always have choices. What we need is to ensure that the cablecos and telcos *don't* reach some kind of accomodation that leads to actual monopolies. Because as long as their is competition, telco A is *not* going to give Fox sweetheart deals over NPR. Because if they did, the 35% of the audience that is liberal would just take their accounts to Cableco B or Power company C.

Anybody who degrades their service level for any service risks losing customers and their money. And that is a real, meaningful, measurable risk. To them.

Which is why net neutrality is not a consumer issue right now. Now we have competition in the bandwidth business, with massive backend over-capacity chasing too few customers. Not all countries in the world have that kind of competition.

That competition is what needs to be preserved.

Oh, and the real, unspoken, bone of contention that is sparking all the concern among the corporate wheelers and dealers? IP telephony and IPTV. Cablecos have had a nice deal going for the last 30 years or so, but now the cablecos are looking to get into the game by creating low-latency VPNs (much like XBOX live) to deliver new services that will threaten the cablecos profit margins by forcing them to compete against a more modern, all-digital, all-HD product.
Their reaction? Through in added regulatory hurtles to slow down the coming competition.

If you like the idea of competition in video providers, if you believe that video d/l's can substitute for DVD rentals or PPV or other VOD services, then you should be cheering the creation of those walled gardens. If you own stock in Blockbuster or a cableco, though, you really, really want to argue for net neutrality.

Lets face it; this is all about money; return on investment, profit margins, and all that stuff. Only ivory towers academics think there is any "higher principle" at state. There isn't. Not for the corporate lawyers and lobbyists and their paid celebrities showing up in Congress.
The only higher principle at state is regulation vs internet freedom.

Me, I want as much HD video as I can get, sooner rather than later.
And I don't want to see the government used by one competitor to hamper another.
Until I see actual consumer damage, I'd rather see the unregulated market continue a while longer.
You can always regulate later.
What you cannot do is undo regulatory damage.
Some folks are just way too eager to regulate and let themselves be used for competitive advantage by lazy cheapskates.

This one is $0.05 worth.

[Damion Chaplin]

Regardless of how your local router/gateway/whatever is managed or configured, you have ZERO control of how your traffic is routed. As long as Verizon or any other carrier manages the routers in the core of their network, they can send traffic anywhere they want... By the way, your cable modem (if that's your thing) has had remote management for years in the form of the DOCSIS spec.

Yes, they have always been able to control my traffic and yes, they've always had remote access to my cable modem. Thus far though, they've been unable to, legally, restrict or flat out deny access to certain parts of the internet. Parts that don't pay as much as their sponsors and lateral companies owned by the same parent.

We all know Comcast is an evil company that takes advantage of us at every turn. If they suddenly make it OK to do so, how long do you think they'll take to exploit this new lattitude and us? Planck time.

[Damion Chaplin]

And, of all the nasty tech industry things that one could worry about, as a consumer, net neutrality is way down the list and not at all relevant *as long as there is competition in the bandwidth business*. Instead of worrying about how a single vendor might allocate its bandwidth, worry about ensuring we always have choices. What we need is to ensure that the cablecos and telcos *don't* reach some kind of accomodation that leads to actual monopolies. Because as long as their is competition, telco A is *not* going to give Fox sweetheart deals over NPR. Because if they did, the 35% of the audience that is liberal would just take their accounts to Cableco B or Power company C.

OK, sure. As long as there is sufficient competition in the marketplace, something like this shouldn't concern us. Problem is, there isn't any real competition. The cable industry continues to maintain local monopolies, just like the phone companies did until so recently. In San Francisco, if you want cable, or cable internet access, that means Comcast. If you don't like Comcast, that means DSL. In Walnut Creek, I happen to have another option, and I use it, but even 2 miles away the Comcast monopoly begins anew.

As long as these localized monopolies exist, we are threatened.

[Felix Torres]

As long as these localized monopolies exist, we are threatened.

Thank you.
You're a good straight man. :twisted:

Check this and you'll see what the cablecos are afraid of:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1990761,00.asp
short version: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1990951,00.asp

Itty-bitty start-ups using MS tech on dark fiber to undercut their empires is the nightmare of Comcast.
And its here, now: http://www.backspace.tv/

[Phoenix]

...it is a corporate vs corporate issue.

Actually, it very much concerns everyone who uses the internet, which includes consumers.


...Lets face it; this is all about money.

You betcha. When is it not? And greed is a dangerous fuel, Felix.


And the reason why nobody can identify any harm is because none has occurred; nobody is implementing or even thinking of implementing it yet. It is all hypothetical, something that *might* happen if somebody wanted to get nasty.

I don't know about that. There is some evidence to the contrary. But even if you want to side with the idea that no harm has occured yet, this is no reason for anyone to ignore or get complacent about this issue.

You mention that the "walled gardens" IP startups pose as a threat to the big cablecos and telcos. Which they do. So what makes you think these big corporations wouldn't get nasty if they could? They do all the time. This is about money, remember? Besides, even if something is hypothetical, since when does that mean that it shouldn't be taken seriously? But even greater than this is that the threat to net neutrality (NN) has moved out of the realm of mere hypothesis. Corporate lobbyists are now manuevering throughout the government to leverage things in their favor and some of these big corps have made some comments that indicate a threat to the freedoms we support. This is a matter of common sense and seeing the writing on the wall, and there are uncountable issues in life where people could see potential harm before it occured and took protective measures to safeguard against it. If all we ever did is lay back and wait for something to happen before taking counteractive measures, we wouldn't survive as a society. This is not pathological. This is not people scrambling to create a Utopia. This is one issue. And an important one.

This is absolutely a viable threat because the writing is on the wall, which is why we need to pay attention to this issue now, before it gets ugly. The advancement of technology in the IP sector, its effect on the larger cablecos and telcos along with the greed of these larger corporations is a perfect example of the 'writing on the wall" and why the issue of NN needs to be addressed and taken seriously now. Like you said, it's all about money. Greed, more like it. And when has that ever benefitted mankind?

So I'm unsure why anyone would take a complacent view toward the issue of NN. Again, these big corporations and their armies are now manuevering throughout the government and media and even Tim Berners-Lee (who I think understands a bit about the web and net) sees NN as threatened. Sounds like an important issue to me.

Some senators are saying that they just want to wait to see what happens. Saying you can regulate these big corporations later if they get out of hand is like saying, "I'll just ignore that bonfire by walking away and leaving it be. Although I suppose it's possible nothing bad will happen, there's evidence that it will spread in such a way and burn portions of the forest down, and if it does, someone can always put out the fire later."


And, of all the nasty tech industry things that one could worry about, as a consumer, net neutrality is way down the list and not at all relevant *as long as there is competition in the bandwidth business*. Instead of worrying about how a single vendor might allocate its bandwidth, worry about ensuring we always have choices. What we need is to ensure that the cablecos and telcos *don't* reach some kind of accomodation that leads to actual monopolies.

...competition is what needs to be preserved.

Anybody who degrades their service level for any service risks losing customers and their money. And that is a real, meaningful, measurable risk. To them. Which is why net neutrality is not a consumer issue right now.

Not if said company is the only choice in town.

But I don't see a lot of competition in terms of cable providers at all. For me, and for many, there is only one choice. And that's Comcast. For others, some other company. And I"m not interested in DSL.

Taking measures to protect NN now doesn't harm anyone. It only prevents things from potentially getting ugly by allowing the biggest corporations from leveraging the internet playing field by manipulating things in their greedy favor which never, by nature, benefits consumers. Limiting the damage that these big gorillas can potentially inflict by preserving NN fosters comptetition, choice, innovation, quality of service, and freedom for all, including small business owners (the backbone of American business) and every individual. So this whole issue of preserving NN is absolutely a relevant consumer issue.


If you own stock in Blockbuster or a cableco, though, you really, really want to argue for net neutrality.

Actually, it's exactly the opposite. If you love Blockbuster and the big cablecos and telcos, you'd be against NN. But if you like competition and the continued fostering of IP technologies including movie downloads, IPTV, and so on (the walled gardens), then you'd be for NN.


Only ivory towers academics think there is any "higher principle" at [stake]. There isn't. Not for the corporate lawyers and lobbyists and their paid celebrities showing up in Congress.

The only higher principle at [stake] is regulation vs internet freedom.

I'm sure you didn't mean this to come across like a contradiction. But, yes, you're right. There is a higher principle here for those of us who care about freedom across the most powerful communication network on the planet, and are not driven by greed. And yes, this principle is not supported by the big corps and their armies who are against NN.


Me, I want as much HD video as I can get, sooner rather than later. And I don't want to see the government used by one competitor to hamper another.

Then do all you can to support preserving NN!


Here is a short blog by Tim Berners-Lee on NN: TBL (http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144)

And here is an excellent site about NN for those who are still confused about it all: Net Neutrality (http://www.savetheinternet.com/)