hot buzz word #37

Net Neutrality.  What is it?  Is it our friend?

I’m really not one for gov’t regulations, however, I just saw a horrible cartoon that I must disclaim.  Last week I had a conversation with somebody who was behind the telcos/cable companies.  Their argument broke down the points that there are different types of data, such as: ‘internet data’; and then their is ‘voice’, ‘digital tv’, ‘movies on demand’, etc. 

However, the first point that needs to be made clear to everybody, is that in the very near future, everything will just be ‘internet data’ (if it’s not already.)  The concept of considering one byte of 0′s and 1′s as digital tv and another byte of 0′s and 1′s as internet data is just retarded.  They’re all the same bits coming down the pipeline.

The argument of Net Neutrality is that these 0′s and 1′s shouldn’t be prioritized by cable companies or telcos, because it’s in their best incentive to prioritize their own traffic, while inhibiting the traffic of other sites.  Or possible going as far to charge a premium to some sites (you’re youtube video is popular this week?  We want a 10% cut of all advertising revenue of your site….)

I think a good analogy would be a high-speed highway with tollbooths.  Right now, everybody pays the same toll.  But what ppl fear of the telcos and cable co’s, is that when they not only build the road, use the road, and become the toll booth operators, serious problems will be a foot.  Imagine an AT&T highway and an AOL highway both with tollbooths.  There are 3 trucks on each, an AT&T truck, an AOL truck, and a UPS truck.  On the AT&T highway, they could let AT&T through the toll for free, while charging UPS $1 and charging AOL $5 (cause they’re direct competition.)  This would just cause problems for consumers who are waiting to receive those trucks at the other end of the highway.  And you know where the costs will be passed onto… Some trucks will decide it’s too much money to go forward, some trucks will pass the high fee onto customers, other trucks will take the lcheaper but longer way…

Think about ATM fees.  Some atm’s always charge you, some banks charge you on top of that.  The end result – it cost $4 to take out $40 from the ATM.  And who is left looking like an idiot?  You, not the banks that just made $4…

Ohh, and you’re riding a small little motorcycle down the highway, no problem for you, right?  What if AT&T decides they need to move a LOT of AT&T trucks down their highway for the next hour.  They’ll have the control to pull you over to the side and ask you to wait an hour.  (Now how is grandma gonna wait an hour to see pics of her grandson’s 10th birthday?)

If this makes no sense, I apologize.  I should really make this into a cartoon.

p.s. There is a valid argument for QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritize some packets.  That’s a more involved argument.  What I’m trying to argue is the ‘incentive’ based system that telcos/cableco’s would have to demote data of other companies (or charge extra for it.)