Comments on: Rather misleading, perhaps (was: Another huge lie)

By: Hands off the Internet, Acknowledging The Debt

Hands off the Internet, Acknowledging The Debt — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:42:31 +0000

[...] Last month he took a well-aimed shot at Save The Internet for claiming that 1,500 blogs had taken up their cause in the first couple days that their site was online, based solely on who had linked to them: But this blog has linked to them, and I don’t support their goals, and neither do the other blogs I’ve cited on this subject. In fact, a scan of the blogs that have been discussing this issue will show you that technical bloggers and free marketeers almost universally oppose the “net neutering” legislation proposed by Google’s coalition, while support is mainly concentrated in left wing blogs who actually are pushing for a government-funded and government-controlled Internet (but not exclusively; some right wing blogs run by people who don’t have technical knowledge — such as the Instapundit — have joined the fray on the wrong side.) [...]

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 03 May 2006 02:34:42 +0000

I’m familiar with Webex, have used it a lot and even interviewed there once, taking the occasion to learn all I could about how they guarantee the QoS. Their business shouldn’t be necessary, and I’d like to make it obsolete as painlessly as possible. All it takes is DSCP, really; all that ATM and Sonet stuff is super-overkill.

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 03 May 2006 02:05:13 +0000

Web Ex. That’ll take care of your Skype problems. Of course it’s fee for service.

I once was lost in the maze of wonderful possibilities of packet inspection and prioritization, a dazzled believer in the intelligence at the core. I’m still aware of the needs for some network level smartness and for me the stupid network is NOT an article of faith. (Hey you can’t route those packets if you don’t have a routing table. The network has never been all that stupid. Anyway, big fiber bandwidth on OC(umpty-ump) with ATM switching, that’s the ticket. I’m an old time 53 byte man. But you can understand why Doc is dragging his feet on this if you take a look at the write-up for MPLScon (aptly named) in New York this month. It says…

Conference Director, Irwin Lazar, Director of the MPLS Resource Center and a senior consultant with The Burton Group and the outstanding Conference Advisory Board, have decided to return once again to New York, May 22-25, 2006.

The conference attracts high quality attendees including major enterprises, carriers and service providers, from across the country.

Doc has quaffed the Burton Group koolaid big time, and if they are more interested in pandering to “the enterprise,” the Fortune 500, 100, 50 than they are interested in good public policy formation, well Doc doesn’t look too far beyond his relationship with the principles there I believe. (A lot of inference in my analysis, and it’s unfair to dish it out like that without asking Doc, but my eyes widened when I saw the MPLScon write-up and I caught that cross current).

Also, Doc is I believe a libertarian, and well managed net neutrality will require regulation that won’t sit well with those types. I can see why – although he’s a co-author of “World of Ends” – he’s puzzling this out carefully. He recently wrote regarding his concerns that this not be a partisan issue. I echo that sentiment, but in echoing it I realize that there is some convincing that has to be done regarding the ~~absolute hideous and malevolent~~ possible negative impacts associated with the duopoly and their service and pricing models.

This is all enormously complex, and if it were a simple matter of providing Quality of Service by flipping a prioritization bit and letting your Skypes run free, then I would say “so what.” If it were simply a matter of opening the door for AT&T to deliver metered TV programming in competition with the cableco, I would say “bravo.” But the issues we face are fundamental…

Doc says, “…The new carrier-based Net will work in the same asymmetrical few-to-many, top-down pyramidal way made familiar by TV, radio, newspapers, books, magazines and other Industrial Age media now being sucked into Information Age pipes. Movement still will go from producers to consumers, just like it always did. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Literally.” In this article, he certainly sticks up for the “ends” of network neutrality. I think what we’re struggling with is identifying the best means to those ends.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 02 May 2006 22:18:17 +0000

That’s pretty funny, Frank. It’s interesting that Doc’s not on-board with this nefarious regulatory scheme, despite the fact that he’s more committed to an Open Internet than anybody I know.

I don’t have a problem with regulating the Internet to free it from censorship (and punishing companies like Google who make it happen), but I’d like to do videconferencing over the Internet, for a small fee if necessary, without Skype messing up my call.

Is that too much to ask?

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Tue, 02 May 2006 22:05:20 +0000

Richard, you ignorant rukka-rukka. Doc has linked your name to my site and now I’m getting all these telco apologists clicking through hoping to find insulting net neut madness. When all they hear there is someone who believes that there’s nothing wrong with charging fairly for bandwidth but there is something wrong with monopolistic practices such as deep packet inspection in order to deny service to competitors, well… they shake their heads in disappointment. When they find me to be an apologist for mindful public service regulation and consideration of restoration of principles of common carriage… well, my goodness. One fellow’s head was seen to spin 360 degrees on his neck and he vomited Andersons Pea Soup.

Yours for thoughtful dialog.
fp