Category: Net Neutrality

This is funny:

Hi Richard,

My name is XXX XXXXXX and I am a Recruiter for the Google.com Engineering team. While searching the internet, I came across your name. We currently have positions available at Google that may be a good match for you. If you are open to exploring these opportunities further, please send an updated version of your resume in Word, HTML, or PDF to me as soon as possible.

All positions involve working in our infrastructure team, know as Google.com Engineering (which is different from our Operations group). Our Google.com engineers hold the beating heart of Google and are very well respected. They are responsible for keeping the google.com website up and running as well as building new automation infrastructure. We are seeking Extraordinary Developers, UNIX (Linux) System Administrators, and Managers/Directors to add to our exciting team and growing organization.

*****We have multiple openings located in various places in the US (Mountain View, CA, Kirkland, WA, Santa Monica, CA, Mountain View, CA, New York, NY ) and Internationally (Dublin, Ireland and Zurich, Switzerland).****

I hope you are not bothered by my networking attempt. If you are not interested or available, but would like to forward my name and contact information to your friends or colleagues, I would be most delighted.

For more information, go to:

http://www.google.com/support /jobs/bin/answer.py?answer =23594 (see various locations)
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=23591 (see various locations)

Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.

XXX

P.S. If this is not a good time or if you are not interested, please reply and let us know. We will update our database and you will not be contacted again in the future.

I know very few people read this blog, but it surprises me that despite all the mean things I’ve said about Google ( their collusion with the government of China and their evil attempt to stifle the development of the Internet through Net Neutrality legislation, their lack of originality, etc.) I’m still getting such queries on a regular basis. I guess they’re less organized than I thought.

Sigh.

The most idiotic analysis of net neutrality you’ll ever want to read has been prepared by obscure consultancy Ramp^Rate:

With the permanent barriers that the removal of net neutrality will erect for [gamers], the worst-case scenario includes three waves of change:

* One or more mainstream ISPs will introduce excessive lag that will effectively prohibit their users from participating in online games. The move will not be aimed at restricting usage per se, but rather to extract a fee from the game operator…

* Hardcore users will write strongly worded messages to their ISPs, who will classify them as unreasonable malcontents using more than their share of bandwidth.

For those who think this cannot happen, here�s a recent example: For years before the Web as we know it existed, Usenet was a core part of the Internet landscape. It was a factory for online discussion, exchange of ideas, and, ultimately, one of the better bulletin boards for content of all shapes and forms. However, as the Internet became mainstream, Usenet users were marginalized (typically with �cease and desist� letters citing excessive use of �unlimited� internet packages). Their Usenet services were then unceremoniously dumped by their providers (AOL and Comcast being two of the more notorious).

Where there was a substitute for Usenet through services such as Google or BitTorrent, there is no close substitute for online gaming.

Wow, that’s heavy. Let’s take on the history part first. Usenet is a bandwidth hog for ISPs even if none of their customers use it, because maintaining a Usenet (NNTP) server requires the ISP to process all the new posts on all the Usenet groups as they’re made. As Usenet reached the end of its useful life, it became a vehicle for copyright theft and the distribution of malicious code. So at a certain point, AOL decided not to carry it any more. Comcast still provides Usenet service, so that part of the article is simply false.

As to the paranoid conspiracy claim about ISPs introducing latency in order to extract fees, it’s hardly going to be necessary. Latency and jitter will increase on any packet network as load increases, that’s how the networks are designed. So if more people are downloading video files while their neighbors are seeking The Sword of a Thousand Truths, and the ISP isn’t willy-nilly adding more bandwidth the accommodate them, everybody’s latency and jitter will increase automatically, no conspiracy required.

The best way around this is some sort of usage-sensitive pricing that enables users who place heavy loads on the network of paying their neighbors enough to increase network bandwidth. Make no mistake about it, every network has finite capacity, and heavy users aren’t just taking bandwidth away from the ISP, they’re taking it away from the other people who use the network. So those who need low latency should be able to pay for it, and those who need massive file transfers should also be able to pay for that, and the average, normal, garden-variety web surfer shouldn’t have to subsidize them.

But net neutrality legislation forbids usage-sensitive pricing. The common provision in the five NN bills is a ban on service plans that provide packet prioritization for a fee, and that ban itself is the main threat to gaming. Anyone who understands how we ensure QoS for quirky applications like VoIP, gaming, and yes, real-time video streaming and conferencing, knows that prioritization is the key element.

The best solution to the dilemma that gamers pose to ISPs is to allow the ISPs to charge them more than normal web surfers and in return to provide them with the appropriate QoS. It�s ridiculous to demand a wholesale upgrade to the entire Internet access network to support this one application and to refuse to allow broadband carriers to recoup their investment in what upgrades are actually needed.

This report didn�t advance the debate on NN, it simply reinforced the ignorance and mendacity that�s motivated it so far.

UPDATE: See Adam Thierer at the PFF Blog for a more detailed economic analysis of gaming, and read the comment by reader MnZ:

Napster made the problem of network jitter go through the roof. My roommates called Time Warner to complain several times. The Time Warner representatives said that they were trying to add more capacity, but Napster was filling it up capacity as quickly as Time Warner could add it.

One overly honest representative at Time Warner told them something interesting. While online gamers were some of the first adopters of cable modems, they were relatively a small fraction of total cable modem subscribers. Moreover, online gamers were some of the most difficult subscribers for Time Warner satisfy. Finally, online gamers paid no more than any other subscriber for cable modem service. In other words, Time Warner had no incentive to fix the network jitter that online gamers were experiencing.

That’s the size of it.

The nation may be riveted to the War in Iraq, the Democratic takeover of Congress, and Britney Spears’ custody battle with her Fed-Ex, but in the Frisco Bay Area some really important stuff is going on: the A’s are getting a new ballpark:

Cisco Field will be located in Fremont, which is approximately 20 miles to the south of McAfee Coliseum, five miles north of the Santa Clara County line and 12 miles from downtown San Jose. With a population of over 210,000 people and an area of 92-square miles, Fremont is the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area and California’s fifth largest city in area. The ballpark site is proposed to be located on the west side of Interstate 880 off the Auto Mall Parkway.

The partnership with Cisco also includes a broad marketing and business agreement which will underscore the A’s commitment to create a unique fan experience by leveraging state-of-the-art network technology throughout the ballpark and franchise operation. As a result, Cisco Field will be one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world and will demonstrate the positive role technology can play in sport, entertainment and connecting communities. Cisco’s technology will be used to enhance every facet of the stadium, from ticketing and concessions to management of game day operations.

The partnership allows Cisco to utilize the facility for corporate and community events and to create a Cisco Customer Solutions Center at the ballpark in an effort to showcase the use of networking technology in a stadium. Cisco becomes the “Official Technology Partner of the A’s and Cisco Field” and the A’s will deploy Cisco technology to serve the needs of Cisco Field and the baseball village.

The appeal of a gadget-heavy park to Silicon Valley is obvious, and most A’s fans are excited about the prospect of leaving Mt. Davis behind. But the burning question is what the team will be named after moving 20 miles down I-880: Fremont A’s? Silicon Valley A’s? Frisco Bay A’s? This momentous question demands an answer.

We’re pretty sure there will be none of that loathsome net neutrality in the new park, and for that we can all rejoice.

I like a good fight, no matter who’s fighting. Matt Stoller, the MyDD blogger who’s wasted so many electrons on the dubious cause of net neutrality, wrote a post immediately after the recent election in which he declared that the “netroots” legislative agenda begins and ends with his pet cause. A somewhat more serious thinker, Bob Fertik, quickly listed 140 agenda items and asked his readers to vote on them; his list includes things like raising the minimum wage, signing Kyoto, restoring habeas corpus, and all that sort of trivia. Net neutrality came in at number 14. Here’s the explanation:

Bloggers who work mainly with text and photos (and that’s most political blogs) could blog without net neutrality; it would mainly affect video bloggers since they consume far more bandwidth, and that’s what the monopoly gatekeepers want to tax.

But Bloggers couldn’t do what we do without the First Amendment…

Now that seems awfully sensible, especially for somebody who drinks the Kool-Aid. Why is it that Stoller has such a hard time keeping things in perspective?

The Citizen Journalist meets the Citizen Engineer and soon we’ll be drowning in data:

The new NewAssignment.net site launches today and Tom Evslin writes about a very real networked journalism project to find whether there are the smoking guns of network (non)neutrality lurking in our ISP wires.

We’ve already seen network neutrality discrimination claims made by Craig Newmark that turned out to be caused by the odd configuration of his equipment, discrimination claims that turned out to be temporary service outages, and in Canada discrimination claims that turned out to be service offerings. When the citizen engineer/jour-analyst starts looking at packet delay data, no doubt every traffic-related variation in delivery times will be linked to the latest Evangelical gay sex scandal, Saddam’s WMD program, Ed Whitacres sexual preferences, and the price of soybean futures.

The trouble with citizen efforts at skilled professions isn’t a dearth of data, it’s the inability to interpret the data according to rational standards.

This is going to be fun to watch.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation has published an essay based on the comment that the great Alfred Kahn originally left on their blog. It’s eminently worth reading, as we’ve said before, and here’s the conclusion:

Why all the hysteria? There is nothing “liberal” about the government rushing in to regulate these wonderfully promising turbulent developments. Liberals of both 18th and 20th–and I hope 21st–century varieties should and will put their trust in competition, reinforced by the antitrust laws–and direct regulation only when those institutions prove inadequate to protect the public.

There is no need to rush in and start regulating the Internet based on nothing but suspicion that bad things are in the offing. When and if we see some actual bad practices on the part of the telcos (or on the part of Google and Yahoo, let’s be fair) Congress can take appropriate action, whatever that is. Acting on the basis of suspicion, and with a heavy regulatory hand, will only harm the Internet. And we don’t want to do that, right? So chill, people.

Alfred Kahn deregulated airlines and trucking in the US, and he’s not feeling the love for net neutrality regulations:

Some 25 years ago, I thought it was logical to try to prevent cable television companies, as beneficiaries of exclusive territorial franchises, from discriminating against unaffiliated suppliers of programming in favor of their own by prohibiting broadcasters holding a financial interest in the programs they carried. I eventually recognized, however, the public benefits from the especial incentives of the several broadcasters to produce programming of their own, as well as to bid for independent programming, in competition with one another; and that that competition sufficiently protects independent providers from discrimination or exploitation. If Google and eBay depend upon the telephone and cable companies for reaching their audiences, that dependence is mutual: what would happen to the willingness of subscribers to sign up for DSL or cable modem service if one or the other of those suppliers decided not to carry Google or eBay?

Demonstrably, those broadband facilities have to be created by investments — especially huge ones by the telephone companies — and applications requiring priority transmission can entail lower priority transmission of others. Except as broadband service is subsidized by governments — a possibility I do not exclude — those costs must be collected from users — subscribers to broadband services, on the one side, providers of programming or content on the other, or some combination of the two — just as in the case of newspapers or television stations.

Why all the hysteria? There is nothing “liberal” about the government rushing in to regulate these wonderfully promising turbulent developments.

If you’re interested in the Internet’s future, read the whole thing, it’s a comment on the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s blog.

Broadcasting and Cable has this statement from Microsoft about that company’s dropping out of the ironically named “It’s Our Net, Not Yours” regulatory coalition:

“Microsoft has withdrawn its name from the It’s Our Net website for the pendency of the AT&T-Bellsouth merger proceeding based on a company decision not to engage the proceeding,” the company said in a statement. “However, we continue to support and will pursue other opportunities to obtain meaningful Network Neutrality policies.”

Google and its minions are trying to use the Justice Department to advance their anti-democratic net neutrality program, and even for Microsoft that’s going too far. Let’s hope they never re-join.

Scott Cleland and PFF had noticed Microsoft’s name was gone from the It’s Our Net website, and this is why.

Doc Searls is writing a follow-up on last year’s Saving the Net piece and he wants your suggestions:

So I just decided I’ll run a first aniversary follow-up on the piece, over at Linux Journal. But first I’d like to hear from the rest of ya’ll. Tag your posts savingthenet and I’ll find them.

Mine is simple: what makes us think the Internet needs saving? All the empirical measures say it’s thriving: there are more users than ever before, more web sites, more blogs, more broadband, lower prices, and more ways to get broadband thanks to EVDO, public WiFi, and WiMax (coming soon to an ISP near you).

The biggest and only threat to the Internet is the misguided attempt to regulate ISPs in order to prevent the imaginary threat to the imaginary principle of net neutrality, but it’s unlikely to go anywhere, even if the Dems take back the Senate.

I’d be looking at things like terrorist and criminal uses of the Internet, including spam and phishing, because we’re more likely to see a real encroachment on personal freedom of expression over the Internet in response to the real abuses of bad actors than for any other reason.

But the bottom line is that the Internet is fundamentally healthy, and anybody who tells you otherwise probably has a personal agenda because the only way to sustain the “Internet at Risk” argument is to give more weight to the future than to the present. And as we’ve been hearing “Internet at Risk” arguments for ten years (if not longer) and nothing of that nature has come to pass, it’s simply crying wolf at this point, so get back to me when you have evidence of harm and not just imagination.

The Guardian reports that Google has set up a PAC and a high-dollar lobbying arm to protect its network subsidies:

While Google would not be hit directly by a two-tier net, its recently acquired online video site YouTube would, and Google fears that splitting the internet could hamper the creation of other innovative businesses.

“Net neutrality is the most obvious issue for us,” says Reyes, who worked at the US state department before joining Google. “But … Congress and the government are going to take on a whole range of issues that affect us on technological fronts, on legal fronts. This is our effort to play in that game.”

Google has an impressive list of players on its team. As well as counting Al Gore among its senior advisers, Google’s Washington office was set up about a year and a half ago by Alan Davidson. A well-known Democrat sympathiser, he served for eight years as associate director of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, a thinktank that opposes government and industry control of the web. Alongside him is Robert Boorstin, a former Clinton foreign policy aide from the Centre for American Progress, as Google’s communications chief in the capital.

Google’s PAC will be run by a five-person board of directors who will be guided by the recommendations of an advisory committee made up of Google employees. It will raise its funds through voluntary donations from staff.

But judging from the fact that in the past Google employees have been involved with leftwing groups such as MoveOn.org, it will be very interesting to see where that cash is headed.

Towards the end, they tick off some of the search monopolist’s more dubious practices. Is this “don’t be evil?”

Dirty corporate money is a cancer on our political process, no matter who it comes from, folks. Google’s influence-buying operation is bad for freedom.