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How neutrality locks in the web's 'Hyper Giants'

29 points by bensummers 16y ago

robotron 16y ago
And..... a non-neutral internet locks out all of the little guys.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
The author seems to confuse economies of scale with being locked out of the network. They aren't remotely the same thing.
kierank 16y ago
The author is mixing up (or perhaps trying to force into the same boat) private peering and caching with Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is about not prioritising traffic from one source or the other.
- nanairo 16y ago
  I think he is not mixing it up... I think the main point of the article (no matter if you agree or not) is that the philosophy behind the net neutrality, e.g. the idea of maintaining a levelled field, are already history. The author suggests that already now a company like Google can use money to set up a "parallel" Internet. Because it's closed, they don't need to uphold any regulation. But they can use them to shorten the number of hops a package has to take to travel between two computers.
  - kierank 16y ago
    The number of hops still isn't related to net neutrality any more so than buying servers in a particular country can reduce the number of hops to a given ISP.
    - nanairo 16y ago
      Hey, don't shoot the messenger. :) What you just said was pretty much his point. By decreasing the number of hops you are speeding up the connection (maybe not, but let's say so for simplicity). His point then is that net neutrality has always been a fuzzy concept. Because even now you can boost your speed by spending a lot of dollars, for example buying servers as you point out. I won't comment if its a realistic comparison, but I definitely found it an interesting pov: food for thoughts. :)
roc 16y ago
Private peering/caching/CDNs/etc are, in fact, the example that gives the lie to ISP claims that they can't charge for premium networking services: they absolutely can and already do. Trick is, that sort of premium service requires an outlay of capital. Equipment may need to be bought, fiber lit, configurations made. Blocking Net Neutrality, however, would allow the telecoms to enforce artificial scarcity on a per-protocol basis to increase profit disproportionate to any increase in capacity and with almost no capital outlay. The actual issue isn't whether or not it's wrong for an ISP to accelerate content from a given provider. The issue is whether an ISP should be able to artificially constrain already-promised supply based on largely-arbitrary definitions they control and can game for increased profit. As there is no Net Neutrality requirement, the ISPs could --today-- create agreements with terms that explicitly lay out QoS based on protocols. There is nothing stopping them from doing so, except for the fact that they'd be required to communicate those terms to the public and that they'd be taking a gamble that some upstart would break ranks. This squeeze only works if they all agree on the QoS policy and, industry-wide, the peering agreements all change. (If the peering agreements build in QoS, a consumer-side network can't effect a lack of QoS. Everything will have already been throttled upstream.) This is a horizontal collusion play in plain site.
drats 16y ago
Andrew Orlowski is the worst of the trolls at the register, I stop reading the instant I see his name. You might find that insulting or arrogant, but it's a "don't feed them" policy which leads to a happier life. Judging by the comments here it looks like it's a good policy.

29 points by bensummers 16y ago

And..... a non-neutral internet locks out all of the little guys.

The author seems to confuse economies of scale with being locked out of the network. They aren't remotely the same thing.

kierank 16y ago

The author is mixing up (or perhaps trying to force into the same boat) private peering and caching with Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is about not prioritising traffic from one source or the other.

nanairo 16y ago
I think he is not mixing it up... I think the main point of the article (no matter if you agree or not) is that the philosophy behind the net neutrality, e.g. the idea of maintaining a levelled field, are already history. The author suggests that already now a company like Google can use money to set up a "parallel" Internet. Because it's closed, they don't need to uphold any regulation. But they can use them to shorten the number of hops a package has to take to travel between two computers.
- kierank 16y ago
  The number of hops still isn't related to net neutrality any more so than buying servers in a particular country can reduce the number of hops to a given ISP.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    Hey, don't shoot the messenger. :) What you just said was pretty much his point. By decreasing the number of hops you are speeding up the connection (maybe not, but let's say so for simplicity). His point then is that net neutrality has always been a fuzzy concept. Because even now you can boost your speed by spending a lot of dollars, for example buying servers as you point out. I won't comment if its a realistic comparison, but I definitely found it an interesting pov: food for thoughts. :)

roc 16y ago

Private peering/caching/CDNs/etc are, in fact, the example that gives the lie to ISP claims that they can't charge for premium networking services: they absolutely can and already do. Trick is, that sort of premium service requires an outlay of capital. Equipment may need to be bought, fiber lit, configurations made. Blocking Net Neutrality, however, would allow the telecoms to enforce artificial scarcity on a per-protocol basis to increase profit disproportionate to any increase in capacity and with almost no capital outlay. The actual issue isn't whether or not it's wrong for an ISP to accelerate content from a given provider. The issue is whether an ISP should be able to artificially constrain already-promised supply based on largely-arbitrary definitions they control and can game for increased profit. As there is no Net Neutrality requirement, the ISPs could --today-- create agreements with terms that explicitly lay out QoS based on protocols. There is nothing stopping them from doing so, except for the fact that they'd be required to communicate those terms to the public and that they'd be taking a gamble that some upstart would break ranks. This squeeze only works if they all agree on the QoS policy and, industry-wide, the peering agreements all change. (If the peering agreements build in QoS, a consumer-side network can't effect a lack of QoS. Everything will have already been throttled upstream.) This is a horizontal collusion play in plain site.

drats 16y ago

Andrew Orlowski is the worst of the trolls at the register, I stop reading the instant I see his name. You might find that insulting or arrogant, but it's a "don't feed them" policy which leads to a happier life. Judging by the comments here it looks like it's a good policy.