[OT] The Internet (that Ben says does not exist) and Net Neutrality

[Ted Roche]

On May 21, 2006, at 9:06 PM, Jeff Kinz wrote:

> It seems clear that everyone, except the big pipe owners mentioned
> above, want the internet to stay with the traditional endpoint only,
> "You pay to get your bits onto the network and to receive bits from  
> the
> network" model which we have all been using up to now.  With no  
> charges
> by whatever part of the network our bits happen to traverse in their
> traveling.

I don't know all of the business arrangements, but is this an  
accurate model of how the internet is set up? If I want to set up a  
Contoocook ISP,  I buy/lease/rent an OC-48 and bandwidth from an  
upstream provider who, in turn, buys their connections to various  
backbones, perhaps via another layer or more of intermediaries. At  
some level (I understand there is no "center of the Internet") all  
peers agree to accept and transmit bits to each other on a peering  
arrangement, but that's only because their downstream customers pay  
them to do so. No one is doing this out of the goodness of their  
hearts; all of us pay to keep those little green LEDs blinking.

> Bizarrely, I find myself in agreement in principle with both Ben and
> Tom.  They both seem to want the same thing - a
> "non-commercially-censored" Internet.  Equal access to and from all
> legal content, leaving aside the discussion about illegal content.

Well, it seems that the optimal solution usually lies somewhere  
between what each party wants for themselves along with some means of  
providing checks and balances to stabilize the arrangement. Internet  
providers ought to be able to "innovate" - provide new and  
differentiated services - and consumers ought to be able to expect  
some base level of service. The devil's in the details.

Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com