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[ NNSquad ] Re: Comments on NNSquad Purpose


On Nov 8, 2007 10:34 AM, Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com> wrote:
> At 11:48 PM 11/7/2007, Robb Topolski wrote:
>
> >While I agree that Net Neutrality has been sometimes described as
> >preventing the situation of paying extra for higher performance of
> >favored applications, it is not an apt description.
> >
> >Using the Comcast P2P interference as an example, in this case,
> >Comcast has degraded the performance of a non-favored application.
>
> Or, from Comcast's point of view, it is preventing network abuse and
> stopping customers from violating the terms of their contracts.
>
> By the way, it seems to me that the first order of business on this
> list should be to define "network neutrality." I see network neutrality
> as remaining neutral with regard to content providers, but not
> necessarily with regard to applications. (There are good technical
> reasons to do things like prioritize VoIP packets, for example.)
>

If I'm being sold a certain amount of bits at a certain data rate per
a set amount of time, why does it matter to an ISP how I use the
bandwidth I've been promised?  5Mbps is how it is advertised, not
5Mbps to exclude smtp, p2p, bit-torrent and no web access to .ru.  I
see a grave danger when an ISP is deciding what applications I should
run, as it effectively controls how I use the bandwidth.  In the
extreme case, one could make an argument that degrading the
performance of an application could make it un-usable for an end user,
with a reasonable person concluding that it could be censorship on the
part of the ISP, especially in the context of content filtering.  What
an ISP is saying in prioritizing an application is that the ISP likes
certain applications and deems others less worthy.  Effectively, the
ISPs are becoming the new censors of the Internet.
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