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[ NNSquad ] Re: UDP Wars

I think you're largely attacking a strawman, Lauren, as none of the major players in the Internet regulation debate favors a completely unregulated system. Brett himself has offered a regulatory framework to the FCC, as have I and many others who are viewed as enemies of regulation. So let's stop pretending the debate is between regulation and no regulation, it's about which regulations are appropriate and who should enforce them.

As a practical matter, we do have to remember that the Internet is a global network of networks, not simply a phenomenon local to California or the US. Governments around the world have chosen to regulated Internet access networks in many different ways, and will obviously continue to do so.

The recent flap over UDP and BitTorrent is actually illustrative. BitTorrent, Inc. made some enhancements to a product that moves lots of data around the Internet. Their partners and collaborators in the US were happy with the enhancements, but on some foreign networks, such as Bell Canada, they have the unintended consequence of giving BitTorrent a higher priority than HTTP.

It would be nice if there were a central clearinghouse of information about technical developments like this that would enable carriers to make necessary adjustments to infrastructure components ahead of local meltdowns. It shouldn't be hard for companies like BT to alert ISPs and carriers about these things in advance, if they can do it by posting information on a common site. Alerting thousands of carriers worldwide on an individual basis is much harder. Maintaining that clearinghouse may be a mission for NNSquad or some other high-minded civic institution. Or maybe it's not.

Let's not ask for more government oversight until we've reached the limits of voluntary cooperation. China is a government, and it has some peculiar ideas about the utility we call the Internet.

Anyhow, it's a thought.

RB

Lauren Weinstein wrote: 
First, I clearly noted in the message referenced below that my
statement regarding regulation was my personal view.  It's not
a statement of NNSquad policy.

I know how the game is played when it comes to fighting regulation
of services. The modus operandi hasn't changed fundamentally in ages.

Arguments that equate any form of regulation with destruction of
transportation and communications-related industries have been
standard fare. The railroad barons used them, as did Ma Bell and
countless others. We're continually told that there's no form of
regulation that won't cause these industries to take their ball(s)
and just go home. 

Meanwhile, these same industries called for resources -- rights of
way, pole access, spectrum -- but didn't want rules, oversight, or
often even disclosure requirements of any kind.  If there's a
supposedly evil bogeyman that can be used as a focus for attacks,
all the better to try divert attention from how the need for
meaningful competition plays into the mix.  For the ISP industry
these days, that designated enemy seems to be Google.

Brett constantly speaks of his inability to get licensed spectrum
that could help him expand.  I agree, spectrum policy in this
country is a mess.  But my sense is that what Brett (and others in
the wireless ISP industry) really want is spectrum with no strings
attached.  That's a whole different -- and likely unworkable -- ball game.

I have a certain emotional attachment to the history of the Internet
for obvious reasons, but frankly the history of the Net -- in terms
of what it was or how it has been "managed" up to now, isn't worth
much more than a plugged nickel in terms of moving forward.  We need
to face the reality of the Internet today -- and tomorrow.

The Internet is not a frill or toy or experiment any more. It has
become fundamental to business, commerce, health, our personal lives,
and virtually all other aspects of society. Just as water, power,
and telephone systems (most of them still not government-owned, it
should be noted) in turn moved from ad hoc systems to more regulated
structures to serve consumers as society deemed appropriate,
pressures are building that will push the Internet in similar
directions -- and rightly so, I believe.

This is not to say that the specifics of any oversight/regulatory framework for the Internet need to look exactly like those for traditional utilities. In fact, there's an enormous possible range
of approaches and "intensities" that are possible and worthy of
serious debate.

But arguments that loudly proclaim that *any* form of significant
regulation of the Internet will somehow drive ISPs out of business
and destroy the Internet are hogwash. We've heard these arguments
before by other industries, and in the final analysis society has
determined that a reasonable regulatory balance -- a work in progress
to be sure -- best serves society.

It seems likely that society will ultimately make some sort of
similar determination in the area of Internet access and backbone
services.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com 

 - - -


Lauren Weinstein wrote:
[...]
I personally do not believe that the current largely ad hoc and
unregulated landscape in this sphere can yield appropriate long-term
solutions, especially from the standpoint of helping to assure
reasonable operational parity for customers in different locations
and using different ISPs (which are making independent and often
proprietary decisions regarding their network management policies).

It's time that we stop looking at the Internet only as a patchwork
of independent, typically unregulated networks, and more in terms of
an overall interconnected system that may need some level and forms of
oversight similar to those long considered appropriate for other
critical utility-related functions.
That limits the debate to one narrowly defined viewpoint. It presumes that one party, the consumers, should have a predominant influence over an entire business sector. It also presumes that business entities must be subjected to some sort of government sponsored organization in order to secure consumer influence of the marketplace.

While I think a very large percentage of the participants on this list agree with those presumptions, excluding large chunks of the problem space and solution space does not seem beneficial. If it is the goal of NNSquad to adopt this viewpoint, perhaps that should be clearly stated so that those that agree can proceed and those who disagree can continue their debate elsewhere.

Kelly

--
Richard Bennett