That issue is a tempest in a tea pot, Mitch. It would be a simple matter to say that an operator can't interfere with lawful content, meaning that best-efforts service has to be equal for all who use it. Equally simple to say that if an operator uses QoS for their own services they are obliged to offer the same to others at the same commercial terms.
In any event, look at U-verse today and most IPTV. These are walled-garden services that have QoS and they aren't considered violations. So I argue our current rules actually work against neutrality because they pull carrier video off-net where it's not regulated.
Structural separation is the wrong answer too. All you do is further increase costs which means lower ROI. We have the right answer stairing us in the face. Let operators use and sell QoS based on end-to-end inter-carrier settlement. If it's a good idea it will work. If it isn't nobody will buy it.
Tom - The argument in favor of net neutrality is that it would prevent carriers from blocking services like YouTube in favor of carriers' own video services. Same for Facebook and other services people want access too. More importantly -- and more likely -- carriers would be able to block startups. We wouldn't get the next YouTube because it never would have been permitted to start.
Is that a valid concern? Is there a way around that?
One proposal I've seen is to separate the ISPs from the network. The companies that run the line along the street and into homes would be different companies than the ones providing Internet service. The Internet service providers would be customers of the networking companies; consumers and businesses would be customers of the ISPs. Everybody wins. Do you see that as a viable option?
The fact that network operators are not prepared to invest in infrastructure is a result of inadequate ROI. In Europe, it's gone so far as to drive carriers to invest outside their home countries/markets for better return. The fact that we have no QoS for broadband services is a direct result of lack of settlement for service quality; operators won't guarantee QoS if they receive none of the money. We hear all the time that we have second-rate Internet in this country; we have second-rate policies.
I've been opposed to some of the neutrality principles from the mid-90s, Mitch. I co-authored an RFC intended to organize settlement among ISPs for traffic and QoS and I continue to believe that the 'Net would be better off with that in place. We're seeing a bunch of business distortions resulting from the lack of settlement, and eventually they're going to bite us seriously IMHO.
"OTT video" is indeed not a moral or topical judgment, but rather video streamed over best-efforts Internet connections and not within a walled garden.
I get a sense that you're opposed to at least some of what's generally considered as "net neutrality." Is that a fair assessment?
Also, what's "over the top video"? That's a new one on me. I'm thinking that's a technology description, and not referring to "Girls Gone Wild" or Tarantino movies (which are other types of over-the-top).
I wish I could always promising at least some hope, Susan, even though I pride myself on cynisism! There's so much network news that speaks to issues with profit in basic transport and streaming video is dependent on cost-effective transport. I think that rural operators and developing-country players are the ones most likely to be able to see a walled-garden-streaming model pay off. The question is whether it will be enough, and whether neutrality rules erode streaming by eroding revenue further. It's a complicated issue for sure!
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Social media has been with us for a decade -- but employer policies and the law are anything but firm about the most appropriate usage of this powerful tool.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
