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Time4aNAPPremium
join:2007-04-09
Des Plaines, IL | reply to Yauch
Ask Not for Whom the Tolls Bail "Toll" is probably a bad word to use, since it implies things that aren't applicable here. Certainly nobody is going to institute an omnibus "no Internet for you" toll that denies them backbone access...wait, that's exactly how it works for the lower tier ISPs. Bad example. They couldn't get away with charging different rates for different data rates...no, that is indeed what ISPs do, whether you're a home user or colocated in the same building as a major peering facility. So never mind that one as well. . ...
Hmmm, what is all the hubbub about, then? It seems like the Tier 1 ISPs are proposing to do the same thing that everybody else has been doing all along. What's the big deal about that?
Well...I suppose that it could be a double-edged sword. A competitor could pay your upstream provider to starve you of bandwidth. Of course you'd be able to monitor that, and threaten to sue, and people could go to prison for things like that, so it's not very likely. I guess that when you get right down to it, it could be a top-down way to implement much-needed QoS protocols on the Internet. Yes, the corporate giants would be able to buy the fastest access, but aren't they doing that already, by physical diversity and BGP?
For services like streaming media and VoIP to become mature and reliable enough to replace their channelized forebearers, some sort of QoS needs to be implemented. And if it cost the same no matter what QoS level you chose, everyone would pick the highest priority, and the system would fail to accomplish anything. When's the last time you used `nice' (or Windows' "START") to voluntarily lower your priority on a multiuser system?
Yes, it means that it will cost more to make VoIP calls, and to send real-time media streams. But the upside is that your VoIP phone will sound no different than an ILEC-connected phone (and still save you money), and webcasters will be able to boast rock-steady streaming, just like their broadcasting cousins, but without the possibility of RF interference. That's worth paying extra for, isn't it?
The only possible downside that I can imagine at the moment would be related to expansion and consolidation. Without some form of regulation, backbone providers will have a financial incentive to add capacity only to its higher-priority, higher-revenue lines. Even worse, they could shut down the less-traveled paths that are essential for the lowest priority traffic, and for the continued robustness of the Internet as a whole. So somewhere in all of this, a "must carry" rule that links the privilege of charging for QoS with the community responsibility to deliver all packets that come their way.
If the phrase "must carry" has a familiar ring to it, it's because similar situations have arisen on other kinds of networks. It's old-hat for the FCC. It can be done in a fair and equitable way. After all, when NSFNet went away in 1995, who noticed? | |
Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | Well, net-neutrality isn't (or shouldn't be) about dis-allowing QoS. It's about telling those with government provided monopolies that they can't prioritize their own services to the detriment of their competitors. (which is kind of what you said, but in the extreme)
So they can offer VOIP QoS and mutli-media QoS for a fee. They just have to offer it to everybody. No extra special VOIP for their service, and everyone else's VOIP uses that QoS that every 5 seconds is de-prioritized for a half second to below best delivery data.
The government provides the regional wireline monopolies through restricted ROW space (by necessity, I/we don't want 10,000 networks strung on our poles), so they have a responsibility to make sure that the service arms of the network maintenance owners are playing on an even playing field with those firms that the government prevents from competing in the wireline network business. Otherwise it's really just another tax, because we won't have a choice. | |
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