openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | reply to SilverSurfer
Re: Policy goals and rules are different things
In the real world, very few people understand the allegations that have been made towards Comcast, let alone care as long as their IM clients, browsers, and e-mail clients work. |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| said by openbox9  :In the real world, very few people understand the allegations that have been made towards Comcast... I am very certain that more than just a "few" people understand the concept of throttling. Apparently, you haven't been paying attention very closely to the complaints that have received national exposure. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | Obviously few is a relative term. I've read some of the "national exposure" of the allegations. How many of the 300 million people in this country understand, or care? I'd wager that those that do are a minority. |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| said by openbox9 :Obviously few is a relative term. I've read some of the "national exposure" of the allegations. How many of the 300 million people in this country understand, or care? I'd wager that those that do are a minority. First off, 300 million people in the U.S. don't have broadband. Of those that do have it, and use it beyond email, care very deeply about throttling. You may have heard of this group...they call themselves Network Neutrality advocates. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
 ·AT&T Southeast
| said by SilverSurfer :First off, 300 million people in the U.S. don't have broadband. Of those that do have it, and use it beyond email, care very deeply about throttling. You may have heard of this group...they call themselves Network Neutrality advocates. But, the 300 million is what you would be referring to when discussing the AP's and Consumerist's allegations. Also, I think your use of the network neutrality advocates is misplaced. I would say a better representation would be BBR readers. Besides, this really isn't a net neutrality issue IMO since they aren't discriminating against a specific user or specific content in favor of their own. |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
 ·Comcast
| said by openbox9 :.... Besides, this really isn't a net neutrality issue IMO since they aren't discriminating against a specific user or specific content in favor of their own. if I had to guess, I would say that in your opinion, very little would probably be a net neutrality issue.
"if an incumbent does it, it can't be wrong"
I just made that up, but you can use it if you want. |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| reply to openbox9
said by openbox9 :But, the 300 million is what you would be referring to when discussing the AP's and Consumerist's allegations. Actually, that "300 million" was your quote, not mine.
said by openbox9 :Also, I think your use of the network neutrality advocates is misplaced. I would say a better representation would be BBR readers. Not necessarily. I read a great many other public forums on the matter besides this one.
said by openbox9 :Besides, this really isn't a net neutrality issue IMO since they aren't discriminating against a specific user or specific content in favor of their own. So, in your opinion, in order for something to be a NN issue, a provider has to discriminate against a "specific user" or "specific content" in favor of their own? What else would you call throttling BT traffic? Just b/c Comcrap didn't replace the throttled BT traffic with their own content is irrelevant. The fact remains they still throttled other content arbitrarily. Yours is a specious argument. |
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smcallah
join:2004-08-05
Home
| said by SilverSurfer :The fact remains they still throttled other content arbitrarily. Yours is a specious argument. But they're not throttling BitTorrent arbitrarily, they have a reason and a supposed (by them) necessity to throttle.
If the reason is network performance, then it is very legitimate. What other reason would they block it for? If network upgrades can't keep up with network performance in the short run, what else are they supposed to do? Start canceling customers? Cut back on download speeds? Are any of these, including Sandvine, reasonable solutions?
ISP's are blocking IP's that send spam and DoS attacks all the time. Is that violating network neutrality? What if I personally wanted that spam?
Are they violating my rights?
Some ISP's block ping to their routers or specific servers. Or they block port 23 to servers. Is that against network neutrality? I mean, for all intents and purposes blocking ports with firewalls is essentially the same as blocking traffic with Sandvine.
So where do you draw the line? |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| reply to SilverSurfer
said by SilverSurfer :Actually, that "300 million" was your quote, not mine. It's my number from the population statistics of this country, but the statement was made based on your assertion that complaints have received national exposure.said by SilverSurfer :So, in your opinion, in order for something to be a NN issue, a provider has to discriminate against a "specific user" or "specific content" in favor of their own? Not just my opinion.
»www.savetheinternet.com/=faq#what
Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
also to discriminate between content providers (e.g. websites, services, protocols), particularly competitors.
»obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-···neutral/
"It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this podcast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge.
But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it. They say that they want to create high speed lanes on the Internet and strike exclusive contractual agreements with Internet content providers for access to those high speed lanes.
Everyone who cannot pony up the cash will be relegated to the slow lanes."
said by SilverSurfer :What else would you call throttling BT traffic? I'd call it throttling BT traffic. As long as the throttling takes place across the board for network management, I don't see the net neutrality issue. Many ISPs have similar network management practices in place. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| reply to nasadude
said by nasadude :if I had to guess, I would say that in your opinion, very little would probably be a net neutrality issue. "if an incumbent does it, it can't be wrong" Until we see an actual net neutrality issue, I'll agree with your statement. Furthermore, I don't care if it's an "incumbent" or any other provider, I'll stand by my belief that providers must management their networks. |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| reply to smcallah
said by smcallah :So where do you draw the line? I think if an informal vote was taken that we could get a fairly decent consensus on spam/Dos attacks. Most people generally don't want either. And as to pinging, anyone with even a peripheral familiarity with network admin/security wouldn't argue with you on the merits of blocking port 23 to servers, but I would argue that the average person could care less about pinging.
What we are discussing is the wholesale blocking of a very specific type of traffic -BT- or more specifically, P2P, which does not always necessarily have a nefarious connotation. Just because people use it doesn't mean everyone who does so is a pirate. And to state as much would be like saying that anyone who buys a firearm is going to go on a rampage and become a serial murderer. P2P traffic is not necessarily always a bad thing.
You draw the line when a national provider like Comcast suddenly starts throttling/blocking certain types of traffic based on its arbitrary judgment at the same time it advertises itself as a content-friendly network and then denies doing it after it gets caught. |
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smcallah
join:2004-08-05
Home
| said by SilverSurfer :Just because people use it doesn't mean everyone who does so is a pirate. And to state as much would be like saying that anyone who buys a firearm is going to go on a rampage and become a serial murderer. P2P traffic is not necessarily always a bad thing. Well, if you're going to use THAT analogy, then the same can be said for email from known spammer netblocks, and legitimate traffic that happens to sit on a network that a DoS was started from, and not all pings are necessarily bad things either.
So again, if they're allowed with no questions asked to block some traffic on their own private network, why are they questioned when they do it to a different type of traffic?
I'm not saying they're right in blocking P2P, far from that. But if the FCC comes out and says they can't block traffic, how sweeping a ruling is that going to be?
Would they not be allowed to block ANYTHING by the word of the law at that point?
When you involve non-technical people in things like this, unintended consequences always happen. Just look at the DMCA. |
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morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000
clubs:
·Charter Pipeline
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to openbox9
said by openbox9 :As long as the throttling takes place across the board for network management, I don't see the net neutrality issue. if providers use it across the board, that just provides more evidence for the need for strict net neutrality laws. if providers only use it on under-developed nodes or over saturated nodes, then that is more understandable but still a violation of net neutrality laws.
net neutrality is a slippery slope. this is the first slip but will definitely not be the last. |
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SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| reply to smcallah
said by smcallah :When you involve non-technical people in things like this, unintended consequences always happen. Just look at the DMCA. Oh shit, dude, don't get me started on that! |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| reply to morbo
said by morbo :if providers use it across the board, that just provides more evidence for the need for strict net neutrality laws. if providers only use it on under-developed nodes or over saturated nodes, then that is more understandable but still a violation of net neutrality laws. Discussed before:
»A good 3rd party independent ananlysis of Net Neutrality
»Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| reply to morbo
said by morbo :if providers use it across the board, that just provides more evidence for the need for strict net neutrality laws. This is NOT a net neutrality issue. If the legislators ever actually screw up and get some net neutrality type of law passed, I think there will be a lot of disappointed BBR members. |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| reply to openbox9
said by openbox9 :Until we see an actual net neutrality issue, I'll agree with your statement. Furthermore, I don't care if it's an "incumbent" or any other provider, I'll stand by my belief that providers must management their networks. you don't keep up with the news much do you?
* ATT censoring lyrics on a streaming concernt
* verizon refusing to allow a NARAL text message
* and over a year ago now, a small independent ISP BLOCKING VOIP
violations of the principles of network neutrality have been and are occurring - this is just apparently the first time an incumbent is going to see it through and not succumb to public pressure. If comcast gets away with this, there goes the internet as we know it. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | Censorship != net neutrality. The Madison River Communications issue, was resolved without legislation. It was actually a net neutrality issue because of the fact that they were blocking competing services. |
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backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2
| reply to smcallah
So where do you draw the line?
I'd say when they block all ports to a particular application.
A DoS attack violates the rights of the recipient to connect to the net.
Nice try on the false issues
Comcast's fundamental problem is that 3 teenagers can saturate their local node and management thinks the best solution is to buy sandvine boxes. This is the 21st century network they offer. |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| said by backness :Comcast's fundamental problem is that 3 teenagers can saturate their local node and management thinks the best solution is to buy sandvine boxes. This is the 21st century network they offer. And if they spent a ton of money upgrading the infrastructure, then 10 teenagers can saturate the local node. With P2P there is no end to how much bandwidth is needed. P2P is a protocol that is bad for the internet and unsustainable for ISPs to tolerate.
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