
A VC: In Search Of Open Internet Access - bjonathan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/openinternetaccess.html
======
bretpiatt
Creating a law that says "application agnostic" is going to leave things up to
considerable legal debate. Define "application":

"Web traffic": Services that run over TCP/80 or TCP/443

"Video streaming": Delivery of live or buffered video

"VoIP": Phone calls over IP

With categories like the above:

(1) How would you filter in an agnostic way? I can stream video inside of a
TCP/443 tunnel, I can send VoIP there too... how do you know what it is? Match
off of source IP? I can get crafty and distribute my content through a CDN --
do you block the CDN? Do you require them to register each application with
you?

(2) What would prevent a provider from coming up with a way to bypass their
own filters in a way that follows the "letter of the law" but not the intent?
If a "hostile" application was circumventing things by tunneling or hiding
their traffic the "quality team" would catch them and block it. If a friendly
application did the same the "quality team" can just claim "they don't have
the ability or measures in place to detect application B".

It sounds good in theory but in practice any ability to classify traffic will
create a non-agnostic system once the business people spending the capital
call their legal teams for advise.

~~~
RBr
For me, one of your points seems to be on the money:

"Do you require them to register each application with you?"

For quite a while, Governments have wanted to accurately classify and throttle
traffic / consumption for certain services. For example, in Canada, we're not
allowed to watch U.S. streaming video feeds other than U.S. video advertising.
There are of course stronger international examples, but in the U.S. it may
seem attractive to build a registration system on top of anything built for
the web so that it could be shaped, monitored and shut down.

------
rfreytag
Rather than legislate the current providers into a revenue box you compete
with them. Collectively form your own cable company in a high-revenue market,
and force the cable companies to innovate to protect their margins. As a
collective you have the votes to compete in the political arena.

Forming "collectives" providing desired services for a large group is the
origin of the farmer's collectives that ran grain silos at collectively
acceptable prices. The same needs created the "populist" movements of Teddy
Roosevelt and the Grange (<http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h854.html>).

Farmers started as fiercely independent freeholders who were being charged
usurious transport fees in the late 19th Century. They eventually took
collective action against the railroad barons
([http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/163/farmers-the-
populist...](http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/163/farmers-the-populist-
party-and-mississippi-1870-1900)).

The similarities with highly individualistic entprepreneurs is striking. The
modern railroad barons are the accesss providers. The farms are web sites in
server "farms" throughout the world and the content must be delivered to the
(mostly) urban centers world wide.

The troubles between farmers and railroads is recurring in Asia now
([http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870338900457530...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575304970143934734.html)).

The problem of course is regulatory capture
([https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Regulatory_ca...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Regulatory_capture)).
The answer to this is, I noted above, "populist" movements are popular and can
drive policy by petitioning the government. Should that not work then voting
to change the government has worked in the past.

tl;dr - as was done in the 19th centry, form collectives to get product from
the "farms" to the consumer.

