

How neutrality locks in the web's 'Hyper Giants' - bensummers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/09/neutrality_new_net_hypergiants/

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roc
Private peering/caching/CDNs/etc are, in fact, the example that gives the lie
to ISP claims that they can't charge for premium networking services: they
absolutely can and already do.

Trick is, that sort of premium service requires an outlay of capital.
Equipment may need to be bought, fiber lit, configurations made.

Blocking Net Neutrality, however, would allow the telecoms to enforce
artificial scarcity on a per-protocol basis to increase profit
disproportionate to any increase in capacity and with almost no capital
outlay.

The actual issue isn't whether or not it's wrong for an ISP to accelerate
content from a given provider. The issue is whether an ISP should be able to
artificially constrain already-promised supply based on largely-arbitrary
definitions they control and can game for increased profit.

As there is no Net Neutrality requirement, the ISPs could --today-- create
agreements with terms that explicitly lay out QoS based on protocols. There is
nothing stopping them from doing so, _except_ for the fact that they'd be
required to communicate those terms to the public and that they'd be taking a
gamble that some upstart would break ranks.

This squeeze only works if they all agree on the QoS policy and, industry-
wide, the peering agreements all change. (If the peering agreements build in
QoS, a consumer-side network can't effect a lack of QoS. Everything will have
already been throttled upstream.)

This is a horizontal collusion play in plain site.

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yummyfajitas
The author seems to confuse economies of scale with being locked out of the
network. They aren't remotely the same thing.

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kierank
The author is mixing up (or perhaps trying to force into the same boat)
private peering and caching with Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is about not
prioritising traffic from one source or the other.

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nanairo
I think he is not mixing it up... I think the main point of the article (no
matter if you agree or not) is that the philosophy behind the net neutrality,
e.g. the idea of maintaining a levelled field, are already history.

The author suggests that already now a company like Google can use money to
set up a "parallel" Internet. Because it's closed, they don't need to uphold
any regulation. But they can use them to shorten the number of hops a package
has to take to travel between two computers.

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kierank
The number of hops still isn't related to net neutrality any more so than
buying servers in a particular country can reduce the number of hops to a
given ISP.

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nanairo
Hey, don't shoot the messenger. :)

What you just said was pretty much his point. By decreasing the number of hops
you are speeding up the connection (maybe not, but let's say so for
simplicity).

His point then is that net neutrality has always been a fuzzy concept. Because
even now you can boost your speed by spending a lot of dollars, for example
buying servers as you point out.

I won't comment if its a realistic comparison, but I definitely found it an
interesting pov: food for thoughts. :)

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robotron
And..... a non-neutral internet locks out all of the little guys.

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drats
Andrew Orlowski is the worst of the trolls at the register, I stop reading the
instant I see his name. You might find that insulting or arrogant, but it's a
"don't feed them" policy which leads to a happier life. Judging by the
comments here it looks like it's a good policy.

