Toad’s Stool

Internet Descrimination or Network Managment

Posted on 11. Nov, 2009 by Toad in Internet, Technology

Is Net Neutrality really a fight against Internet Censorship and control or is is simply responsible network management?  It has been a highly debated topic over the past couple of weeks and it’s not going to go away any time soon.  With the introduction of H.R. 3458, The Internet Preservation Act, and S.1836, The Internet Freedom Act, we will no doubt see an increase in coverage of both sides.  So let’s go ahead and try to take an objective look at both.

On July 31st of this year Representative Edward Markey(D) introduces the Internet Preservation Act, H.R.3458, with the goal of creating government regulation of Internet services.  In their words it  ”Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to set the policy of the United States regarding various aspects of the Internet, including access, consumer choice, competition, ability to use or offer content, applications, and services, discriminatory favoritism, and capacity.”  That sounds great but what’s the overall goal? In general this bill aims to prevent the Internet Service Provider from discriminating against any type of network traffic.  Of the two bills this is the most pro consumer.

So let’s address the issue of network application discrimination.  Why would an ISP care what applications you are using on your internet connection?  The first and most primary reason an ISP would care what application you use is related to bandwidth consumption.  Your ISP wants to sell you an internet connection and they don’t want you to ever use it.  This keeps their network running smoothly and they never have to invest money to increase network capacity.  When you and all of your neighbors decide to use Limewire to download the latest song all the kids are listening too, then they have a problem.  I would venture to sat that at least 90% of internet users do little more than surf the internet on their connection.  This type of internet use, outside of streaming media such as Hulu.com and Pandora.com, requires very little resources.  Applications like Bit Torrent, Skype, and Netflix streaming require large amounts of resources to function effectively.  If an ISP can prioritize standard web traffic over these other applications, then they are able to better satsify the vast majority of their customers.

I understand that at this point some people are saying “My ISP sells me 10Mbps of Bandwidth and I should be able to always have 10Mbps to use for any application I want.”  In a perfect world that would be the case, however, all ISPs over subscribe their connections.  The average cable node using DOCSIS 2.0 technology can support just over 40Mbit per second.  That’s great if only me and six of my buddies are on the connection but on average there are between 150 and 200 households on a node.  That means that if the cable company sells an average 1Mbps connection to all of the households on this node, they have still over subscribed the network by 500%.  As ridiculous as this may seem it is standard practice and rarely causes any problems.  All of the customers on a node will never be using their connection at the same time.

Prioritization is their solution.  Prioritizing one type of traffic over another simply means that when the cable node begins reaching its bandwidth limit that one type of traffic will always pass before another.  In general I don’t have a problem with that.  If my FTP download of CentOS Linux is slowed down because other people are surfing the web then that’s fine with me.  The big problem however is when an ISP intentionally degrades an application or service, or blocks it all together, because it is a competing business.  This bring us to our second reason your ISP may care what applications you are using.  If you are a Clearwire customer and you want to use Vonage as an alternative long distance provider your costing them money.  You are using a high bandwidth application across their network to bypass their local phone service.  Clearwire even clearly admits to such practices on their web page.  Though clearwire is in Ireland, I can easily see such practices becoming common place if Senate Bill 1836 makes it through.

The Internet Freedom Act, or S.1836, is a bill that attempts to remove all government regulation of the Internet.  Sounds great right?  Well not so much if you consider how the cable companies and other ISPs want to run the industry.  Like any business they are out to make money.  If that means preventing the use of high bandwidth applications to save money or blocking VOIP to force you to use their phone service then they will.  I think the internet is just as much of a utility as Gas and water and electricity.  Therefore does it not require some level of regulation to ensure quality service to the public.  I say absolutely.

In the end we are face with with two bills that could have a major impact on the Internet as we know it in the United States.  On one side we have the pro consumer bill in H.R.3458 and on the other side we have the big business bill in S.1836.  I have never been one in favor of government regulation.  On the other hand, it seems very likely that if the Internet Freedom Act passes we will loose many of the internet freedoms we know today.  Kind of ironic huh.

If you are interested in supporting the Internet Preservation Act you can do so by visiting www.savetheinternet.com or writing a letter to your local senator and congressman.