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RE: Did Internet Founders Actually Anticipate Paid, Prioritized Traffic?


From: Nathan Eisenberg <nathan () atlasnetworks us>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:52:13 +0000

True net-neutrality means no provider can have a better service than another.

This statement is not true - or at least, I am not convinced of its truth.  True net neutrality means no provider will 
artificially de-neutralize their service by introducing destination based priority on congested links.

This totally screws with private peering and the variety of requirements, as well
as special services (such as akamai nodes). Many of these cases aren't about
saturation, but better connectivity between content provider and ISP. Adding
money or QOS to the equation is just icing on the cake.

From a false assumption follows false conclusions.  

Why do you feel it's true that net-neutrality treads on private (or even public) peering, or content delivery 
platforms?  In my understanding, they are two separate topics: Net (non)-neutrality is literally about prioritizing 
different packets on the *same* wire based on whether the destination or source is from an ACL of IPs.  IE this link is 
congested, Netflix sends me a check every month, send their packets before the ones from Hulu and Youtube.  The act of 
sending traffic down a different link directly to a peers' network does not affect the neutrality of either party one 
iota - in fact, it works to solve the congested link problem (Look!  Adding capacity fixed it!).

The ethics of path distances, peering relationships and vector routing, while interesting, are out of scope in a 
discussion of neutrality.  An argument which makes this a larger issue encompassing peering and vector routing is, in 
my opinion, either a straw man or a red herring (depending on how well it's presented) attempt to generate a second 
technoethical issue in order to defeat the first one.

Nathan



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