Re: U.S. Finance Sector Weighs In on Net Neutrality

[Drsolly <drsollyp () drsolly com>]

On Wed, 3 May 2006, Greg Poirier wrote:

> On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 14:32 +0100, Drsolly wrote:
> > So, if you take Sourceforge, for example. If ATT (or whoever sells them
> > packets) decide to bump up their hosting cost substantially, they'll look
> > around for a competing provider, and they'll find one, even if they have
> > to relocate. And on the internet, relocating isn't difficult.
>
> I think I've been thinking of this the wrong way.  It isn't about
> increasing the cost of bandwidth, really.

Well, that's a pity. I'd quite like to buy bandwidth at the same price 
that Google pays.
 
> I think what is at stake here are provisions made in Part II of the
> Communications Act of 1934 (as ammended by the Telecommunications Act of
> 1996) that provide for non-discriminatory charging practices by Local
> Exchange Carriers and Common Communication Carriers (phone, cable
> companies and other bandwidth providers I believe are included in the
> definition of these terms).  
>
> > But this is already in place. What I find hard to fathom, is what *change* 
> > is proposed.
>
> Currently, I believe communications providers are prohibited from using
> equipment or any other means to purposefully slow down access to
> competitors.  

So all the people selling "packet shaping" equipment better make sure they 
don't sell to ISPs, right? 

No - if I buy 1 megabit, I don't really expect to get more than 1 megabit, 
even though it means that when my pipe is saturated, access to my server 
will get slower.
 
> Without these provisions, there is nothing stopping Bell South from
> disallowing access to Yahoo or Google's portal pages for all of its
> customers.  I think Bell South may lose customers if they did something
> like that, but right now that's what they can't do and what they'd be
> able to do should Net Neutrality(tm) be abandoned.
 
I'm still having trouble understanding this whole issue. If its about 
banning discriminatory pricing, then it flies in the face of all normal 
commercial practice. You simply do not charge everyone the same price. 
For example, people who buy big volume, usually get offered a better 
price.

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