A call for less heated rhetoric

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

[ I have been saying this for a long time now. Many, not all, on both  
sides of the Net Neu. discussion (I use that term carefully) are  
talking past eachother and often not listening. We need "less heated  
rhetoric " and a lot more analysis.

Dave


Begin forwarded message:

From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby () henkel-wallace org>
Date: May 24, 2008 5:40:32 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] ] Ok guys and girls -- just who is telling the truth.

Dave,

I think it's pointless the way the network neutrality discussion is  
being framed (on the list at least).  Could we perhaps all agree to a  
common model with less heated rhetoric for either side?  I know you of  
all people know this stuff, but I get the feeling a lot of submitters  
either don't or don't want to acknowledge it:



#1 The ISPs are not rapacious, exploitative bastards.  They are  
businesses and their profit margin depends on keeping an Erlang of  
traffic on every upstream channel and an extremely high percentage of  
requests satisfied -- else they've misprovisioned.

And unfortunately a lot of ISPs did mis-estimate how much capacity  
they'd need, for whatever reason.  It just means those particular  
guys' model is broken.  Not all ISPs are complaining about their  
customers.



#2 Users  are not "abusing" their network connections, they are using  
them in the way IP and TCP work.  That usage may may not be what their  
network provider had anticipated and provisioned for but fundamentally  
that's not the customer's fault.     do wish myself that some of these  
folks (end users) would be more polite and kinder both in flaming and  
in networking use, but strictly speaking they don't have to be.

The network is _inherently_ peer to peer, by design.  "Client" and  
"server" are concepts that only apply on a per-connection basis, and  
even then only with a subset of protocols.    To complain about "peer  
to peer use" is meaningless.  "AA host is a host from coast to coast."




====

We can get into _how_ the ISPs interfere with traffic or how self- 
righteous this or that person is, but at the end of the day there is a  
problem and the situation will have to give.  Sending RST packets  
won't make any more difference than price controls or drilling in the  
ANWR will change oil prices.  You can't just wish the carriers into  
having more bandwidth.  They will provide it or they won't.  You can't  
just wish the users into using the network the way you'd like.  They  
either will or they won't.

Perhaps everyone who wants to weigh in on this ought to send you a  
note first indicating that they took ten deep breaths before posting.



This isn't a new problem.  The phone companies struggled with it for  
over a century.  Even 18 years ago when a couple of other guys and I  
set up  up the retail ISP TLG we had the same sorts of problems.  But  
it's true we didn't call our users assholes and my understanding is  
that the reverse was not true either.





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