Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Dave CROCKER <dhc2 () dcrocker net>]

On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote:
> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support
> the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
> ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
> the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed
> out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a
> term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.


I find it helpful to distinguish "participant neutrality" from "service 
neutrality".  The first says that you and I pay the same rate.  The second says 
the my email costs the same as my voip.

As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for 
participant non-neutrality.  On the other hand, if Comcast were charging itself 
for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality (assuming 
there is a plausible meaning to "charging itself"...

d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net