DISQUS

It sounds more and more like our entire disagreement is based on the my using search engines as an example, to which I happily say, "My bad." When I write about tech stuff, I like to ask myself if I've put it in words my mother could understand. So I used search engines, because they're an application everyone's familiar with and because Google is always boasting about its speed. (Yes, I know that Google's speed is a function of their capital investment, not of a QoS agreement, but you can certainly see how one might get the impression that speed is very much a dimension on which search engines compete.) So apologies for the bad example. Maybe next time you can say, "Hey, Brooke, that's a bad example; here's a better one," instead of saying "Hey Brooke, your line of thinking stupid and indicative of your utter lack of tech savvy."

Also, as I said before, there are a lot of smart people--yourself included--who think net neutrality is good. I don't think they think it because they drink the kool-aid. I do, however, think there are a lot of people who did drink the kool-aid--maybe some of those people are even smart people who think net neutrality is good. When they make good arguments, I'll engage in that discussion. When they begin referring to themselves as evangelists and proselytizing about the spirit of the one true net, I'm less likely to take them seriously.

Tim, reading the July 31 post you linked to above has confused me immensely:

"It may be that QoS can be deployed in a cost-effective manner, and that non-QoS network management techniques simply won't give us the quality of service we need for high-bandwidth, interactive applications. Which is why we should leave network owners with some freedom to experiment. No one has a monopoly of wisdom on network design, , and if anyone did, it certainly wouldn't be Congress or the FCC!"

Between that and the idea that packets could be "stamped" to identify their priority level, I don't see how this is any different than my original post, other than that you've added some detail by identifying a mechanism that makes it plausible, QoS agreements. I also don't understand how that could be considered a "modest" adjustment to the end to end principle; the network identifies which content is priority and which is not and it discriminates between them accordingly. I'm assuming there's a price involved? I'm assuming no one is forced into these contracts? I'm assuming that, say, two providers of identical applications are not both required to spend more to upgrade to priority service agreements? That is, one could upgrade to compete on speed and another could abstain to compete on overhead? That's what it sounds like...

Anyway, other quick comments:

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I'm not suggesting abandoning current protocols just because they're old, I'm suggesting looking into alternatives that meet current (and future) technologies' needs as they arise. And I'm suggesting thinking outside the end-to-end box to do so.

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"I'm having trouble imagining a kind of application that would require a network to be able to distinguish among different kinds of content." Yes, yes you are. You're having trouble imagining anything that departs too terribly far from what exists right now.

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Splinternets are to the Internet what gated communities are to the real world: ridiculous bubbles where people voluntarily give up some of their liberties in exchange for peace of mind/religious filters/no spam/etc. I wouldn't do it and you wouldn't do it, but there are a lot of joyless, soulless zombies out there who would. Let us not begrudge them their Epcot Center version of the Internet.

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Yes, division of labor is good. But what good is fast delivery if grandma's china gets broken during the move? Variability in packet delivery isn't such a big deal for browsing or e-mail; but it's wicked annoying for streaming video and such. A smart network that can determine what sort of packets it's carrying might some day be able allocate bandwidth resources not just more efficiently, but more effectively, so that end products are delivered intact. If that isn't a part of the delivery process, I don't know under whose divided portion of the labor it falls.

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First, I was very careful not to make argument #2; I simply made the case that I'm unconvinced that the end-to-end principle is essential and unconvinced that blind adherence to it is the best way to continue.

Second, I don't think argument #2 is necessarily just a technical question, but also a philosophical one.

Third, I did not and would not admit to not knowing very much about the technical aspects; I said I didn't know as much as you, and I tried to do it graciously since I was about to disagree with you, just as you keep graciously thanking me for my comments before disagreeing with them. I don't have the technical expertise to defend my assertion that net neutrality might not be the best idea moving forward, but unless you can see into the future, you certainly don't have the technical expertise to defend the assertion that it is the best idea. As we have agreed, technology changes in unpredictable ways.

Fourth, there are a number of people whose opinions--such as yourself--I value greatly on these issues, who I don't think drank the kool-aid and I don't think are engaging in Internet worship. You haven't argued about the "spirit" of the Internet here, and I in no way mean to deride you or your opinions. But my friend, if you ever take the title of Chief Internet Evangelist, I will mock you mercilessly and you will deserve it.

Well, I have no quarrel with his thoughts on contractual arrangements. I'm simply making the observation that as in his last post, he is assuming that everything in networking technology will remain as it is now. In the interest of being germane, I'll add that protocols might--and likely will--change, possibly rendering the discussion on contractual business arrangements as they exist today irrelevant in predicting future outcomes.

Perhaps I'm too much of a non-expert in this area for my own good. Perhaps I'm having too easy a time imagining paradigmatic shifts in networking technology that seem outside the realm of possibility to someone more knowledgeable about the state of current technology.

Tim, I think the bigger issue that you aren't wrapping your head around is that you're assuming that the network will always operate exactly as it does today. This is a 30 year old technology we're talking about that hasn't seen any real change to its basic operating protocols. To assume that the way it works now is the best possible way for it to continue working is woefully shortsighted, I think. End-to-end and TCP aren't written in stone, and from my understanding, the only reason they're so revered is because they are simply what is.

I'm frankly pretty shocked that you're taking an if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach to innovation, of all things.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm as familiar with the technical operation of the Internet as you are, Tim and AK. But what I've tried to do is paint a picture of the sorts of network evolutions that net neutrality regulation would prevent. Sure, I'll concede that maybe I've made a ridiculous argument based on how the Internet currently works. I'm unconvinced though that it's a ridiculous argument based on what might be possible with networking technologies in the future. What I am convinced of is that net neutrality regulation shuts the door on the possibility of such evolutions before the market and technology can figure out whether they are desirable to consumers and/or technologically feasible.

I also wholly disagree with the contention, Tim, that it would necessarily "suck" if Internet architecture changed. For a number of reasons I won't go into here, cybersecurity chief among them, perhaps reassessing the importance of the firmly held principles of the Internet is precisely the right thing to do. There it is: I'm making a make a serious argument for why abandoning network neutrality as the Internet's broad organizing principle might be a good idea.

I think the concept of the dumb network and the end-to-end principle make less sense now than they did when there was less variety in applications and less variety in content. As you pointed out to me, right now, identifying the kind of content (video, voice, email, web, etc) being sent over the package-switched dumb network is a difficult technical challenge. Well, maybe some applications need a network to evolve on which such differentiations aren't a difficult technical challenge. And maybe some consumers want a network that can keep objectionable content out of their homes without having to rely on end-technologies or pop-up blocking software. Wayne has made the argument in favor of the "splinternets" on several occasions, and it is a very reasoned and serious�though unpopular�argument that network neutrality should be abandoned as the Internet's broad organizing principle.

Most of the opposition is that these changes would violate the "spirit" of the Internet. I find arguments against change that are based on the preservation of the "spirit" of something to be largely uncompelling�I just never drank the kool-aid at the altar of Internet worship.

Finally, Tim, your grocery store analogy misidentifies who the consumer is in the scenario I laid out in my original post. The purchasing of faster transmission speed is a factor of production, not a final good. You and I aren't the direct purchasers of the transmission speed, just as the people in line at the grocery store didn't directly "purchase" the delivery of their groceries to the store by suppliers. The content producer (or food manufacturer) is the consumer of an intermediate service, faster transmission, in this scenario.

If we want to use a grocery store analogy for my post, imagine General Mills trying to decide how to get their Cheerios into the grocery store. Should they send them by truck in three days, train in 36 hours, or airplane in 24 hours? They might choose the truck to keep costs down. Now imagine a strawberry farmer; his product is a little more time sensitive. He chooses a train, so he can sell at reasonable prices and pretty good freshness. His competitor may want to compete on freshness but not price, so he chooses a plane.

I, as a consumer of the final good, want my strawberry suppliers to be able to choose between trucks, trains, and airplanes; if I'm making a smoothie, I don't really need the freshest berries, so I'll pick the cheapest ones there. If I'm making a strawberry shortcake though, boy howdy, I'll upgrade to the freshest looking ones there. Similarly, I don't necessarily want all my data packets delivered as fast as possible. I want my video packets sent faster. I want VOIP sent faster. I want my i-tunes sent faster. I don't much care if there's a couple of minute delay with my e-mail, but I want my IMs to get there fast. And I want companies to be able to compete with the speed at which they send me my content. If i-tunes wants to charge more for the convenience of wicked fast transmission and downloads so I can hear the new JT album on my i-pod RIGHT NOW, that's fine with me. If I'm downloading Rod Stewart ballads so I can make a mix CD later for my mom, I don't really care how fast it goes, so maybe I'll pick some cheaper, slower service. Right now, that's not an option.* In the future, maybe it could be.

As James points out above, we simply don't know where the markets and technology will lead; maybe the things I'm talking about will be possible and maybe they won't. But I don't want to dismiss the possibility of doing away with net neutrality--or dismiss the discussion of what might happen if we did--just because doing so violates the "spirit" or grand tradition of something that's only about as old as I am. I haven't seen any net neutrality proposals with sunset provisions on them, so I'm not going to confine my thinking to the way networks work right now.

* Admittedly, there may be slower or faster downloads between companies as a result of capital investment in servers or whatever, but I sure want the people competing for my business to be competitive in as many ways as possible to ensure as many options in speed, quality, and price that the market can support.