In an April 12th editorial, the Wall Street Journal trumpeted that: "An agreement worked out recently between cable giant Comcast and BitTorrent, the creator of a popular file-sharing program, offers a private-sector alternative to "net neutrality" industrial policy." In the Journal's view this single, private, bilateral agreement proves that "markets work" and nothing more is needed. We believe the Wall Street Journal got it wrong. A secret deal between two individual stakeholders is not an example of markets working. Markets will work only when technical information about how Internet traffic is generated, transported and consumed, is shared publicly.
There are four key stakeholders in the Internet content delivery chain, not just two as the Journal suggests. There are content originators, content distribution technology vendors, ISPs, and content consumers. For peer-to-peer video or any other content to flow well to consumers, the interests of all four stakeholders - not just distribution technology vendors and ISPs - must be aligned.
The Comcast/BitTorrent kerfuffle erupted because Comcast quite understandably viewed the BitTorrent content distribution technology as pesky, and quietly applied a network pesticide to it. Because stakeholder interests were misaligned, the ISP link in the delivery chain broke, denying consumers access to requested content. Comcast failed to foresee that when it pushed too hard with an agenda misaligned with others in the chain, the system broke and everybody lost - including Comcast. Regardless of whose side we take and how high our emotions run, we should remember that we are all in this together, and the best course is to work things out responsibly.
To work things out we need a clearinghouse for technical information about how Internet traffic is generated, transported and consumed - so all stakeholders can foresee economic effects, and consumers can identify options that best meet their needs. A labyrinth of secret, bilateral deals is not the market elixir the Wall Street Journal suggests. Only transparency will enable markets to work and Internet content delivery chains to remain intact.
NetForecast is an internationally recognized engineering consulting company that benchmarks, analyzes, and improves the performance of networked data, voice, and video applications.
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
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In deference to your
In deference to your columnists who have expounded at great depth about the issues surrounding network neutrality, I suggest that everyone is focusing on the mouse while forgetting about the elephant in the room. As I see it, the issue is not network neutrality, but network privacy. The FCC may in fact simply mandate that all packets sent or received by a customer be treated equally. What both the Comcasts and Verizons are deathly afraid of is the logical corollary: If and when true network neutrality is put into effect and all packets become legally equal, then service providers will have no business looking into the content of packets. That is, they have no business invading their customers' privacy as they currently do.
What Comcast recently offered in their deal with BitTorrent comes nowhere close to network neutrality. They are merely trying to throw sand in the eyes of Congress and the FCC. Both Comcast and Verizon want to disrupt the transfer of packets related to VOIP, Video, Peer to Peer, TV, and anything else that might interfere or compete with their offerings or business models. To engage in this nefarious activity they need to examine the contents of their customers' packets. If network neutrality is effective and the ISPs are caught even looking into the content of their customers' packets, the presumption will be that they are interfering with their transmission or reception. So, the issue that scares the ISPs is not network neutrality, but network privacy.
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