Thoughts on Net Neutrality

February 27, 2007 by admin · Comments 

Net Neutrality an issue we’ve all heard about but is often not easily explained.

In a nutshell, internet providers (ISPs) like AT&T and Comcast have been quietly trying to change how they distribute traffic flowing through their networks, giving preference to those sites who pay, in essence, a “toll” to the ISP for a faster route to customers. The way the Internet has always worked (through both commercial and international agreements) is that all data is created equal: Yahoo’s data arrives at an end user’s PC just as fast as Google’s.

If the ISPs get their way, they could slow or even restrict access to sites or services that do not pay for access to the virtual “road.” This practice violates the very spirit of the Internet and has the potential to limit the ability of individuals (like us grassroots folks) to get our message out as effectively as we can today. Advocates would like to see federal legislation put in place to make any effort to filter traffic in this manner illegal.

Unfortunately the push by ISPs to filter traffic is not to make the networks run better, it’s to make money. The ISPs will tell you that their networks are clogged because competitors are ‘freeloading’ on their network. For example, a voice over IP application like Skype traverses Comcast’s network if the end user has a Comcast cable modem.

The reality is that Comcast competes with Skype. And since Comcast controls the network to the end user, they want to degrade Skype’s performance while allowing their own voice over IP product to flow through the network without the same restrictions. And while it’s true that competitors are utilizing the ISP’s network, what they fail to mention is that both Skype and the end user are already paying their respective ISPs for access to the network!

If ISPs were really concerned about unclogging their networks, they could start by securing them.

The biggest issues facing network utilization these days have less to do with legitimate services like Yahoo and Google and more to do with rampant malware that are running wild across the Net. It is estimated that more than a quarter of all PC’s connected to the Internet worldwide are now ‘zombified’ by this malicious software, spewing out gigabytes a day of spam and distributed denial of service attacks unbeknownst to their owners. Most of these machines are connected to DSL and cable modem connections run by major ISPs. To date ISPs have done very little to protect their customers and stop the flow of malicious data traversing their networks.

Plugging a PC directly into a cable modem (without a router) is the equivalent these days of driving your new car off a cliff. It will become infected and will be spewing out malware and spam in a matter of minutes. It’s that bad, and ISPs are doing practically nothing to stop it.

Save the Internet. Ask your Congressman to support net neutrality. Mine does.

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