Did Internet Founders Actually Anticipate Paid, Prioritized Traffic?

Mon Sep 13 14:31:48 UTC 2010

In a message written on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 09:50:21AM -0400, Joe Provo wrote:
> [cue endless thread of knee-jerk responses; can we just Godwin it
> now please?]

Of course Hitler was the first to propose pay-to-play internet
traffic.  :)

Consumers are more in need of regulatory protection than business
customers, at $19.95 a month they are viewed as expendable by many
of the companies that offer consumer services, and are often served
by a monopoly or duopoly, often at the encouragement of government.
They can't vote with their dollars as we like to say, and need some
protection.

However, the proposed "remedies" of banning all filtering ever, or
requiring free peering to everyone (taking both to the extreme, of
course) don't match the operational real world.  Many of those who
are pushing for network neutrality are pushing for an ideal that
the network simply cannot deliver, no matter what.

Rather than network neutrality, I'd simply like to see truth in
advertising applied.  If my provider advertises "8 Mbps" service
then I should be able to get 8 Mbps from Google, or Yahoo, or you,
or anyone else on the network, provided of course they have also
purchased an 8 Mbps or higher plan from their provider.  I don't
care if it is done with transit, peering, paid priorization, or any
other mechanism, those are back end details that will change over
time.  I don't care if it is Google building their own network, or
you buying 8Mbps service from your local monopoly ISP.

--
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
	PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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