|
North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Net Neutrality Legislative Proposal
> * Seth Johnson: > > (A) Internet.â?? The term â??Internetâ?? means the worldwide, > > publicly accessible system of interconnected > > computer networks that transmit data by packet > > switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP), > > some characteristics of which include: > > So I put all my customers behind a NAT device (or just a stateful > packet filter). They are no longer publicly accessible, and hence not > subject to the provisions of this section. That could be trivially addressed through a Truth in Advertising provision. Something I've been advocating for years. Don't call it Internet access if it isn't. This has bothered me for years at hotels where I end up using GPRS because their stupid "Internet access" system is some sort of web proxy that resets any connection over two minutes; I need to have SSH! And often you can't even log in with a UNIX laptop because they require a web browser with flash and javascript and all sorts of other garbage... I realize that there are some practical realities to operating large scale customer ISP's. I know a number that use (or have used) NAT, or limit port 25, or have a per-month maximum number of gigs per connection. These limitations are rarely disclosed to customers up front, and I believe that to be something that ought to be corrected. So that's already addressed by the dpsproject folks in Sec. 3(3). Which makes me reasonably happy. But there's a flip side to that problem. Restricting companies from calling it "Internet access" may not have the desired effect. And this is where network neutrality definitions also become a problem. Let's say I'm Joe's Telephone & Telegraph - JT&T. I'm a big telco and I want to offer my hundred million subscribers a DSL solution that will allow me to offer IPTV and other nifty stuff, but I definitely want to be able to treat my customers as a somewhat captive audience. I'm not really convinced that Sec. 3 is sufficiently strong enough that I might not be able to get away with deploying "JT&T Planetconnect", my own IPTV/VoIP/content portal service that also includes Internet access. My quick read of Sec. 3 makes me wonder if there isn't a loophole if I simply don't *say* that it includes access to the Internet, don't *charge* for access to the Internet, etc. A question for the lawyers to puzzle out, to be sure. Further, I wonder if the wide brush strokes in Sec. 3 (1)(B) might actually prohibit things like BCP38. > Fixing that would probably > require companies to open up their corporate networks, which is a > non-starter. I don't see why. Unless they're in the business of hauling Internet traffic, a company's connection to the Internet is at the edge of their network. If they want to install a content control device, bandwidth limiter, unplug the Ethernet, whatever, beyond their Internet demarc, that is a choice they've made and it is an internal networking choice. It may affect the quality of their Internet experience, but it is not being imposed by a third party, which is what net neutrality is largely about. > (I've wondered for quite some time if "net neutrality" implies that > Ebay or Google must carry third party traffic on their corporate > networks, by the way.) No, why would it? (note that I may be missing something; I'm not aware of eBay or Google selling transit or transport, and if they are, that changes my reply.) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
|