TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What is Net Neutrality all About?

Re: What is Net Neutrality all About?

Herb Oxley (nospam4me@mytrashmail.com)
Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:19:51 UTC

harold@hallikainen.com <harold@hallikainen.com> wrote:

> net neutrality debate can be compared to 800 numbers on the PSTN.
> There, companies pay a telecommunications carrier to give preferred
> treatment to calls to them over calls to others, in terms of
> cost. Could a similar idea be adopted by broadbnad providers? You

I doubt "8nn" calls get any priority over any other call on the PSTN.
8nn is merely a different billing arrangement where the entity
receiving the call pays for it and gets a discounted "bulk" rate.

What I see with this network neutrality debate is AT&T and Verizon
getting paid by the originator for every packet they carry on their
network from outside networks.

Take the current case of Google ... Google uses Level 3 to connect to
the rest of the Internet. Level 3 likely has peering arrangements in
place with AT&T and UUNET (now owned by Verizon) where essentially
"you carry my traffic I carry yours" ... however if an imbalance
occurs AT&T and others want (or has) the right to charge "transit"
fees.

In the recent past Level 3 cut off Cogent because of this imbalance.

I see a grave risk that if net neutrality goes away so does peering,
which would likely partition the Internet into Verizon, AT&T, Level 3
and SAVVIS "internets" with limited connectivity with each
other ... or an eventual re-creation of the AT&T quasi-monopoly only
ths time as an UNREGULATED monopoly.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Herb Oxley
From: address IS Valid.

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: John Hines: "Re: Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power"
Go to Previous message: jtaylor: "Re: Campus Fax Finder"
May be in reply to: Various writers: "What is Net Neutrality all About?"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page