TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Why I am Opposed to Net Neutrality

Re: Why I am Opposed to Net Neutrality

Garrett Wollman (wollman@csail.mit.edu)
Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:38:42 UTC

In article <telecom25.303.7@telecom-digest.org>, Scott Dorsey
<kludge@panix.com> wrote:

> There have been attempts to do what you describe with QoS management,
> where some kinds of traffic gets treated differently than other kinds
> of traffic. In general, these things don't work very well, because
> the underlying protocol isn't designed for it.

No, the "underlying protocol" has nothing to do with it. That's the
beauty of IP: it's service-model independent. We have a "best-effort"
service now, but a guaranteed service could be implemented without any
changes to the IP layer. The reason we don't have one now is the lack
of a business model that could support it. (The people I used to work
for helped to invent all the necessary technology in the early- to
mid-nineties, before the boom created a bandwidth glut. It was a
serious research effort back when a T1 was more than most people had.)

--


Garrett A. Wollman    | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those    | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL.      | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

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