Cerf lobbies Senate (and Trek UI)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we look at network neutrality. Not to mention is it art or is it a Star Trek UI? ...

Crystal ball gazing in the U.S. Senate -- the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation [what a mouthful] is musing about the future of the Internet. John Paczkowski of GMSV reports: "[Cerf] suggested incumbent telecoms, who would like to charge big Net companies a premium price for premium delivery, look to their own customers to recoup the costs of bandwidth-taxing Internet services, not the companies who provide them (see 'Course what we'd really like to do is 'prioritize' some of these services right out of business ...') ... So Google and its confederates would have the telcos pass the cost of high-quality broadband services on to the consumer. And why not? We already coughed up $2000 per household for a fiber optic service we never received, why not a few dollars more more for enhanced broadband (see 'We thought you said spend the $200 billion on 'dark fiber')." [Insert obligatory pun about "Cerfing the web" here] [You're fired -Ed.]

» Ars's Nate Anderson: "[Telcos'] plan seems to call for the creation of a multi-tiered Internet experience, where users could pay additional fees for quality of service (QoS) guarantees on certain services in order to ensure better performance ... You may recall that this was the exact model proposed by entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who argues that it is fairer to everyone by letting those who require QoS guarantees pay for the privilege of having them -- much as a shipping service charges more for guaranteed overnight delivery, but will still deliver a package for far less if you are willing to wait ... Consumers are unlikely to see any obviously abrasive measures taken by the network owners (such as blocking or degrading Vonage, for instance, or slowing access to Google), but are likely to start seeing offers to 'upgrade' their Internet experience with some type of preferred QoS offerings that would come on top of their monthly access charge."

» Matt: "Let me give you quick history:
   1. Remember in the 90’s when the telco’s were deregulated? That happened because they promised to layer the country in fiber so that we could all have cheap, 45Mbps internet connections.
   2. Because of the deregulation, tax incentives and other government, money the telcos have received over 200 Billion dollars to complete this project.
   3. It is now 15+ years later and nothing has happened.
   4. They have received an estimate $2000 dollars from each tax payer for this project since the start.
They promised 45Mbps and right now I am stuck with a 5Mbps connection and I pay more for it than people pay for 100Mbps connections in some Asian countries ... I don’t know about you guys but I love the internet very dearly. The assaults on it make me very depressed. Let us all hope that Congress and the FCC make the right move."

» Martin Geddes: "The calls for a US 'network neutrality' rule get louder and louder and louder ... The proposed neutrality rules would do just this, hurting the weakest in society most. Perhaps the Internet is supposed to become a polite, middle-class over-educated ghetto, but that's news to me ... There are deeper, more philosophical reasons too for being suspicious of such rules. Underlying the idea of 'neutrality' is the idea that Internet Protocol embeds no assumptions or values, and the mesh of interconnect agreements we call the Internet is likewise 'neutral'. You probably won't fall off your chair with surprise if I tell you this is nonsense ... we should be open to competing architectures emerging ... There are plenty of "managed' networks in telecom with standard rulesets to be abided by. The resulting networks have a more homogeneous nature. This might be a good thing, or it might not. Let the customers decide ... ossifying and constricting the Internet's rules of engagement will just result in a hidden transfer of traffic onto other, completely private networks outside of the neutrality rules ... just swallow your pride and copy the unbundling rules that work just fine here [in the UK]. BT can deploy a two-tier walled IMS garden, if they like."

» James Seng: "Also related, Verizon filed with FCC that they have plans to set aside bandwidth on their fiber optical network, effectively creating a two-tier Internet, one big-fat pipe for Verizon and their partners services and another for the rest. This is one of the consequences many already foresee when FCC removed the many obligations from broadband providers in order to spur the growth of broadband and fiber network in 2003 ... The problem occurs when the network provider also wants to be service provider and refused to play nice with rivals ... When you have a powerful player (or a group of players) who does not play nice with its rivals, there is a market failure ... Sadly, philosophical debates like "Network Neutrality' don't win votes. The decision will ultimately focus on the business or benefits it will bring to their congressional districts. Hopefully one of them would ask if it is in the interest of United States if Google and the likes-of-Google have to pay Verizon and all the likes-of-Verizon in the world. The world is watching."

Buffer overflow:

And finally... Multi-touch interaction

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.