[...] Ed Felten on Net Neutrality Ed Felten has posted a really great technical overview on the Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality. The paper isn’t long, so hopefully lots of non-technical people will read it. The connection between of technical router policy and larger network neutrality policy is very valuable. [...]

[...] Därför är det bra att Ed Felten (igen!) samlat sina bloggpostningar i ämnet frÃ¥n det senaste halvÃ¥ret i ett tiosidigt, relativt lättläst paper som inte tar ställning i den politiska frÃ¥gan (Ã¥tminstone inte direkt) utan bara reder ut vad nätverkspriotering/diskriminering innebär och vad det kan fÃ¥ för effekter i olika sammanhang. Om rätt personer läser det kanske vi slipper höra nÃ¥gon svensk politiker stÃ¥ i riksdagen och förklara att Internet, det är en serie tuber.   [link] [...]

Nick, I get the same thing, but I can still visit the website; clearly itpolicy.princeton.edu just doesn't respond to pings.

>Nick, I get the same thing, but I can still visit the website; clearly >itpolicy.princeton.edu just doesn’t respond to pings.

Or you're an SBC customer, which just started filtering icmp traffice in our area a month ago...

The elephant in the room here is the role of economic motivations. You mention it in passing a few times but never give it the central position it deserves.

Wouldn't all this analysis go out the window if there were a highly competitive market suppling internet connections, so that each person could choose from multiple providers? I think so. Any efforts by ISPs to limit their customers would fail just like if Coke decided to make their drink taste like piss to save money.

@Hal, let's first answer the question: Can there be a highly competative ISP market?

For hosting and hosted services there is a highly competative market; everyone with an internet connection and a few servers can start such a service. Providing internet connectivity is more of a problem, because that requires an infrastructure. Telco's and cable companies can add internet services to their network with a pretty low investment, whereas wireing an entire town with glassfiber gets quite expensive. (Wireless is another option.) The current state is that there are a few wired broadband providers (cable&telco) and there's satellite; Wimax will enter the mix in some areas.
That is a competative market, but not highly; the handfull of players can take good looks at the other's offerings and calculate a nice margin for itself. Things will become more competative when telco's and cable co's are forced to unbundle their subscriber lines.

So the economic motivation is relevant and will remain relevant for the coming years. Ed's technical analysis remains of great value, including his observations that technically sound measures can be used to inconvenience competitors.

[...] Thanks to Wonkypost for pointing out a really good paper by Edward Felten at Princeton on the subject. Felten published the paper on Freedom to Tinker. Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality is available in PDF format. [...]

Eric: Nope, the website was clearly down, as was cs.princeton.edu. I was coming from I2, and obviously tried to go to the website first. Seems to be up now. Probably was fixed by 11am the next morning, but it was down for quite some time.

Nick: This sort of article on a hot network-engineering topic is a prime candidate for a slashdotting, so that's what I'm guessing may have happened.

[...] El futuro es incierto, y no estoy muy seguro que la legislación que se esta proponiendo sea la mejor solución para este problema. El problema es legislar sobre un problema que todavía tiene pocas expresiones en la realidad (han habido solo discusiones de que tipo de internet no-neutral tendríamos en el futuro). ¿Es mejor esperar a que veamos un mal uso, o tratamos de predecir el futuro con las leyes? Voy a comentar sobre este tema, pero por ahora los dejo con un párrafo de un artículo sobre neutralidad escrito por Ed Felten: Hay un buen argumento a favor de no hacer nada [sobre la neutralidad de la red] y dejar que la situación evolucione. La situación presente, con el problema de la neutralidad de la red sobre la mesa en Washington pero sin reglas que se hayan establecido, es en cierto modo ideal. Proveedores de Internet, sabiendo que discriminar en este momento haría que la regulación se volviera más necesaria, se están comportando de la mejor forma posible; y sin ninguna legislación, no tenemos que preocuparnos sobre el difícil problema de establecer límites y de como los mantenemos. Establecer una legislación fuerte en este momento arriesga effectos secundarios, y legislación regulatoria que fuera inefectiva removería la amenaza de la regulación. Si es posible mantener la amenaza de la regulación y dejar el asunto sin resolver, el tiempo nos dirá más sobre que legislación necesitaríamos, en el caso en que la necesitemos. [...]

Hi, it seems to me that your paper addresses network neutrality as an attribute that exists solely due to technical limitation and therefore is assumed to be expendable. I would argue that neutrality is the defining characteristic of the network system.

I suspect that because neutrality was not a purposeful attribute but rather a side-effect of the way the system evolved it is not recognized for its benefits to democracy.

"Mild" or "harsh" discrimination of packets is a matter of degree but either would be a fundamental change to the system -- would it not? It seems to me if innovation gives precedence to the possible efficiencies over the importance of preserving the benefits of the content-neutral system you will lose the main benefits of the system -- but perhaps this is where the debate lies. Do you believe the benefits of the current system whereby all packets are treated equally are less important than improving the efficiency of the system?

[...] Saving the Internet - This panel on net neutrality was actually a bit disappointing. Any opposing view was completely absent - I could have been better informed by sitting at home and reading articles on the net (like Lessig’s Wired article, other Lessig writings, Ed Felten’s paper, etc). Tim Wu gave a basic overview of the concept, Matt Stoller was just a comedian, Azlan White told a strange story, and I don’t remember what the other panelists discussed. [...]

Check out some more information about Net Neutrality at http://web.illish.us

[...] to protect network neutrality. They are likely to be counterproductive as well. As Ed has argued, defining network neutrality precisely is surprisingly difficult, and enacting a ban without a [...]