Bandwidth throttling and net neutrality are seriously confusing topics. In the go-go mobile world we live in, one thing is for certain, no one wants slow speeds when they surf. A recent post on Hot Hardware, brought the whole debate back to the front of my mind. In the article, Google announced it will take an active role by providing consumers with tools to determine if their bandwidth is being throttled down by their ISP.
Yippie, Google has rushed to our rescue! Right? well, it’s just not that simple. The Hot Hardware post quotes George Ou as supporting ISPs’ (specifically Comcast) right to throttle traffic on peer-to-peer networks, but in the post George Ou made on his site, it becomes clear that the debate is much more complex than what most have perceived, including myself.
Before I get too far into this, let’s look at the topics. Bandwidth throttling comes in two flavors. First, web servers throttle bandwidth to ensure servers don’t crash. For the most part, this is a good thing. It keeps sites running by limiting the number of connections a server allows per second. Second, there is ISP throttling. That’s when companies like Comcast or Time Warner cable limit the speed of upstream and downstream connections or services like BitTorrent. This is the throttling most people resent. ISPs argue they need to limit the amount of traffic any single user consumes in order to provide fast service to all. This is called network prioritization. I touched on the subject of throttling in my ISP Spys post.
Enter net neutrality. All websites want their content to load quickly. This limits user bail out (this site isn’t loading, must be down, I’m leaving). But what if ISPs limited the speed of a connection to a website because that site didn’t pay for fast-lane access. Such a system would ensure that only the big dogs survived. Not only would this severely limit competition, but it would essentially destroy most startups who have limited resources.
This is precisely what net neutrality seeks to prevent. The legislation in Congress wants to ensure competition by limiting or preventing connection prioritization. Ou argues this would actually have the opposite effect. Here is an extract from a piece by Cade Metz which quotes Ou on the subject.
Ou is adamant that - whether it (Net Neutrality rules) forbids ISPs from prioritizing apps and services or it forbids them from selling prioritization - neutrality regulation would actually prevent things like video and voice from flourishing on our worldwide IP network. “If you forbid prioritization, you forbid converged networks,” he [Ou] said. “And if you forbid converged networks, you get a bunch of tiny networks that are designed to do very specific things. Why not merge them into one fat pipe and let the consumer pick and choose what they want to run?
Ou raises an excellent point, now the argument isn’t so much about corporations against startups and the speed in which basic sites load, but about the future of IP networks in general as well as the consumers right to choose. Who cares if I get to my favorite blog quickly if videos I watch on the web or IPTV start-and-stop suddenly because the connection can’t be throttled up, right?
I want my cake and eat it to. I want a fast internet, I want IPTV. I want awesome broadband speeds that meet or exceed 7mbs. Hell, I want to see broadband over power lines (BPL) become a reality to further the number of competitors in the broadband market. Despite living in New York, I only have one choice for cable and one choice for phone. And if you are living in rural America, you may not have any choice beyond satellite.
In th end, I favor intelligent networks, as long as ISPs don’t kill my sites with slow-lane speeds and they provide a level of transparency by telling users if a site is being throttled down. One thing is for certain, I don’t think Congress should mettle in the industry by writing legislation, laissez-faire. The growing internet industry doesn’t need to be clipped in its prime by a overzealous government initiative.
Update:Â George Ou adds his thoughts in the comment section, be sure to check it out here.
