I thought Google was for Net Neutrality?

[Raziaar]

I'm confused... not sure what to think anymore. I thought Google was one of the champions for Net Neutrality. But this sort of stuff seems like it's counter productive to that goal.


http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-neutrality-talks-confuse/

The Google-Verizon Deal would prioritize certain types of packets (packets are the little data bits that flow through routers - a Voice Packet can be differentiated against a Image or video packet in what Network administrators call Quality of service or QoS), not where packets are coming from.

But that could quickly lead into dangerous territory.

HEre's where that gets messy: If Google or any other company invents and patents a certain type of protocol and others can't use it, Verizon could decide to prioritize that over another similar - but different protocol.

For instance: If Verizon invented a new type of video protocol which others didn't use for whatever reason, they could decide that that was important and give priority to that service, which would give Verizon and its partners an unfair advantage.

 

[No Limit]

They were, until it started to threaten in anyway how much money they might make. I saw this story earlier and it really pissed me off. Sure didn't take long after the courts overturned the power the FCC had to enforce net neutrality. And to have google be the first company involved in this is shameful after the PR campaign they ran for net neutrality.

 

[No Limit]

Right after I posted I saw this:

Google, Verizon Deny NYT Story On Their Undermining Of Net Neutrality

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-neutrality/

Hopefully this is true and the new york times were full of shit.

 

[VirusType2]

I got an email about this, and I was angry. Hopefully it is bullshit.

 

[CyberPitz]

I'm sorry, but this seems like fear mongering at it's best. "What this means that COULD happen is......."

I mean, apparently Google and Verizon called bullshit on it, but still, I hate when people state what could happen, then people get pissed as if it IS happening.

 

[Danimal]

Google are owned by the Bilderburger group etc. etc.

It's not like you pay attention to my posts for me to bother with details, anymore.

 

[Warped]

dismantling a series tubes is a lot of work. i hope they know what they're doing

 

[Raziaar]

Google are owned by the Bilderburger group etc. etc.

It's not like you pay attention to my posts for me to bother with details, anymore.

Owned... or simply joined. I pay attention to your posts, I just don't care about conspiracy theories.

 

[Danimal]

Awesome. What did you think of that long-winded post in the Food thread?

I mean, I wasn't trying to prove the theory as correct or anything, I don't really know that - it was more a response to how you said it was completely absurd.

When I tried to make it, I don't know, understandable, at least.

 

[Kinslayer]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...ternet-golden-rule-in-net-neutrality-row.html

The firm has admitted that it has been in talks with the US communications provider Verizon and even agreed an outline plan on how internet traffic should be carried over networks.
However, many have already voiced fears that if the plan becomes public, it could serve as a blueprint for how to carve up the internet and sell the best performance to the highest bidder.

In other words, Google wasn't planning to do it; but if it gets out, someone else might! Oh noes!

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said it had been "talking to Verizon for a long time about trying to get an agreement on what the definition of net neutrality is".
He added: "People get confused. What we mean is that if you have one data type, like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favour of another. It's OK to discriminate across different types."
The news of the Google-Verizon deal, despite its detail remaining unclear, came shortly before high-powered talks in the US on regulating the internet concluded at short notice.

So, yeah, basically what everyone has said already. They're talking about Net Neutrality in general, not about how to destroy it.

 

[Cancer]

Android, awesome.
Maps/Earth, awesome.
Gmail, awesome.
Chrome, awesome.
Search, awesome - Though I must add, Bing has it positives as well.

Just as long as they keep there awesomness in those areas, I am happy.

 

[Ridge]

Net Neutrality is making it so that everybody has to provide both sides of a story, in a news environment.

Not packet sorting...

 

[Kinslayer]

Net Neutrality is making it so that everybody has to provide both sides of a story, in a news environment.

Not packet sorting...

What?!

That's called the Fairness Doctrine, bud. Which isn't in effect anymore.

 

[Raziaar]

Net Neutrality is making it so that everybody has to provide both sides of a story, in a news environment.

Not packet sorting...

At the base level, one of the things Net Neutrality is about is packet priority. Giving group A's packets priority over group B's packets.

 

[63]

I will pay to be in group A.

 

[comradesean]

I will pay to be in group A.

You will pay for something in the future that you are paying absolutely nothing for right now? Do you sense that you're falling behind in some kind of packet hierarchy that doesn't even exist?

 

[63]

You will pay for something in the future that you are paying absolutely nothing for right now?

Yes, if it provides me with a better service. I'm not saying I want it to happen, but I will pay for it when the time comes.

 

[comradesean]

Yes, if it provides me with a better service. I'm not saying I want it to happen, but I will pay for it when the time comes.

My favorite way to tell companies that I don't want them to do something is to tell them I will pay for it too.

 

[Cancer]

My favorite way to tell companies that I don't want them to do something is to tell them I will pay for it too.

We as users do not have much control over the quality of the product. Whether we pay or not, has barely any effect on the outcome of the products. Heck, even we go about pirating everything a company makes still doesn't not stop...for example, EA, from making crappy sequels for games they keep milking the crap out.

Essentially, we do not have a lot to gain or lose from actually giving our money to these companies or not. Though I personally have found Google to be wise enough to actually stop and retract a lot of their "innovations" in their products. If a good portion of the userbase does not like a particular change, very often did they revert to something "that already worked".

 

[comradesean]

We as users do not have much control over the quality of the product. Whether we pay or not, has barely any effect on the outcome of the products. Heck, even we go about pirating everything a company makes still doesn't not stop...for example, EA, from making crappy sequels for games they keep milking the crap out.

Essentially, we do not have a lot to gain or lose from actually giving our money to these companies or not. Though I personally have found Google to be wise enough to actually stop and retract a lot of their "innovations" in their products. If a good portion of the userbase does not like a particular change, very often did they revert to something "that already worked".

None of that really matters. It's just gone a little too far when someone essentially says, "I don't like how you're ripping me off, but I'll pay whatever you want for it."

 

[Druckles]

Yes, if it provides me with a better service.

It seems like another rendition of the following:

You can either pay, and you get the same service you currently have for free, or you don't pay, and get poor service with respect to everyone else. Of course if nobody paid, then nobody would have preference, so your internet service would be as it is today.

 

[PvtRyan]

Oh good, it's the net neutrality hysteria again. I almost started to miss it.

 

[VirusType2]

Prioritizing packets isn't inherently bad. Certainly, you could receive an email 3 seconds later and it would still be "on-time". Streaming data requires more timely delivery. Therefore, if necessary, prioritizing data streaming protocols over email would be effective traffic routing.

It's just when you have what Comcast did: completely blocking certain protocols, well, that's not okay.

 

[Druckles]

Prioritizing data is inherently good. QoS and all that. Obviously it depends what rules you have in place for your priorities, though.

 

[comradesean]

Prioritizing data is inherently good. QoS and all that. Obviously it depends what rules you have in place for your priorities, though.

As far as I'm concerned prioritizing data should be between server and host. The ISP should only limit the speed of your bandwidth and that should be limited only by current technology.

 

[Druckles]

Personally I'd much rather my game's packets were given higher priority than my torrent. The torrent doesn't disadvantage from the slight delay, but my game certainly would.

 

[comradesean]

Personally I'd much rather my game's packets were given higher priority than my torrent. The torrent doesn't disadvantage from the slight delay, but my game certainly would.

You can prioritize which application has higher priority on your own. You can even throttle your own bandwidth on a port if you want one port to be faster than another. Your game for example.

You should realize that this isn't going to give your game a magical higher priority than you currently have. The internet is not going to "get faster" for you. Your game will run exactly the same, but you'd be paying more for it.

 

[Druckles]

You can prioritize which application has higher priority on your own. You can even throttle your own bandwidth on a port if you want one port to be faster than another. Your game for example.

There's a limit to how much that's going to work. I can't prioritise my game's packets by time over my flatmate's torrent.

You should realize that this isn't going to give your game a magical higher priority than you currently have. The internet is not going to "get faster" for you. Your game will run exactly the same, but you'd be paying more for it.

Shall I draw diagrams or are we on different pages? I'm talking about Quality of Service, a technique of improving the service of certain applications. Call it 'magic' if you will.

It looks like you think I'm talking about something else which you'd pay for. I'm not. Directly.

 

[comradesean]

There's a limit to how much that's going to work. I can't prioritise my game's packets by time over my flatmate's torrent.

I'm not exactly sure what you think queuing packets is going to accomplish. I can tell you right now that no matter what modifications to a network are being done you will not receive any benefit unless the technology of the physical transport is being changed.

Any alterations to the network layer that require the router to process data will only induce more latency as the router has to solve which packet should jump line or not. Even moreso if this "priority" is attached to a database indicating what kind of service you have.

 

[Kinslayer]

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/The-Truth-About-Google-Verizon-and-Net-Neutrality-371606/

Here. Should clear up the issue for everyone confused.

 

[No Limit]

There's a limit to how much that's going to work. I can't prioritise my game's packets by time over my flatmate's torrent.

You can prioritize packets on your local network however you wish. If you need advanced QoS features your $40 router might not be able to do that, but if you need those features chances are you know what you need to do to get those features. This should never EVER be done by your ISP. That's kind of the point of net neutrality, it's not what you yourself can and can not limit on your own network, it's that the ISP has absolutely no right to treat a streaming video packet any different from any other packet before it gets to you.

The internet has evolved to what it is today thanks to this kind of free and open system, why in the world would anyone want to change it now? If net neutrality isn't made law eventually ISPs will use it not only to have a monopoly on many web services but probably to censor content that is deemed too controversial. While people like Ridge think this is some kind of evil plan by the government the fact is this actually would prevent government from ever having any kind of direct influance over internet content. Yet they truly want to believe this for some crazy reason no matter how many facts to the contrary.