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• Monday, June 9, 2008 02:02 PM

  @Robot-3

  Flogging wrong forms of network neutrality is one tactic used to try to kill network neutrality.

  What network neutrality should not mean:

  Is that it has a tendency to quash the rollout of VoIP services, aka internet phones. The more enforced neutrality you have the worse it is for VoIP. Why? Because it becomes impossible to sell packet prioritization and VoIP is extremely sensitive to QoS (Quality of Service) isochronous packet priority ordering.

  What network neutrality should mean - the telco is like the post office, offering standard rates for your packets, with various service options. The Post Office for instance offers various priority mail options for which you pay differently. The telco cannot offer a discount or charge more because your traffic is or is not with a specific business.

  That is, given a service on the web and a consumer of that service on the web, the prioritization of the IP packets between the provider and consumer should be upto the consumer and the provider. E.g., if I want a high quality video feed from Disney, and Disney offers various quality of service options, what I pick is between me and Disney, and not upto the carrier. What I'm charged (or Disney is charged and then passes on to me) should be on the same terms for any other video vendor.

  —macgupta Read macgupta's other letters
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