[LINK] Net Neutrality - not such a big deal in Australia?

[Robin Whittle]

What is the Net Neutrality debate, if any, in Australia?

If there isn't much debate, then why not - considering the vexed
issue it is in other countries?

In "Re: [LINK] Steve Jobs: Great unwashed don't need PCs", David
Goldstein wrote:

> So Apple is exercising its right to sell what it likes. OK then.
> An ISP then should be able to give preferential treatment to
> certain types of content then given this rationale.  And give those
> who want to pay for their content to be delivered in a preferential
> way better treatment. It is not blocking access to anything and has
> the choice to do what it wants in a free and unrestricted
> marketplace.

This sounds like an argument for "Net Neutrality".

I have never studied this field, but I notice that some people whose
views I might ordinarily be sympathetic to support regulations to
ensure "Net Neutrality" in some form while other such people are
strongly opposed to such regulations.

If people are free to choose multiple ISPs, and assuming there is no
collusion between the ISPs, then why should there be regulations on
what sort of service each ISP must offer?

If one ISP wants to ban or charge more for P2P traffic, or packets to
gambling or porn/erotica sites, then that's fine - people can
choose another ISP.  ISP-A might have low-cost peering arrangements
with ISP-X, ISP-Y and VOD-providers M, N and P - so it doesn't charge
much for this traffic.  ISP-B may have a lousy deal on connectivity
outside Australia, so it charges more for that traffic than for
packets to or from Australian ISPs.

ISP-C might have a personal objection to material it considers to be
pornographic and which others consider erotica or free-speech - but
as long as people can choose other ISPs, what's the problem?  ISP-D
might be Islamic, or support Singaporean values - and so might refuse
to handle traffic which appears to be "anti-Islamic" or concern
fortune telling or gambling.


I think difficulties may arise due to people's restricted access to
ISPs, depending on the physical connections they have available which
determines which ISPs they can choose between, or the varying costs
of using different ISPs.

Nonetheless, if I live in a place where I can only use one ISP, and
that ISP uses hardware such as DSL, HFC cable or wireless where the
upstream link is much more constrained than the downstream, then why
should the government insist it charge the same for upstream and
downstream traffic, just because some other ISPs might be using
access technologies with greater upstream capacity?

Likewise, if the ISP finds itself incurring huge costs to support a
subset of customers who blithely use P2P file sharing, without any
clue or concern about the burden it causes on the upstream link of a
shared system such as HFC cable, then why should the government
choose some level of service and charging and force all ISPs to
follow it, no matter what the technical and economic barriers they
face in doing so.  (In HFC cable, there is very restricted upstream
RF capacity, and the efficiency of that in bits per Hertz is much
lower than for downstream.  Furthermore, there are costs and
inefficiencies in the various cable modems choosing when to use that
limited upstream capacity.)


For any given level of choice of ISP which a group of users may have,
to what extent is the government justified in setting minimum
standards of any kind for the services offered by ISPs?

Net Neutrality is a big debate in the USA and Canada, at least.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_the_United_States
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_Canada

I have only glanced at this material.

There's no section on Net Neutrality at http://www.efa.org.au .  I
guess we have bigger things to fear with the Labor Government's
promised mandatory Internet filter.

In Australia, but perhaps not in all other countries, I understand
many users can choose multiple ISPs via DSL, due to Telstra being
required to (or commercially choosing to) make its lines connectible
to DSLAMs of other ISPs.  Likewise Telstra choosing to, or being
forced to, let other ISPs use Telstra DSLAMs to connect to customers.

I use Internode as my ISP, via a Telstra DSLAM - though Internode has
its own DSLAMs in a growing number of Telstra "exchanges" (poor
terminology).  If I was in an area where Internode had its own DSLAM,
I would be able to access better service for a lower fee.

So perhaps there isn't so much concern in Australia about users being
beholden to just one or a few ISPs whose terms of service might be
perceived by someone as overly restrictive or biased for or against
particular kinds of traffic, particular vendors of video and other
services etc.

  - Robin