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

[Richard Chirgwin]

Robin Whittle wrote:
> What is the Net Neutrality debate, if any, in Australia?
>   
Robin,

The debate is far less strident here than overseas - partly, I think, 
because we've always had some non-neutral aspects on the Australian 
Internet (such as traffic limits).

Part of the problem in general is that "net neutrality" seems to mean 
"whatever I want it to mean" depending on the speaker.

The "strong" net neutrality position is that all packets are treated 
equally throughout the network.

But the issue gets obfuscated when the discussion is no longer about how 
packets are treated, but rather the treatment of the content of those 
packets - or based on who owns the servers that are sending the packets 
to the network, or the rights of the network owner, and so on.

My personal position is twofold:

1. ISPs should be truthful about what they're selling (ie, don't 
interfere with traffic if you don't tell customers what you're doing). 
If you want to say "here's a cheaper service but it will not carry 
BitTorrent", that's fine - as long as the ISP is honest.

2. Remembering that the "tail" is not strictly "the Internet", I don't 
have a particular problem with the inverse - "if you want to pay $5 a 
month for prioritised VoIP triffic, fine, here's the plan".

Cheers,
RC
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>
>