What is Net neutrality about?
- It could, but mostly, has nothing to do with your last mile connection (DSL for example)
- It's when your Internet traffic reaches a switch that the problems start.
- An Internet switch - typically an MPLS switch - works like the control of the traffic lights at an intersection, but imagine that traffic is coming from 100 lanes full of cars and all those "cars" - your packets - need to go through the same intersection to get to another switch until they reach a server or your computer. Let's assume only one car can go through the intersection at a time. One thing is sure: unless there is very little traffic they can't all go through it at the same time. In any case, cars need to wait until they get the green light.
- The big guys - you can easily Google the companies against net neutrality - want to be able to give priority to the "cars" of people/companies paying more. The result is that your "car" will have to wait longer at the intersection, the switch could make you wait even if the intersection is free - you'll never know- or your car could be vaporized - your packet gets dropped - and your set-top box, for example, will keep asking for packets over and over until you give up and blame Netflix, when they are not the guilty ones. That way the big guys will "encourage" you to pay more for your Internet access. The traffic equivalent would be for you taking 2 hours or forever to get to work totally stressed out, while the guy with the Jaguar gets there fresh in 10 minutes.
- Notice that this is an unstable model: it encourages your ISP to keep demanding more and more money until you give up or switch to a different ISP, that might or might not play the same game.
- Net neutrality is about making the light switch from green to red at the same rate for all the lanes.
- Traffic at a switch is prioritized by type, since different types - such as voice, video, etc. - require different treatment (Quality of Services). But traffic should not be prioritized by source/destination (IP address) unless it comes from the police or other important public services or there is a good reason to do it.
- The Internet has operated using a neutrality model until companies started playing games and favoring their own services. For example a Telco company could give priority to their own video service in detriment of video services from other companies, such as Netflix. Or an ISP (Internet Service Provider) could slow down or even block access to sites they dislike or compete with them.
- But because the current model is not totally clear, there have been challenges in court from both sides of the conflict.
- Net neutrality aims at defining the Internet as a open Internet where traffic is not prioritized unless there are good reasons and people have the same fair access to any legal site.
If this principle is replaced with a different model where people/companies paying more get priority, your services might suffer and you might be "coached" by your ISP into upgrading your service, which could mean paying more for what you already have. Your ISP could play many more games with the same goal: make sure you pay more.
So, what are the reasons to be against neutrality?
- You tell me!
