Rogue Mammoth

It’s a tricky subject. The mainstream media is all for the idea, in fact, they’ve really been drumming up the notion lately. Equally disconcerting is how the media is essentially a megaphone for whatever government suit is at the podium currently. Especially after 9/11 you’d see a lot of stories whose lead paragraph was all “According to a high ranking Bush Administration Official who requested to be off the record due to sensitivity said…” Yeah that’s credible reporting ladies & gents. No wonder journalism is going grass roots. The same reason college football > pro, cause a lot of us out here in the internet give a shit, cause we’re not getting paid at the end of the day regardless. The payment system also explains how large advertisers are able to sway their news outlet into or out of certain viewpoints. The cry for objectivity has always echoed in the halls of journalism but it is a frivolous myth. The classic macguffin, akin to Keyser Soze. Very little news reporting (aside from sports scores) can really represent objectivity.

Currently we’re lead to believe that the FCC’s 6 point program for network neutrality will save the internet from evil telecom companies prioritizing network traffic against your wishes, ban sites they don’t want you to have access to and preserve the innovation inherent in the development of the internet.

Bout time! Got damn, it’s been such a problem recently… Wait, no it hasn’t. This jumps out at me because it was touched on during the most recent Presidential campaign, but it wasn’t a hot button issue. After the subprime crisis and the economic meltdown have settled, now it’s time to start up the ol’ agenda machine again. Last time I checked, there wasn’t a huge issue with my ISP prioritizing traffic or blocking sites. In fact, if it does prioritize the network, I would stand to benefit. The net neutrality legislation would require all packets to be essentially equal, with ISPs unable to sort them based on priority.

Initially this seems appealing, but if I’m running Skype and Hulu simultaneously, I don’t want the local routers to have to flip a coin on whether my international phone call or some episode of some bullshit I’ve seen 1000 times is more important. I want thought to have gone into the idea previously, where both require a hefty bandwidth, but I can pause hulu or coast on my buffer. Not every packet is 100% essential, whereas a phone call is a fairly immediate concern, especially if it’s a call being placed or received. If my router arbitrarily decides Hulu > Skype, I’m boned.

A petty example, let’s look at a bigger picture. I’m a contemporary restaurant that offers wi-fi in the dining room but I use VoIP to save money on my phone costs. Do I want the network staggered in favor of my vital phone lines? Fuckin A I do! Even worse, the FCC wants to extend these rules to mobile carriers as well. Now it’s got it’s fingers in every possible communication I could make.

Now, the principles of net neutrality (to wit) :

(outlined by Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC:) Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing the lawful Internet (1) content, (2) applications, and (3) services of their choice, (4) nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network… (5) broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications, (6)Providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.

So what does this all mean? A lot more regulation in the private information sector. It seems like a good idea, but they intend on a plan of enforcement. The FCC already regulates the fuck out of television, fining networks for profanity and other ‘offenses.’ Added to that, government regulation created legalized regional monopolies with cable companies, stifling competition and innovation.

Who loses? ISPs lose the ability to charge higher bandwidth consuming domains more for access. Comcast, as much as I hate their entire existence, is right for taxing google more for its immense amount of services. They stand to lose a lot of money if every one of Google’s packets is equal to, let’s say ours. And how is that rationale fair to begin with? The system privately organized itself into a decent trade-off between bandwidth and usage.

But what about in the case of an ISP banning access to a certain site? That’s certainly one of the “foreseen” issues that caused the push towards NN. Well, the FCC steps in on this case and tells Comcast to fuck off.

End Result: If NN goes off without a hitch, the FCC instantly has a stake in every ISP in the country. It will assume the overwatch under the guise of neutrality, but will routinely interfere to promote the illusion what it’s doing is working. Government will expand because each ISP will need its own liaison and they will need their own staff. Innovation will decrease (consider the state of the average government website. Their technology is way behind the times.) We’re entrusting the thick-fingered archaic-minded FCC to engender innovation?

Like hell! Look at Amtrak. Look at moves made by the Bush Administration to patent cloning procedures so no private research could be conducted. Consider the sloppy job the FCC does at enforcing ‘morality’ on TV, how confusing its ‘case-by-case’ treatment results in over-sexualized images of women but no nipple. The bleeping of “god” in “god damn,” which is why I prefer the juggernaut bitch-esque “got damn.” So we have sloppy and circuitous rules being enforced by a bloated commission with one hand in the advertisers’ account and the other wrapped ’round a bible. Well fuckin grand. And now they’re going to ‘keep the internet equal.’

My good friend Andrew said it best:

“It’s not in the interest of ISPs to offer slow and patchy connectivity, or a service that doesn’t even allow access to the applications consumers demand. How is a provider going to attract or retain customers if it’s not what the customer wants? Furthermore, if ISPs provide prioritized networks, they have every incentive to continue providing non-prioritized network connectivity for those who demand an “open internet.” The absurdity lies in the equivocation that a slower connection is slow, i.e., a freedom infringing, suboptimal experience.

The simple economics at hand is analogous to the services of UPS and FedEx, namely, that providing overnight delivery does not lower the quality of standard shipping, but in fact increases the overall experience by meeting varying consumer demands. (editor’s note:So what did the post office do? It implemented the same damn service because staggered package delivery was in demand. The private sector was reacting to its’ needs and the rest of the industry took note. This prioritizing was advantageous because not every parcel (or packet) is of equal importance. It’s almost naively utopian, like the packets have feelings that’ll get hurt if we make some domain wait.) There may in fact be an optimal configuration of tiered, prioritized networks to best meet consumer demand, but regulating away the possibility of finding the equilibrium is what will, in fact, stifle innovation.”

This is an issue that I have to side with low regulation on. If I’m in Ann Arbor, I know the University is gobbling up a lot of bandwidth and I want them on a different level of the network so it doesn’t actually place the extra burden on me. And if ISPs are in the wrong and are blocking sites, they’ll get sued and they’ll loosen up. They’ll probably also report the high bandwidth users to the RIAA, but that is another story for another time.It doesn’t make rational sense to make this big deal of net neutrality and attempt to solve it… (solve it, listen to me go. Saying there’s a solution requires there to be a problem.) It’s a straw man. It’s a nonissue that is a gateway to Google.cn being your homepage. And why not? Google wanted to do business in China so they helped censor the internet. Do you think your ISP needs to go to the trouble?