Passing the Net Neutrality legislation would raise the cost of being a carrier node on the Internet to a point where many of the smaller, independent, diverse networks would be priced out. The durability of the Internet is dependent upon “thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic, and government networks,” many of which cannot afford mandatory federal requirements and the exposure to getting sued.
Well, what makes the Internet durable, resilient, and democratic is its heterogeneous diversity. Every carrier node — network — comprising the Internet doesn’t have to have anything in common with any other carrier node except two things: communication standards and communication protocol. Basically, if a carrier node can talk in TCP/IP and is able to communicate in basic application protocol, then it is good to go.
Why would they be priced out? For two reasons: first, in order to meet federal standards each independent carrier node must maintain a minimum data transfer rate through its network, which is very expensive to build to and maintain (currently, good enough is good enough); and secondly, each carrier node that doesn’t meet or exceed federal requirements is legally liable for the rate that data travels through its network and can be sued.
What is the Internet?
The Internet as defined by Wikipedia: “The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP). It is made up of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic, and government networks. It carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web. Contrary to some common usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous: the Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks, linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections etc.; the Web is a collection of interconnected documents, linked by hyperlinks and URLs, and is accessible using the Internet.”
How does the Internet work now?
Each carrier node (private network) may participate in the Internet (inter-network) as much or as little as it can “afford,” which is to say how many resources (time, money, people, expertise, bandwidth, hardware, software, hard drive, memory, and interest) are available.
If a carrier node fails, it might impact the users of that network, but it won’t effect the Internet proper.
The Internet itself is built to be absolutely reliable, carrier nodes were never expected to be. The Internet as seen from “space” is “always on” while still allowing its component parts to fail. The Internet was designed that way. To be more than the sum of its parts.
Again, from Wikipedia, “Many computer scientists see the Internet as a ‘prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system’ (Willinger, et al). The Internet is extremely heterogeneous. (For instance, data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely.) The Internet exhibits ‘emergent phenomena’ that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal self-similarity.”
The more participants, the more carrier nodes, the more heterogeneous the networks, the better.
The durability of the network requires diversity of network. Legislating “under-performing” carrier network nodes off of the Internet might make the Internet more efficient, but it will surely make it weaker, less resilient, and certainly less reliable. In the case of the Internet, the more efficient you make it the less reliable it has a tendency to be.
How would it work under Net Neutrality?
The thing called Net Neutrality is neither about networks nor is it about neutrality, it is about legislation and it is about policy. If anything, it is about lawyers and law suits and money and power. Why?
Well, the Internet cannot be treated like the national highway system, which is what the legislation wants to do. It wants to make sure that every portion of the Internet — all the nodes of the Internet — are held to the same quality standard. This would change the Internet completely. I have a lot of questions:
Who would set the quality standards?
How would these standards evolve to keep pace with the ever changing technology?
What would happen to the smaller net work providers who could not keep pace?
Would the only remedy to hurried over reaching legislation . . . be more legislation?
All I know is that it would change the Internet.
What I fear is that it will make the Internet sickly, less robust, less diverse, and less responsive to true innovation, true evolution, and true growth. The Internet has been wildly successful as an healthy, growing, emergent system and there is really no reason to inoculate it (or medicate it) against something it was designed to be immune.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
What about me? I’m a PhD, not a Net! And why do you think my last name is Rality?
Newt Gingrich may not quite get it, but this is a good take. Of course the internet is always going to change, but the law the Dems and the liberal bloggers want to pass is not the way to do it.
Emergent systems don’t like being manipulated.
Gross misinterpretation. Marky’s act is meant to innoculate from abuse, which will ensure the best possible unhindered growth and innovation. Nothing is immune to money.