The Art of War
Understanding Net Neutrality
We are about to lose the only opportunity we may have to free ourselves from long distance bills, even the ones for overseas. I know I would like to call my pal Brian J. Dooley in New Zealand for a chat without imagining my money flying out of my pocket, free to speak until I’m well spoken. I bet you would, too. You’ve probably heard all about net neutrality; how the IPs want to have a two-tiered service, saying they want to charge more for premium content like movies. Well, that’s not what they’re really after. If they told you what they really wanted, they would never get it past Congress. Here's the skinny on Net Neutrality from the mouth of a fellow artist.
Strategy is extremely important in business when the playing field is level. Now that almost everybody in the world has a mobile phone, landlines are no longer a major source of revenue; but long distance charges have always been a profit center for the telecommunication industry. Well, they were—until a large number of long distance customers realized their broadband connections could free them from long distance carriers. With a small interface, you can use your broadband connection the same way you use your telephone. You may have noticed that some IPs have started promoting their own VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) products, even though they charge $39 for the same service Vonage offers for $24.99. If net neutrality isn’t maintained, it won’t matter. When the IPs can control content speed, that’s the end of VoIP and Vonage and Skype. Why? Because VoIP is particularly sensitive to speed variations and calls will be dropped if the signal slows.
Business is the art of extracting money from another man's pocket without resorting to violence.
—Max Amsterdam
Using your broadband connection for telephone service through a provider like Vonage is the greatest thing since sliced bread (sorry, I couldn’t resist). It's unlimited nationwide long distance plus 500 minutes of free long distance off continent for $24.99. That’s it--flat fee. so there’s no more $350 long distance bill in addition to the usual $50 landline bill. Imagine the loss of revenue to the phone companies. That’s why the phone companies and cable companies refer to VoIP providers like Skype and Vonage as parasites and that’s what net neutrality is really all about.
Information on the Internet is subject to the same rules and regulations as conversation at a bar.
—George Lundberg
As soon as the push for net neutrality became an issue a few years back, techies like Robert Cringely read between the strategic press release lines. Just like we sit around and talk about the intricacies of font families and conflicts created within certain third party PDF files, the techies talk, too. Here’s how Robert explained it:
“Here's how they plan to cripple the Vonages and Skype's, according to friends of mine who have spent 20+ years in engineering positions at telephone companies, cable companies and internet service providers. As the phone and cable companies begin offering their own VoIP services in real volume, they plan to "tag" their own VoIP packets so that at least within their own networks, their VoIP service will have COS (Class of Service) assignments with their routers, switches, etc. They also plan on implementing distinct Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) for the tagged packets.”
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
—Ernest Benn
So, now you know what Net Neutrality is really all about. If you’d like to preserve your freedom of choice and not pay for nationwide long distance now or in the future, it’s a good time to email your senator. The House of Representatives have already agreed to let telephone and cable companies kill VoIP; but we still have time to voice our opinions in the Senate. Or, if you enjoy paying by the minute, well, keep quiet. If you don’t care, send that long distance money in with a smile every month.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
—George Bernard Shaw
Also of interest:
The Best days of Voice-over-IP Telephone Service May Already Have Passed by Robert X. Cringely
Here's an argument FOR. Courtesy of Experts Exchange
Here's an argument AGAINST. Courtesy of Experts Exchange
Find your Senator's email address here.
Find your House Representative here.
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Susan: this is outstanding. Do you have the identification (bill numbers) of the House or Senate versions of the bill(s), for reference to our senators? Or are they easy to find? I'm quite willing to do a bit of work on this...but later in the day. I would also like to use part of your post (with appropriate credit) to highlight the issue for my own readers. RLB.
Just read the pro and con columns. Man. It's amazing how some seem to always rely on irrational scare tactics to make a point. "Oh. Just imagine if an emergency call to the police was lost because someone's toaster was communicating with the refrigerator. We need to trust the big telcos to prioritize messages."
These types of situations would obviously be accounted for, probably through regulation. This isn't the issue. The issue is about freedom of choice and true competition.
Without Net Neutrality it'd be like Wal-Mart owning all the roads in town.
Dear Susan, With VoIP just starting to take off in the UK it is worrying to read about the tactics of the phone companies in the US. What happens over the pond for you invariably comes our way.
Revenues are falling off for landline calls because, as you rightly mention, mobile phones are so widespread. So, companies will do what they can to maximize profits.
In the UK at the moment hardly a day goes by without someone promising to save me money on the cost of my calls, so I would hope that competition help drives costs down further.
As a broader comment, if it is likely for telcos to look at devious ways to prevent VoIP, is this just not a general issue that we have to tolerate with capitalism? I'm all for the free market, especially as I run my own business, but other industries are all up to their own tricks. Mobile phone manufacturers are continually making new models available, so that your new handset is out of date as soon as you've worked out how to use it. With your new unit you may be able to do more and more, but for me the only real difference between now and 5 years ago is the size of the units and the ringtones. But 99% of the time I only want to TALK, so although I do upgrade every 12 months there's really no need.
The same for cars. What more can you do in a 2006 model that you can't do in 1996 model? Exactly, you can still only drive.
The constant desire for all things new means that we can't be happy with even an automobile that's 2-3 years old.
With net neutrality, it isn't quite the same argument, but whilst we're in a capitalist culture, then we at least have the opportunity to keep improving our own responses to the threats that you mention.
The fact that telcos may act as some sort of cartel is only going to drive the techies to come up with another alternative: like using electricity cables to send/receive data. That would be a breakthrough and that would put the telcos out of business overnight.
Best regards
Simon Turton
UK
It's very easy to petition all your representatives and senators using Save the Internet at http://www.savetheinternet.com/. Simply give them your zip code and they provide all the email addresses you need. Over a million petition signatures have been submitted to Congress from Save the Internet. When the number of signatures was around 800,000, the House passed the bill to "sock it to us" in favor of the big money interests. The money won. The people lost. I hope the million plus signatures and letters coming from Save the Internet will have an effect on the Senate bill.
Susan,
Thanks for the free promo. Yesterday, I saw, for the first time, a commercial from AT&T for its television service -- very strange. Of course, the advertising by the cable companies and AT&T for and against Net Neutrality have been rampant for weeks.
What is truly scary is that the issue will be decided, as someone wrote, by a bunch of people who are still looking for the Any key.
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Alright, I'm puzzled. If both ends of an internet communication have computers with microphones and speakers, (as presumably Ms. Susan and her NZ contact do), why need any other company such as Skype be involved? Knowing each other's current IP address, a suitable prog. on each end could exchange packets just as Gnucleus and others exchange files, or VirtualPrivateNetwork systems do.
If one end lacks a computer, or wants to use a mobile telephone, then some deal is needed with some company to gain access to the telephone system. That can be fudged also, as when your mobile is within range of your home wireless station, etc. and you have suitable arrangements.
One of the vexations in NZ though is that there are typically caps on data quantity per month.
Susan asked me to respond to the comment from Nicky, so here goes....
Yes, you can make voice calls between computers using a simple program, which might be the Skype client, MS Net Meeting, Yahoo Messenger with Voice, and innumerable others. All you need is your own and their IP addresses (quite simply ascertained). An external company (with charges) is needed to make a call from the computer to standard fixed or mobile phones. The company maintains a network of systems located in different calling areas; you place your call to their system, which, in turn, dials the local connection and completes the call without incurring a long distance toll. There are several variations on this. Another way service companies get involved is for people who don't know how to set it up themselves--particularly the issue of ip addresses, which can be served by a user directory and/or by provision of client software or some other identification scheme.
I have, by the way, set up successful video phone calls between computers here (in NZ) and Italy, using only a dial-up connection! The broadband transfer cap is a bugger, but recent unbundling regulation is likely to improve competition and increase usabiliy of NZ broadband service.
For 33 years I have listened to people complain about "the phone company". Everyone was so happy when the evil "Ma Bell" was killed in 1984. Now, they said, phone rates will drop because of the introduction of competition in basic and long distance service. Tell me, do you think that worked out? To be honest, my coworkers and I laugh at the so called phone companies that have tried to skim the best markets away and are falling on their faces. What's wrong with these phone companies? Why can't long distance be free for all? Why can't basic service be much cheaper? The answer is simple. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! You can talk to people all over the world because someone built the network (both on the ground and in the sky) that your call travels over. Who do you think built the phone network in the first place? It sure as hell wasn't Vontage. It was the old AT&T and other hated phone companies. Someone had to pay for all that science, material, and labor. That's why you get a bill each month. Even if you only use a cellphone your call has to get from your phone to someone elses and it does it over the lines and through the switches built by the bad old phone company.
Until the Internet grows up, VOIP service, from any provider, is nothing but a toy. The idea of the Internet as it is today being able to serve the wants and needs of the entire world is a dream. All that bandwidth has to come from somewhere. I don't care if the capital comes from governments or business, it's still money out of your pocket and mine.
The Internet should be free from restrictions but it will never be "free". If you feel like you need to raise your voice about the future of the Internet, scream about the spam and bandwidth hogs that use the Internet today or you will see bandwidth usage fees and caps in the future.