Repeating a false meme that has clearly has become a talking point for the seemingly moderate wing of opposition to real net neutrality, Bradford Plummer writing in The New Republic conflates the legitimate issue of bandwidth hogging and net neutrality. Since even to me, an IT amateur, the distinction is obvious, and since this conflation of two different issues keeps being repeated, it is important to fight back.
The battle at this point is whether the pathetically weak chair’s version goes forward, or whether the two more progressive members of the FCC will be able to get a better version. Since the two Repuglican members are voting no regardless, it ought to be possible but it will require effort, focus and clarity (well, money and power too).
Here is key phony conflation of net neutrality and the bandwidth issue:
Want an example? Look at the recent dispute between Comcast and Level 3 Communications. Here's the gist: Level 3 is essentially an information highway that signed up with Netflix to deliver streaming movies. But, to reach actual viewers, that data first needs to go through a network operator that acts as an off-ramp to users. A network operator like ... Comcast. Recently, Comcast decided to levy an extra fee on Level 3 to handle all those streaming movies. Given that Comcast provides Internet access to about 25 million Americans, Level 3 had to pay up. But Level 3 did have a secret weapon—it could haul its case before the press. And so, this week, Level 3 publicly accused Comcast of creating a tollbooth that "threatens the open Internet." Level 3 said Comcast was charging extra for Netflix streams to create an advantage for its own video-on-demand services. It was unfair, and contrary to the free spirit of the Internet. Reporters everywhere perked up. This, surely, was why we needed strict government rules to lasso giants like Comcast.
But is it really? Even net-neutrality advocates admit the case isn't quite so simple. After all, streaming video puts a big burden on network operators: One recent study found that Netflix already accounts for about 20 percent of peak Internet usage, and that's with subscribers still making up just a tiny portion of all users. Comcast claims the new fees are simply to help handle this extra load. "The problem is it's really hard to know if that's true," says Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, a group in favor of net neutrality. "Without rules and oversight, there's just no way to get to the bottom of this."
But of course the conflation that if there is net neutrality, then there is no solution to bandwidth hogging is nonsense. And TNR's headline "We Can Finally Shut Up About Net Neutrality—Hooray!" suggests where the ever-so moderate compromising, deliberately not getting it, consensus of all those who reasonable and not shrill are headed. Get the mediocre FCC chair's version through, and declare problem solved.
In fact of course if it was just about bandwidth then one could neutrally charge more for big downloads. What you should not be able to do is charge more for one company's download and less for another company's. Using the Comcast vs. Netflix/Level 3 example, Comcast would have to charge the same for mega video downloads from Comcast owned companies as they would for Netflix or Amazon or whatever.
Potentially we could say that is okay to charge more for big bandwidth "hogs" but that charging would have to be purely on the basis of bandwidth and blind (neutral) as to source or whose ox is being gored.
See. It really is that simple. And it is obvious. And it is easy to understand. And that Plummer and others conflate the two issues suggests a deliberate Astroturf smokescreen of talking points being given out by special interests opposed to real neutrality.
- We could have pay by bandwidth usage and net neutrality at the same time.
- We need to have net neutrality. And it needs to cover ALL modes and instrumentality (wired net, wireless net, cable, DSL, FIOS, cell phone, 3G, 4G, yada yada).
- If we really need some sort of sliding fee scale based, I defer to others on. But it is a separate issue then favoring one source or site over another for commercial, political or other reasons.
Dear Media: Please stop conflating the two. If I can more or less understand it, so can you.
