Phileas #18 – Filler show – Net Neutrality
November 2, 2009 by Florent
Filed under - The Phileas Club, .Episodes, Featured
This is a special “filler” episode. Scheduling issues prevented the group from doing a regular show this time, so Patrick decided to go ahead and ramble on one of his favorite issues for half an hour: Net Neutrality.
That’s probably not the last time you hear about it, but it’s a good place to start. And if you want to learn more and do something about it, you can visit the “savetheinternet” website.
The illustration for the article is an “extreme” case of the “losing net neutrality” scenario, from Gizmodo.
Listen to the show:
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The next episode: November, 28.
Thanks for posting this Patrick. This serves as a nice hold over until the next Phileas ep. I agree with most of your points on ‘net neutrality’ (actually put up an audioboo reply to your original rant a few days back: http://audioboo.fm/boos/73195-thoughts-on-net-neutrality-and-politics)
I do think that there are bigger forces at work behind the legislation that McCain is pushing. I can see big media conglomerates (Newscorp, etc) foaming at the mouth to buy up some ISPs if such legislation were to get passed. I mean seriously, if the senator doesn’t use computers/internet, why is he so hot for such legislation?
As I start to think about your points on anarchy though, I am reminded of the recent financial crisis and how it came about. Many republicans have started pointing fingers at libertarians, blaming them for de-regulation (as if libertarians actually had a decisive presence in congress). But hearing your expanded discussion here, I think it is this same sense of de-regulating the financial markets that led to a similar anarchy (a do whatever you want mentality) of that sector.
In a sense though I have often considered myself more libertarian than republican or democrat, I think that too much of either aspect (regulation or deregulation) ultimately leads to abuse.
That being said, I have already started drafting a letter to my congressional representatives…and I expect to be getting a standard “Dear Constituent” form letter reply in the near future
Hi Patrick,
Finally had a chance to listen to this podcast on my way home from dropping my daughter off at college. Interesting thoughts and some points I’ve not had a chance to consider. Having said that, I must add a few points on some particulars. I believe at some point you mentioned that network capacity is not truly an issue in this debate, or words to that effect. As I work for an ISP and a big part of my job is managing local network capacity, i do have rather an inside view. I’m not my company’s biggest fan, but they have spent huge amounts of capital for years to address capacity concerns. Network transport capacity is an ongoing concern, a daily concern for me.
From my standpoint, managing capacity is part of guaranteeing that every one of my customers has access to the internet. It’s a fact that in some cases a few users who hog all the bandwidth (frequently while streaming video or performing p2p transfers) can put other users in jeopardy. It’s not in anyone’s interest to let this happen. Mind you, I’m not making a value judgement on content here. Nor am I a fan of favoring one set of tranported data over another. I don’t really care what people transport over my network, just that it continues to work.
So why not just keep expanding the network you say? We do that constantly, but this is a very expensive proposition. Technologies vary with the ISP but all are expensive to purchase, deploy and maintain. If a company cannot get a reasonable return on that investment, there’s simply no reason to spend the capital. It is after all, a business that generates profits for investors, pays employees and stimulates local economy. I’m not sure many net neutrality fans understand that.
Lastly on the matter of the content/p2p debate, the company you work for is a vigorous defender of their intellectual property. I know this well as I’m a customer and came to know you through your podcasts on that content. I’m sure you don’t approve of people who mess with your company’s content. I don’t either. If we’re going to be honest people though, we should afford others (both individuals and corporations) the opportunity to defend their property as well. It’s a fact that folks who engage in p2p sharing sometimes access content intended to generate revenue without paying for it. That’s an issue that must be addressed. There are also some folks who traffic in content that is illegal to posess at all. I don’t think these folks should be protected by any network neutrality agreement.
So to sum up, I’m a fan of net neutrality as long as getting there doesn’t degrade the network, make it unprofitable to operate or make my company a party to illegal activities. nobody is well served if that happens.