Thought Garage

Excellent debate on Net Neutrality at Center for American Progress , that covers a lot of background on the issue and how legislation could have helped the cause of open Internet. The Great Debate: Net Neutrality In navigating the complex issue of “net neutrality,” the government should protect consumers’ rights amid a rapidly changing and dynamic Internet. Two experts agreed on that much Monday during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress, but they disagreed on how to do that without stifling innovation. Bringing together two of the Internet’s founding figures, the Center welcomed Vint Cerf, Vice-President of Google; and Dave Farber, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Carl Malamud, the Center’s Chief Technology Officer, moderated. Listen to audio of the event  (mp3) Tags: net neutrality , Vint Cerf , Google , Dave Farber

Its time to say Good Bye to the free INTERNET we know, where your packet is never discriminated based on what it contains, where it is coming from and where it is going. Senate Commerce Committee, rejected the compromise language on Net Neutrality by splitting11-11, which would  mean a defeat for Net Neutrality. The Senate Commerce Committee, splitting 11 to 11 and therefore rejecting compromise language , set the stage for a carrier-controlled Internet. If the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the President, you can kiss the Net you know "goodbye." Farewell, open networks and open standards. Soon every packet will be subject to inspection and surcharges based on what it carries and who sent it or where it is going. [ZDNet: Saying "goodbye" to the Net   ] So very soon carriers will be empowered to inspect the packet and charge a premium not only based on the content, but possibly where it is coming from and where it is going. or a Tiered internet based p...

Answer to that question is, I don't think so. There is so much technical complexity involved, that except few geeks  who work right on computer networks, not many people can detect if their Internet traffic is ever discriminated.  That is one of the reasons, I guess,  why we need Net Neutrality as a law, so that the Telcos will never try to discriminate your traffic, though you are not quite aware of. There is a post at Save The Internet , that alleges Cox Communications of blocking Craigslist for almost three months. The security company Authentium, who handles security for Cox Communications reportedly explained with technical details why users can not reach Craigslist website. It looks like there is problem with the computers that hosts the craigslist website. Here is the reply from rnapier, strongly suggesting that the behaviour is normal and as per the specification. . rnapier Says: June 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm Has anyone here actually read the response from Authentium? Far ...

As reported at ZDNet news ,  the Senate Commerce Committee released a revised version of the Telecommunications bill that includes no Net Neutrality Regulations. There may be a revision to include Net Neutrality later in the week. As it stands today, FCC will be authorized, ONLY to monitor and report incidents that are considered as violations of Net Neutrality principles. The committee might put the final version of the bill on 20th of June. So, probably we won't hear much about it until later of the week, where a revision that include Net Neutrality is available, if any. Mean time, Washington Post in its editorial revealed itself to the public that its Broadband network means a lot more than the principles behind the whole Net Neutrality battle. Read its twisted arguments revealed at ' Post Editors Get Slippery on the Facts '. How come they missed the whole point? The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a non-neutral Internet would resemble cable TV: a mediu...

Happy with the last nights rejection of Net Neutrality in the House of Representatives , Telecom companies will soon be giving a generous gift to its consumers, called 'Bit caps'. They have promised themselves to give this gift to their consumers now or little later but definitely. This time, they mean it. People, that rejected the Net Neutrality, do you know what is in the making and what can be expected from these greedy Telcos? Here you go.One tiny step. Bit caps. If you have a internet connection from one of these greate Telecom companies, they setup a bit cap, a limit on the amount of data you can download or upload. That is not bad at all. But here is the problem. If you download video from the Telecom company, then that data will not count to the cap. You can download almost unlimited video from your company. But if you download a video from Google or youtube for example, then that video would count to the cap. Once you reach the cap you must pay for each bit you downloa...

House Ignores Public, Sells out the Internet - June 9th, 2006 by tkarr Last night’s House vote against an amendment that would make Net Neutrality enforceable is the result of swarming lobbyists and a multi-million-dollar media campaign by telephone companies that want Congress to hand them control of the Internet. The fight now moves to the Senate, where there is stronger bi-partisan support for a bill — put forth by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) — that would protect our Internet freedom from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. Unfortunate and a large setback for Internet, that the House of Representatives rejected the Net Neutrality by a vote of 269-152 last night and literally sold out to the lobbyists. Now don't know what happens in the Senate. If it is not accepted in the Senate, that unfortunately that would mark the end of Freedom on internet and innovation. I learnt from a publication from OECD, that in many countries Bit Caps is also...

Telcos, analysts and Business management consultants are thinking they found a new mantra to survive in the free and innovation led internet dominated world. Bundled services. They must have realized they do not have anything NEW to offer. So they are repackaging what they have in bundles to live longer. The terms convergence, Triple play and Quadruple play along with IMS are the most hyped words in the recent months, that offer no or little NEW value to the Telco's networks. They are sure however to fill the pockets of analysts, consultants and vendors. Telcos gripped with fear from VOIP, internet applications and fear of ending up as fat pipes, are looking desperately for advice from people who have no stake in Telco business. The analysts and the Business Management Consultants. They are trying their best to do what they do best. Keep the confusion alive and make it proactively more dreadful than the reality. The result is chaotic strategies and action in hurry... may be just to...

Good news for the Net Neutrality camp. US House panel approves net neutrality bill "A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing their customers’ access to Web content offered by competitors. The House Judiciary Committee voted 20-13 to approve the bill, called the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act. Bill sponsor James Sensenbrenner, the Republican chairman of the committee, was joined by a handful of Republicans and most of the committee’s Democrats in supporting the bill. .. the Internet Freedom bill would require broadband providers to give independent content providers the same speed and quality of service as they have."

http://en.fon.com/  : FON is the largest WiFi community in the World Join FON, share excess bandwidth at home and roam the world for free FON is a community based WIFI network, where each individual joins FON network shares their WIFI with other FON members. In return, members can use WIFI whereever FON network(members) is/are available. It is now available in most cities all over the world. Ever afraid of Telcos/ISPs don't respect net neutrality and force to use the network the way they want, not how you like it, check it out. FON is the best alternative and answer to most important questions about internet access and net neutrality. Gives a comfort feeling that it will survive against huge telco lobbying and market forces with funding from likes of Google, Sequoia and Skype.

Indian postal service does not provide Internet service, so has nothing to do with net neutrality as such. But some of the strategies it implemented to discriminate content has some relevance and insights for the struggling telecom/ISPs and the ongoing net neutrality discussions. Indian Postal Service, one of the largest postal services networks in the world, runs under the brandname 'India Post' by Govt. Of India. It provide heavy subsidies in its services to reach common man in India. (Have a look at subsidies from 10th 5year plan by the Planning Commison of India ,  Page3)  Postcard has been the most common and most used mail service by Indian people. Today, one can buy a postcard at 50 paisa (0.50 Rupee, equivalent to about 1 cent in US currency). Indian postal service actually gives a subsidy of 555.39 paisa (around 10cents) to bring it down to such a low price. Indian Government funds this subsidy through budget allocations for the good of common man. During early 1990s...

Because, they can not afford to like Net Neutrality. They oversold their current connection capacity. Market pressure is too much and they are not making enough profit. Not just that, they are thinking internet companies are making lots of money by just using their networks. So they realized that If they honor net neutrality, they will soon will be out of their business. Sounds, untrue, let me explain what I understand. Let us remove the sugar coat and special keywords so that we can understand it better. I hope You can easily relate to what is happening in the real world. ISP X has 10Mbps connection to an apartment complex. And it has 5 customers who are paying 39.99 per month for a 1Mbps connection. ISP is just making a little profit thought its pipe is filled only 50%, because of the premium price. All customers always get their 1Mbps bandwidth. Always. They can not go beyond 1Mbps as it is restricted to 1Mbps. Now, there is a new ISP in the area offering a similar service for 14.9...

Net Neutrality and Tiered Internet are the most heard, read and talked about keywords these days. What do they really mean? How these affect a common consumer. Here is my attempt to make it simple to understand what do they really mean and affect consumers every where. Consider the following ficititious service offerings from your ISP which honors Net Neutrality. Package 1(NN-Entry Level): You get 1Mbps connection to your home. You will be charged $29.99/month. You are free to use the bandwidth the way you want , for example you can browse google, connect on myspace, signup for vonage VOIP service, download podcasts using itunes, etc. Your traffic is not discriminated . Package 2(NN-Premium): You get 5 Mbps connection to your home. You will be charged $59.99/month. You are free to use the bandwidth the way you want, as explained in package 1. But along with that, your ISP offers you a high quality VOIP service (better than Vonage for example), unlimited Video hosting service, an alte...

News story at ZDNet T-Mobile bans VoIP from super-3G service T-Mobile announced a flat rate 3G super service, in UK called web n walk professional service that can give users around 1Mbps to 1.8Mbps. Unlike its current web n walk service where the users are allowed to do whatever they want, VOIP and IM applications are banned on this service. As per Analysts, T-Mobile may start its own VOIP service and at that point it might allow users to use VOIP services. Some believe that we do not need net neutrality as Law, since telecom companies are anyway not going to ban any specific IP traffic for the users. But if there is no law, this is what happens. Network operators decide what applications to run and what applications to use.  This is exactly why we need net neutrality as a fundamental law, Â

The Internet router backbone map and discussion on what it means and how to read the map at: Who owns the Internet? We have a map that shows you. Clicking on the image take you to a PDF file where you can see all the labels/info for each router in the map. Clicking on the image take you to a PDF file where you can see all the labels/info for each router in the map.