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Angelique Syria
In this NPR article there is mentioned 'network neutrality' with very little details on what it actually is or how it actually works. I tried researching it on my own but I get a lot of non-technical explanations of what it is fighting against (essentially metering internet traffic speeds) but I am very confused as to how this works.
My understanding of the internet (broadly) is that user Joe opens up a connection with website npr.com via the HTTP protocol (after some DNS work) which sends and receives data to and from NPR's server utilizing both NPR's and Joe's upload and download speeds.
The NPR article brings up the example of how one website could pay to have their traffic go to the user faster. I just don't understand this because isn't all my incoming traffic maxed out at whatever my download speed is? Further, isn't the server maxed out at whatever their upload speed is?
For example, if I try to send 1MB of data from a server (www.mysimplesite.com) with an upload speed of 1MB/s to a client (joe) who has a download speed of 1mb/s would this transfer not happen in the same [theoretical] time as a server (www.thesuperubersite.com) with an upload speed of 2MB/s?
I fail to see how any server can pay to have their content 'reach the user faster' if it is the client who generally is the speed limitation. From a technical perspective, how would this work? I'm also not looking for an analogy or opinions.
Network neutrality effectively governs how providers can handle traffic. It's a broad concept in theory, with potential upsides and downsides in practice. Consensus seems to be the downsides might be fairly harmful to consumers and startups.
It's also important to point out that those packets may not make it to the consumer at all. It is entirely possible to drop packets altogether if they fall outside the threshold those providers provisioned.
A consumer pays an ISP to connect their personal network to the ISP's network. The ISP may be paying another service provider (often more than one) to connect to their network or the ISP could be a major carrier themselves (i.e. providing large bandwidth connectivity over large geographic areas). These larger carriers interconnect (or peer) with each other at multiple peering points (data centers where they each have a presence). The services to which the consumer wants access are either consumers themselves or may operate large networks of their own.
The other concept to understand is that the internet was largely built on an "over-subscription" model to keep costs low. What this means is that if a ISP/carrier had a certain amount of network capacity, they might sell 10-30 times this amount of bandwidth to customers, knowing that customers don't use all the capacity they pay for 100% of the time.
With "always on" internet and consumers using their bandwidth more (both total and average), this ability to over subscribe has been significantly diminished. Since ISPs/carriers are looking to expand their network capacity and don't want to increase costs to customers (who may choose to move elsewhere if they do), they are looking at other ways to increase revenues to offset the additional costs.
Some of the ways that parties are looking to increase revenues involves treating traffic differently based on the source and/or destination of the traffic. The intent of net neutrality policies would be to prevent providers from treating traffic differently, no matter where it is sourced or destined.
So let's use an example to illustrate some of the issues. To get information from a service such as Netflix a request goes from the consumer's network, to their ISP's network, possibly to one or more carrier networks (for this example, let's say A and then B), and finally to the Netflix network. For simplicity, we will assume the reverse path is the same.
If both the consumer and Netflix were connected to the same ISP/carrier, there would be no issue as the ISP/carrier would be getting paid by both parties. However in the example I provided, the ISP is paid by the consumer and Carrier B is paid by Netflix. Carrier A isn't compensated directly by either the consumer or Netflix, even though it may carry the data further geographically than anyone else along the path.
Carrier A feels that since there is a large amount of data from Netflix passing through it's network (neither sourced or destined for their network), it feels that they should be further compensated for this, and wants Netflix (or possibly Carrier B) to pay them for this traffic.
Netflix doesn't see a need to pay Carrier A, so Carrier A looks at some of the things it can do (to reduce costs for running their network, make their network better for their customers, and/or make it more desirable for Netflix to pay them):
The ISP on the other hand, while getting paid by the consumer notices that the vast majority of the traffic is coming from outside it's network and going to the consumer. The increased bandwidth usage means they need to expand the capacity of their network, but they don't want to increase prices to consumers, and believe Netflix should compensate them.
The ISP decides to offer a "premium" service to consumers, if they want to pay more. This would give the premium consumers' traffic priority during peak times when the ISP's network might be short on capacity. Non-premium customers may notice increased latency and lower speeds during these times.
In my mind, this is an artificially created revenue stream, much like some ISPs that charged a premium for "always on" DSL/cable service. They are creating a perceived need that isn't really necessary so their customers feel better about paying more for the service. Basically, it allows them to raise their rates in a way where the consumer feels better about what they are paying for rather than getting upset.
Network neutrality is the principle that an ISP must treat all network traffic equally, regardless of source or destination. This means that, for instance, if your ISP provides a VoIP telephone service, or a cable TV service, they can't prioritize their own offerings over third party service.If they are allowed to prioritize their own services, then they can basically force their customers into their own non-internet offerings, simply by degrading the performance of their competitors.The flip side of this, which is what happened to Netflix, is that, with network neutrality, the John Smith pays their ISP, and Netflix pays their ISP, and that's it. Without net neutrality, John Smith's ISP can demand payment from Netflix in order for Netflix to be able to provide their service to John Smith. Basically, John Smith's ISP gets paid by both John Smith and Netflix, even though Netflix is already paying their own ISP bill.The ultimate extreme of the collapse of net neutrality is that an ISP customer in the US with relatives in England would have to pay both their US ISP, and the ISP in the UK, and the English relatives would have to pay both the US and UK ISPs, also. Add in the ISP of every other person or company in the world that you might want to communicate with, and you'd be paying hundreds of bills every month, just to be able to use the "global" internet.Basically, the ISPs want to take the internet back to the late 80s, where you had Compuserve, AOL, and a bunch of other "online services" that didn't actually connect to each other. So, Compuserve customers could only access Compuserve services.
The technical part of doing this is actually remarkably easy. ISPs can prioritize traffic right now, for various reasons. For example, VoIP traffic could be prioritized above email traffic, since VoIP requires much lower latency connections to prevent dropouts. This is perfectly valid and legal, even with net neutrality. It's basically just setting a rule in a router, that, say, 50% of bandwidth should be used for VoIP, 40% for web browsing, and 10% for email. But, this prioritization can also be done based on source or destination. This is what the ISPs want to do. So, traffic from Netflix could be set to only use 10% of Comcast's bandwidth, unless Netflix pays Comcast money, despite the fact that Netflix is not a customer of Comcast. Meanwhile, Comcast's streaming video service could be set to use 90% of bandwidth, basically killing Netflix on Comcast's network.
So an ISP could provide premium (higher QOS, over higher cost/faster/fewer-hops links) service to/from service providers that pay a premium. So if Netflix pays, and gets the premium, but (for example) Hulu didn't... customers would start thinking "Hulu sucks. Netflix if fast!" when in reality, the invisible-to-the-user ISP service is affecting performance.
The big issue people have (I think) is that it means that (for example) the big players (e.g. Netflix) can spend big money for premium ISP through-carry and make it hard/impossible for small players (netflix startup competitor that might come some day) to get the same level of service to the end users.
Net Neutrality would make it so the ISP (Internet Service Providers) can only provide you with a link to the Internet. Nothing more. Which is a GOOD thing. Just like your power and water company, they provide you with power and water. They don't care whether you use a refrigerator from Kenmore, or Sears, or GE, or Whirlpool, etc.
The best comparison is to continue comparing the Internet to a utility service. What if your power company could charge you more to ensure a better power stream when you are using (for example) General Electric devices (your fridge, your toaster, etc). But, what if you own a Kenmore refrigerate, are you out of luck? Left to accept just the bare minimum your power company will give you in so far as power.
People would be outraged if the Power Company all of a sudden imposed fees to power certain company's devices, while trying to avoid blame by stating that you always have the option to not pay the fees for a lesser service.
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