As the debate over net neutrality continues, it has become clear that the issue is very polarized. Unfortunately, this often paints the issue in very extreme colors. For some, the fight for net neutrality has become a defense against the infringement of First Amendment rights and any type of bandwidth shaping/traffic management is despised.
While I don't like the idea of ISPs slowing or blocking traffic to different Web sites (especially a competitor's), I also have experienced the downsides of a network overrun by P2P traffic. This is an especially prevalent issue for smaller networks and independent ISPs. If everyone is paying the same price for access, there's no reason that certain users should affect the access of others. Just as advocates of net neutrality (and critics of bandwidth shaping) claim traffic management impedes one's ability to use the Internet freely, the same argument can be used to support shaping. If customers A-C are allowed to utilize as much bandwidth as they want while they download music and movies, customers D-Z in many cases can no longer use the Internet unimpeded. It's a double-edged sword.
So, for smaller networks and providers, net neutrality may actually allow what it's ostensibly trying to prevent. But, is there any way for large-scale traffic shaping on a file-type basis rather than monitoring content?
Any thoughts?
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
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1 comments:
The question is whether shaping based on file-type rather than actual content would be the end of it. It's all great in theory, but who's going to guarantee that ISPs would stop there? Net neutrality might seem like a blanket solution, but it may be necessary.
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