Sheer brilliance.

Who gives a sh**

To normal people the web is somewhere you can (a) get some free stuff and (b) go shopping. As long as people are making enough from (b) then (a) will continue.

Neutratards are just another (minority) bunch of people who want to write a load of rules for something and think that they know whats best for the rest of us.

If I wanted to read a biased version of a third parties opinions I could read Anne Coulter telling me what Liberals think.

but allow me to present you with a counter argument

seams I live in the uk and youtubes servers are in the us (plese correct me if I am wrong) I am already getting worse treatment cos my packets have further to go that someone in the us so youtube is slower for me? so all they are doing is moveing there content closer to there customers?

to give you a silly analogy it is like me buying a flat in town center so I can get to work quicker and spend less time travelling

feel free to tell me I am wrong

the BBC IPlayer uses edge cacheing in that the content is stored at ISP centres to improve reponse time. If they know a particular ISP has lods of people who use their service, they pay for storage to improve it. In the case of virgin it also helps them sell more subcriptions by saying they have catch up TV.

Now in the case of google , they are trying to improve the service for their customers at no cost to the ISP's.

If those ISP's are so concerned about google, then simply ban the website and their netwrok problems will be solved, also just put in their terms and coniditions that they ban all peer to peer networking as well for good measure

I'm sure their low use custormers, will not mind as they only read the odd email, so they will be no problem, and I'm sure they subcriber numbers will not drop. ;)

The American ISP's want to end network neutrality, so that they can gouge sucessful websites for money , by saying we will cut access or slow you down unless you give us a kickback, it is exhortion plain and simple and why you are trying to defend it by attacking google is beyond me !.

Paris, because even she can spot a bunch of nomarks on the make

Isn't the point that without network neutrality that "large" companies will be able to do what the Motor Industry did in the US and, in effect, close down the competition?

For example let's assume that when Virgin, Carphone Warehouse, and Tiscali etc go to chat with Microsoft about how much they think they are going to charge the software giant for use of their networks the software giant turns round and offers "exclusive" access to those ISP's willing to pay, and blocks access to XBox live to anyone using an ISP that won't pay.

Impossible?

Already happens with TV channels via Sky or Cable, already happens with Films and TV shows feeding into the TV Channels ... Are entertainment services like X-Box live really that different?

Let's not even get into that fact that unless there is something in place to prevent them Network Neutrality is the only thing preventing large companies from paying an ISP to "block" their rivals. Do you have a new idea for a startup? Well if any of the multi-billion dollar companies out there don't like it then forget it ... In fact what investor will be interested in giving you money when there is even the risk that you could just be "denied access" to the market?!

Network Neutrality is a can of worms ... I think we need to settle for the "lease worst" system and for me that's the status quo.

My jacket? It's the one with the tinfoil lining ...

Could this be the first step towards a real business model?

Advertising is a poor mans revenue stream/business model, now imagine google get their edge content servers in place and begin offering other content based companies the chance to have a little bit of space on there - for a fee of course. It'd shut the ISP's up when it comes to the "waaah, waaah people are using the service we're claiming to sell to them causing us to not make any money".

Nice revenue stream that can and will scale with storage capacity, ad men no longer hold any sway over the earning potential of google and they have brand new vested interest in content creation on the net.

Just call your friendly neighbourhood google cache - there for you, for a price. Of course the worry here is that people will gravitate to services on these caches because of the performance improvement, meaning if you're wanting a piece of the content pie you'll end up paying the google tax eventually ;)

Sadly, the internet isn't based on principles and ideals - it's every bit as capitalist as the companies that run it.

The point of modern brands is to have an image of what they want you to think.

The point of corporations is to make as much money as possible. Legally, they can pursue no other path else the shareholders could rightfully sue.

The net neutrality issue is utter nonsense. No, not all packets are created equally. You do NOT need that webpage half a second faster than I need the next bit of audio in my VoIP call. You do NOT need that bittorrent file in 3 hours instead of 4: and if it's a cinema-shot copy of the next blockbuster, you can wait another day no matter what you say, if it means the next frames of the TV show I'm watching on iPlayer come straight after the frames I've already got.

Google are simply doing what all media companies should be doing. Caching content closer to the end-user is good network sense, good business sense, and the only way we're going to get anywhere near delivering live media via the existing internet.

edge caching

DPI profiling

a personalised internet experience

improved speeds through our services

Content deemed relevant by ether our algorithms or mechanical turk editors

segmentation & regionalism of the internet

the battle of the backhaul

blah blah blah, abandon the internet, all is lost!

lets make a new one, this ones f**ked!

If there was real competition between ISPs we wouldn't have a net neutrality problem; either in the UK or USA. So please explain to me why:-

- BT have to sell bandwidth wholesale and support LLU but Virgin don't

- US Anti-Trust laws haven't come up with an equivalent scheme to force the Baby Bells (and others) to sell bandwidth wholesale and support LLU

- Why even now we're not supporting investment in the next infrastructure upgrade (fibre to the home, say) with tax breaks and cheap loans, the way we did with cable TV.

Off you go to the slaughter, I'll laugh when you whine about not 'getting' youtube on your current net package.

I agree with Alex.

lets make a new one, this ones f**ked!

Are you:

a) A pro Google PR man saying Google rights are also good capitalism?

b) An anti Google PR person, saying Google is violating some or other IP right.

c) Is this about the network neutrality thing? Are you saying Network neutrality is good capitalism/ more competition.

d) Are you an anti-neutrality PR person,confusing caching and discriminating between traffic again?

e) Some complaint about their dominance of the web? Or the double Latte market?

f) Some combination of the above?

g) Chlorinated? What?

FFS get a clear grip here.

You want to complain/praise/other Google about IP/Monopoly/Neutrality/Other because PR Fluff/Real Reason /Soundbite/other

Fuck off. ISP's really want all their customers behind a NAT, so they can run their own extortion rackets for the supine. You won't be paying less for access to anything then, old boy.

Google supporting Net Neutrality?

Well they have one of the most popular web destinations in the world, and probably serve up one of the meatiest chunks of 'centralised' (ie. not p2p) multimedia content as well.

I should imagine those two facts alone push them pretty firmly towards the Neutralists...

To turn your argument around, you don't need those VOIP packets more than I need to listen to net radio. You can make do with a real phone like everyone else. You do not need to see eastenders online more than I need to see youtube content, if you don't like it you can go watch the TV or buy a VCR/PVR. Nobodies usage is more important than anyone elses, pretending that your usage is somehow special and more important just smacks of a massive ego.

Two people paying the same price on the same ISP should get the same service regardless of what they are using packets for. If you think you deserve better service than everyone else, then you should pay extra for it.

But the whole thing with abandoning net neutrality is that someone who wants to use certain services finds a provider who delivers those services for a price (paying more money for a real all you can eat connection vesus paying £10 for a connection that has everything but http/https/and a few basic services (iplayer blah blah) disabled.)

I think they're on the side of net neutrality but are taking precautions. If the long-haul carriers decide to charge them more for access, by having servers installed at ISPs, they'll only have to pay to move the content to each server once, instead of every time a user requests something.

Imagine a network where you could offer multiple independent services on the same subscriber line, each with configurable bandwidth rates and type (constant, variable, available, unspecified), with tiny packets and simple cell switching to keep router costs down. Then you could buy a low-jitter but low-bandwidth service for your VoIP *and* a high-bandwidth but best-effort connection for your P2P apps.

Funny thing is, you're probably already using it: ATM. That's what the VC/VP numbers are in your ADSL router - but there's only one channel down which we're trying shoe-horn everything.

But back to the topic: Akamai and others are already doing this edge-caching trick, available to anyone who can pay. Last time I checked, Tier 1 backbone connectivity and container-loads of servers weren't free, either. What's different about Google wanting to fix a few bottlenecks for itself?

Since when caching and net neutrality are antagonist things? They want to use the ISPs as mirrors, and are prepared to pay the price for the server space used. Good on them, it will prevent the lolcats addicts from clogging my intertubes. It won't change the priority of some packets to the detriment of others, so net neutrality is still OK, thank you very much. When you lease a dedicated pipe and/or some space in a datacentre, it doesn't kill net neutrality. does it? Now the thing is, we (as end users and/or small content providers) need to make sure that the ISPs do not cut the -already over-subscribed- "public" ressources to make this additional money, but that they will open new pipes instead (yeah sure, phat chance).

"(paying more money for a real all you can eat connection vesus paying £10 for a connection that has everything but http/https/and a few basic services (iplayer blah blah) disabled.)"

If that was the case, that could be OK... Except you know what will happen, right? It's not gonna be "£10" for anything. They'll surely just make the current price ($70/month in my case) the price of the bare-bones connection), and create "premium" and "platinum" and whatnot packages for 2x, 3x, etc. the price. Add YouTube for just $9.99 a month! Additional P2P for just $14.99 a month! See how cable TV works, that's what we'll get, I suspect. I hope I'm wrong though.

you know, it's people like you what cause unrest.

just because your "cause" is railing against other people's "causes", doesn't make you any righter. it just shows how wrong you are.

'Network neutrality' applies to ISPs, not content providers. I don't see how Google violates anybody's definition of net neutrality by paying more to place their content closer to consumers.

By your logic, if my server has only a 1.5Mbps network connection, any bastard with a faster connection or whose servers are closer to my customers is being non-network-neutral.

Lots of companies are already doing the same thing by paying Akamai to cache their stuff and automagically send users to the edge server nearest them.

How is that any different than what Google wants to do except for scale?

5.5 Paragraphs before the F word. Has Ted sobered up for Christmas?

lol

Just because Tesco has more branches than your local grocer does not make unfair competition.

If they buy the outer two motorway lanes and have higher speed-limits in order to get fresher food I might be less amused.

That isn't to say they can't build their own infrastructure (paying the same prices as anyone else) but shared infrastructure should be user neutral. That means the same traffic priorities for all, regardless of what those traffic priorities are.

Martian not required - it ain't rocket science...

A few people here seem to be missing the point and going into traffic shaping, this is not what the debate is about (From my understanding).

Basically (Again my inderstanding) is this:

2 Theoretical companies, competitors, 1 a start up 2 an established business.

Both web sites are very similar, both pages load in roughly the same amount of time.

Company 2 has more money and can say to the ISPs we want our traffic to be prioritised this means that an end user with (say a terrible) 512kb/s connection will recieve data from company 2 faster than from comapny 1. Is this fair? I dont think so.

Its not fair to say that its the same as companies paying for faster connections to their servers either, the majority of serious companies will have 20+mb/s connections no end user will have a connection faster than that (with contention etc in mind) so at the end of the day the issue boils down to how fast the ISPs are prepared to serve the content to the end users.

They will basically be able to hold content providers to ransom.

I cant wait to see what happens when it all goes through and the priorities are decided...

MS/[insert random linux distro here]?

Source Forge/Code Plex?

Google/Live Search?

... Can you spell antitrust law suit? Because I can practically smell one coming.

As a side note, I may have misunderstood, the enirity of the above may be complete crap, in which case:

Thank you drive through.

(Paris because I already prioritise her content...)

...who watches that garbage anyway?

Pfft...

Repeat after me -- co-location has literally nothing to do with "net neutrality". I can't stand Google, but if they want to mirror their content in multiple co-location facilities, that's their choice. You know, there *IS* a reason that co-lo exists in the first place. To somehow claim that it goes against net neutrality is so asinine it boggles the mind and makes even less sense than "if it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college" (see Lewis Black if you don't understand the reference).

What's next? Are you going to claim that it's unfair for one company to have a DS-3 line when another company only has a T-1? Perhaps it's unfair for one company to use either a co-lo or a hosting service for their web and/or email instead of an in-house servers? Maybe you'd like to bitch that I live closer to my CO than you do to yours, so the phone company is able to transfer more packets to me than to you?

I'm all for net neutrality in the sense of treating all packets the same -- no "shaping", filtering, prioritizing, or delaying (as mentioned above, what makes your packets any more important than mine?), but co-location has nothing to do with it.

What's the problem with google moving it's content closer to users?

Now, if they signed exclusive deals with ISP's to keep other content providers out or perhaps cut the ISP in on the advertising revenue then I could understand the furore.

The repeated argument that ISPs should be able to charge Google et al a premium to transport their packets is patently ridiculous.

-I- pay my ISP for access to whatever-the-hell-I-want-to-access. Why should the ISP be able to double dip and then charge conteet providers who are NOT their customers? The cost of transporting that packet is paid for by the ISP customer who is downloading it. Google, MSNBC, and gamerfansite.net pay their own IPSs for access.

It's easy to blabber about the billion dollar variety of content provider. Us hoi polloi are required by statute to rail against them. However, the reasoning is not one whit different whether the ISP is attempting to extort Google or your mothers knitting circle. If an ISP is tampering with the content available to me by selectively racketerring content providers, I'll take my business elsewhere.

Money is just a way for two people to agree upon a portable way to value someone's perceived work.

If you are forced to work for someone and not receive compensation, you are a slave.

If you are forced to give up your compensation that was saved from your work, you have been stolen from.

Lack of capitalism is a denial of human rights - it is called slavery... and human slaves denied are victims of thievery.

If I install ginormous cache-boxes next to various ISPs' transmission stations to hold my save- fluffy- kitties- everywhere content and get it to the masses more quicklier due to reduced transmission distance, would anyone even notice?

As I believe was mentioned before, Merkin corporations are required /by law/ to make money and generate returns for stockholders. Unless there is more to the story (or, more likely, I missed it), Google appears to be doing what it thinks will either cut its costs or increase its cash inflows, which it is required to do. While I am not happy with large companies throwing their weight around in the name of "giving people what they want" (I'm looking right at you, Wal-Mart), I am more disgusted with a system that allows, nay, requires and rewards this profit- at- all- costs behaviour.