RE: why Senator Stevens is right on Net Neutrality

["Larry Seltzer" <larry () larryseltzer com>]

I'm going to agree with you, largely. It's important to look at this as a
business issue and ask whose interests "neutrality" serves.

For me it all began quite a while ago, probably a couple of years, when a
friend of mine who's a telecom analyst told me that the RBOCs were going
around bragging about how they could use QoS to degrade the quality of
specific providers' traffic. He was basically talking about VoIP here: SBC
in particular was incensed that someone like Vonage could come onto their
network and hog bandwidth. SBC, IIRC, was talking about charging fees to
those providers to raise their quality.

With respect to stuff like streaming movies I see their interest, but the
legitimate other side of the coin is that by now probably over 50% of
Internet traffic in the US travels over Verizon and/or AT&T lines, and they
are talking about using QoS to impede competitors operating on their
network. Should 

So I think there are legitimate business interests on both sides.

LJS
-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org] On
Behalf Of Gadi Evron
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 6:12 AM
To: funsec () linuxbox org
Subject: [funsec] why Senator Stevens is right on Net Neutrality

I'm sorry Fergie, but we are at a significant disagreement.

Following my own text on the subject
(http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/492) several people emailed
me about the actual things Senator Stevens said and why he is off-base. I
decided to listen to his speech again, and write down the points I believe
are critical (http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/495).

Senator Stevens who everyone is dissing on for his speech on Net Neutrality
in my book spoke nothing less than brilliant. I will also tell you, in my
opinion, exactly why.

You can find his speech
here: http://media.publicknowledge.org/stevens-on-nn.mp3

He nailed down the subject into the point that matters:
Business. It's about profit.

He was faced with techno-babble and vendor-pitches on a technical subject,
and got down to the basics. What it means, and who profits from it.
Much like a board of directors, his job is to understand the business and
the management sides of it. Our job is to explain it.

I think he may not have understood some of how the Internet works, but he
got what matters - what's being done with it. His analogies of FedEX,
packages and tubes are fine as long as they got him to understand the
underlying issues.

I believe that the reason some people don't like what he said is because
although he had an organized list of points to make, he spoke from the heart
and maybe even a bit annoyed. He wasn't very American about it, he was just
straight-forward.
Further, he spoke of how he got to the conclusions based on what he was
told, instead of just his points, which caused some of us to think less of
him.

All of his quotes are brilliant points, some get to the right conclusions,
but with limited technical understanding. Examine them all and see which
ones you disagree with.
My only request is that you wait an hour, look at the quote you didn't agree
with and try to see his point again. For example, when he speaks of a
commercial net, which is secondary in his speech, he raises it as a viable
option rather than how things work. When he compares the Internet to tubes
he is also right, the future requires a stronger infrastructure.

I doubt you will have problems with his other quotes. Us tech guys need to
realize it's all about business, and then maybe we will have an easier time
seeing he understands things better than us.

In my opinion he is one of the best advocates for this issue (against the
legislation and PRO Net Neutrality) I ever heard, and he is pretty
frustrated with what's going on.

I can only wish some of us understood the Internet as well as he does.

Quotes of relevance, starting from when he was interrupted:

"No, I'm not finished. I've listened for quite some time!"

"Those people who want to support these things are the people who want to
use the Internet for the end use of their profit, not for the consumer."

"They are charging in effect [for] what they are [already] delivering."

"I think network security [and] independence are absolutely essential."

"The wrong regulatory approach, and posing an heavy-handed regulation before
there is a demonstrated need, is wrong."

"You are asking for regulation."

"The people who are streaming for 12 movies at a time or whole books at a
time are not you and me, They are not the consumers, they're providers."

"These providers use the Internet as a delivery service rather than
communication."

"I don't think that anyone here has defined what Net Neutrality is."

"We've heard that 'we're slipping behind. This bill is designed to let let
us go ahead. To expand the whole concept of communication' and here we have
this one situation where enormous entities want to use the Internet for
their purposes, doing what they are [already] doing now!"

"The Internet is not something that you just dump something on, it's not a
big truck. It's tubes!"

"We have a separate Department of Defense network now, do you know why?
Because they have to get their [information] delievered immediately, they
can't afford to be delayed by other people. The security of the United
States requires a separate network for defense."

"I think these people are arguing over whether they can dump all this stuff
on the Internet. Maybe they are to build a network themselves, maybe there
is a place for a commercial net."

"The whole concept is [that] we should not go into this until someone shows
there is something that's been done that really is a violation of that
neutrality."

        Gadi.



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