Proponents of a dumb First In First Out (FIFO) “end-to-end” Internet architecture are typically lawyers and non network engineers who don’t understand the actual usage and context of FIFO in the paper “End-to-end arguments in system design”. That paper actually argued against a FIFO enabled network.

I believe that it is only appropriate to start out this post by saying that I do not support government broadband expansion lest anyone be confused by the title. Government broadband expansion is not something that we have supported at Digital Society either as you can both see in our Issue Statement on Internet…

AT&T presents its evidence in support of priority network services but Free Press goes on the attack. Unfortunately, Free Press doesn’t address any of the substantive arguments in favor of priority network services which have always thrived on the Internet.

The Washington Post made an earnest attempt to have a thoughtful debate on how the FCC should best regulate the Internet. But to have that thoughtful debate, the Post’s editorial is sorely in need of some basic fact checks.

A UK ISP prioritizing gaming traffic might sound like common sense to engineers and gamers, but it’s raising the ire of ignorant Net Neutrality proponents who buy into the myth that the “end-to-end” architecture of the Internet requires that all applications are treated equally. You won’t even hear leading Net Neutrality regulation advocate Vint Cerf argue that jitter management should be outlawed.

Current copyright law is a ramshackle outcome of 200 years of accommodations to the exigencies of the moment and the power of the affected interests, with only an occasional input from honest principle, so it cannot be expected to make coherent sense.

The FCC and media are perpetuating the sensational headline that broadband performance is only half of the advertised figures, but this is grossly misleading because it conflates Internet performance with broadband which are two different things. Internet performance is often limited by non-ISP factors.

The Google-Verizon proposed compromise is based on good faith on the part of both companies but it falls short in some key areas. It takes the extreme position that paid router prioritization and that broadband providers are presumed guilty. It also defers the important debate on ISP differentiation while ignoring the will of the end user.

The recent Verizon-Google recommendation to the FCC on net neutrality, and indeed the whole recent round of FCC discussions with various net neutrality players, are, in some circles, regarded as somehow illegitimate.
In fact and au contraire, the idea that parties affected by rules should negotiate with the agency and with each other, and should even reach binding agreements, and that this will improve both the process and the final product, has an extensive and thoughtful history. The concept of RegNeg is even enshrined in the one of the better-kept secrets …

Free Press and other strict Net Neutrality advocates have their facts backwards. The router prioritization that they claim is harmful to others is actually not harmful and the CDN “geographic prioritization” that they claim is harmless is actually the most harmful. Not only does it cause a lot more jitter, but it hogs bandwidth at the expense of other applications.