[toast0]

Network neutrality is a difficult concept to apply because its core concept doesn't map well to reality.

The core concept, in my mind, is that all packets should be treated equally, and should cost the customer the same amount per byte.

The problem is that different packets take different network paths and have different costs to your provider. The bandwidth alliance partners are exchanging traffic via peering links, so there's only the fixed costs of equipment and any port charges/interconnection fees to the peering facility. Packets sent to other destinations may pass through a paid transit link and cost the provider. If your provider charges you the same amount for both types of packets, they're not being transparent about their network costs which is bad for you, and is also bad for them, because you may be able to adjust your traffic so more is settlement free and less is paid --- but you won't do that without an incentive.

Of course, if you don't like how Backblaze manages its network, there's a bunch of other network storage vendors who you could switch to (many of which are members of the Bandwidth Alliance). Or, it's not too hard to build a storage box or two and get them into a colocation somewhere.

For your residential ISP though, for most people, if you don't like the network policies, you might have another option, but they will likely have similar policies. You don't have meaningful choice in a single residence, and moving residences to get better choices isn't a meaningful option either. So, network neutrality is a policy to (attempt to) regulate residential ISP behavior, in order to provide a reasonable policy for users. It's still a problem that it doesn't match reality, and it doesn't provide user choice, but it has gotten a lot of support.

I would rather see mandatory line sharing for residential ISPs, it's a lot easier to define and with proper regulation offers a path towards consumer choice, and gives people a way to take action if their provider has poor network policies --- if your provider runs an acceptable last mile service, but provides poor interconnection to the rest of the world, you could become a line sharing partner and provide better interconnection to the world without having to build out an overlay last-mile network (which is incredibly capital intensive and difficult)

[fragmede]

Is it really that difficult a concept? Comcast charging Netflix for access to Netflix's customers, when Netflix's customers are paying Comcast for Internet access, is bullshit.

Reword it to be generic, and dress it up in more polite language, but that's what it is.

Comcast, nor any other ISP, doesn't get to shake down Netflix or Google or Facebook nor any service providers, big or small, on the Internet.

Sure, behind the scenes there are backbone providers and peering arrangements and BGP, but those are technical details. Network neutrality means as a consumer I pay an ISP and get connected to the Internet.

Whereas Comcast is a cable TV company, the game between companies of consumer chicken is not theoretical, eg

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/why-you-sti...

https://mynbc15.com/news/local/att-and-directv-have-removed-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/cbs-blackout-on-dire...

[toast0]

> Is it really that difficult a concept? Comcast charging Netflix for access to Netflix's customers, when Netflix's customers are paying Comcast for Internet access, is bullshit.

I agree, that it's bullshit, but please consider:

A telephone company charges me to have a phone line and per minute to place and receive calls, and charges whoemever I'm conversing with to have a phone line, and to call me.

If Comcast wasn't large enough for Netflix to want peering, Netflix would probably use paid transit to get there (they might even use paid transit that Comcast would also have to pay for).

So, the reason it's bullshit can't be because Netflix has to pay for a service that Comcast is providing; because paying for network services is the norm. The reason also can't be because Comcast is charging both ends of the connection for the service it is providing to both, namely connecting the two parties; because both sides paying for connectivity is the norm in telecommunications.

There's some other reason it's bullshit. A big factor, of course, is that internet video services compete with the ISPs video services, and there's some implicit unfairness there. I would say it's because the residential customer is stuck with a very limited set of choices, and can't pick an ISP that distinguishes itself with open peering. It might be because the norm for internet peering is if there is a significant imbalance in traffic, the party sending the most pays; so the residential ISPs should be paying their residential customers; this one doesn't quite work, because it's not actually a peering relationship, and the norm is transit customers pay the transit provider for traffic in either direction.

> Sure, behind the scenes there are backbone providers and peering arrangements and BGP, but those are technical details. Network neutrality means as a consumer I pay an ISP and get connected to the Internet.

The problem here is there is no "the Internet" to connect to. An ISP needs to connect to substantially all of the other networks; and while a small ISP may simply use a single upstream ISP, where it would be easy for the small ISP to be neutral (bits in = bits out), a larger ISP is going to have a diversity of connections, and that's going to lead to defacto non-neutrality as some connections are bigger than others, and some connections are longer than others, and some connections are more expensive than others.

I fully understand the desire to restrain residential ISPs (and mobile ISPs) from anti-competitive behavior; I guess network neutrality might work for that.

But, when you apply it to other networks, it doesn't seem to make sense. In this case, you have a group of networks that would like to lower costs, both for themselves, and their customers, and they've agreed to settlement free peering, and to also not charge customers for bandwidth on the settlement free links. Network neutrality doesn't really speak towards the interconnection, but says that customers should be charged the same rate for all bandwidth, even when the underlying costs are different. I don't understand why that's a good thing in this case?

[fragmede]

Mandatory line sharing is an interesting idea. We've tried it before, back in the DSL era (2000s). Not saying we shouldn't try it again, but it only sorta worked. Whether instructions came down from ATT corporate offices or were malice, or incompetence, on the part of locally contracted installing technicians; the shared boxes were the worst of the commons.

If a neighbor got from a rival DSL provider, your Internet was liable to go out until your ISP was able to get a truck out to fix the damage to your connection that the competition's technicians did.

Those laws are still around, but unfortunately, (A)DSL tops out at single-digit megabits. An upgrade from dial-up, but not competitive with todays broadband market for those with other options.

[toast0]

I'm pretty aware of the issues with past implementations of line sharing; a competent regulator would be required to iron out these issues. Of course, network neutrality requires a competent regulator as well.

Pricing was a big issue in the past --- where the 'wholesale' per-line tariff charged to the competitive carrier was more than the retail price charged to incumbent customers.

I think, in most cases, new install breaks other user types of issues are related to poor records of which line is used by which customer; that happens within the incumbent as well though (when I got ADSL2 installed, one of my neighbor's connections went out, and pretty soon there were three AT&T trucks on the street to work everything out). That particular issue could probably be solved by allowing the incumbent to manage all the installs and monitoring for install-time customer steering.

The federal mandate no longer covers line sharing, it only covers line leasing for copper telephone service; wherever your premises is directly connected to, if there's space for competitive equipment, the incumbent must make it available. Of course, most telephone companies have moved customers to remote terminals for better speeds, and there's no room for competitive equipment in the remote terminals; and a lot of telephone companies are replacing copper networks with optical networks, and those aren't covered either. The whole concept got submarined by the insistence that it apply to telephone networks and not cable or other "new technology" networks, and then deciding not to apply it anywhere in light of court cases that applying to one and not the other was unfair.