This is the text of a talk I recently gave at the monthly meeting of Twin Cities Catholic I.T. Professionals, Inc.. It is aimed at computer professionals who want to get a deeper understanding of net neutrality, and goes into much more technical detail than a general audience would want. Also, there are no helpful pictures or links in this one. For a less technical overview, aimed at my fellow political conservatives, see my original blog post, Why Free Marketeers Want To Regulate The Internet. Otherwise, please enjoy!
Thanks everyone for coming. I am James Heaney, and my talk is on network neutrality. I can’t claim any particular credentials on this topic, the way our past speakers have been able to. I did write a blog post about the economics of net neutrality that got picked up by TechDirt and retweeted by Vint Cerf, which was maybe the coolest thing that ever happened to me, but my interest in it is amateur: net neutrality sits at the crossroads between technology, economics, law, and public policy, which rings pretty much all my chimes. My presentation will start with tech, where you’ll probably know most of what I’m talking about, and move toward policy, which hopefully is a little more educational. Net neutrality a hugely complicated issue, and – while I do have an opinion – I think this is one of the few policy issues where this is no single right answer.
That said, let’s see how the room shakes out. Based on whatever it is you know – no matter how vague – do you think the FCC’s proposed regulations on network neutrality go too far, don’t go far enough, or are just right? And, yes, you have to decide, no matter how irresponsible your opinion. Don’t worry: I won’t tell the FCC.
Cool. And, just out of curiosity, do you think your opinion is fairly well-informed, or not?
So, let’s start with the basics. Net neutrality is about how data traffic is handled on the internet. What’s the internet?
(TED STEVENS IMPRESSION) “It’s… it’s… it’s a series of tubes!”
Heh heh. I love that one.
But, seriously, Senator Ted Stevens was basically right. The Internet is a bunch of computers stuck together with tubes. All of them want to send data over the tubes to everybody else.
When a home user connects to the Internet, he typically connects to an Internet Service Provider, or ISP. This ISP – let’s say Comcast – owns what is called a Tier-2 network. You give them money, they let you connect to every other computer in their network. Right now, Comcast will sell you “unlimited” access, which is actually 250 gigabytes per month, with 20 megabit-per-second-service, for around $80.
But Comcast isn’t connected to everyone on the Internet. In fact, it’s not really connected to very many people at all besides other Comcast customers, which is just a subset of other people in the United States. And they call it the Internet, not ComcastAmericaNet, so they must be doing something to get their users connected to the rest of the world.
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