Net Neutrality and the FCC

In PC Wolrd they report:

In a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Tuesday, Pai questioned how Netflix could advocate strong net neutrality regulations while rebuffing an effort to develop open standards for video streaming. Work that Netflix reportedly may be doing on its own video delivery system might give it an advantage over other content providers, Pai wrote. Netflix relies on carriers, cable companies and other ISPs (Internet service providers) to get its video service to consumers. A major focus of the debate over net neutrality is whether network owners should be able to charge Internet companies like Netflix to make sure their services run reliably over the network. Netflix advocates regulating broadband companies as utilities under Title II of the Communications Act, the same strong step for net neutrality that President Barack Obama has called for. 

Pai, a Republican, opposes the Title II approach. Pai wants Netflix to reconcile its language on net neutrality with the fact that it’s not joining in work on an open standard for better video streaming. Last month, major U.S. cable operators and Cisco Systems formed the Video Streaming Alliance along with Ustream, Yahoo and some other U.S. and international service providers. The group said it would define specifications for streaming and caching video more efficiently to keep up with growing demand by viewers. Netflix said it did not plan to join the group.

Now here is the problem with this statement:

1. The Internet was architected as an hourglass. Namely the stuff in the middle, the Internet, was minimalist, open, and non-clogging. The intelligent added value stuff was on the edges. I co-authored the Internet Coming of Age with Eric Schmidt and others and this was a fundamental understanding.


2. Common Carriage applies to transport, not to what customers apply to the network. Consider what was done at the introduction of common carriage at the time of Elizabeth I. Ships carried cargo, the ship owner charged per pound, per cubic foot or whatever, not on what was in the cargo. The cargo was boxed and sent on the ship. That principal made Britain a world shipping power. I detailed this in a paper almost a decade ago.

3. The FCC Commissioner in question states in his letter:

Recent press articles report that Netflix, our nation's largest streaming video provider, has chosen not to participate in efforts to develop open standards for streaming video. Moreover, I understand that  Netflix has taken—or at least tested—measures that undermine aspects of open standards for streaming video. Specifically, I understand that Netflix has at times changed its streaming protocols where open caching is used, which impedes open caching software from correctly identifying and caching Netflix traffic. Because Netflix traffic constitutes such a substantial percentage of streaming video traffic, measures like this threaten the viability of open standards. In other words, i f standards  collectively agreed upon by much of the industry cannot identify and correctly route Netflix traffic,  those standards ultimately are unlikely to be of much benefit to digital video consumers.

The above is a total misunderstanding of communications networks and common carriage. Does this Commissioner also want JP Morgan to reveal all its security methods, its proprietary software, just because it uses the Internet.

These things are the value added components. They have nothing to do with the network. The network is the funnel point, not the value added elements. If I were to sell something across the Internet, must I divulge my secret ingredients  because I use a common carrier? The logic in this letter makes no technical or business sense. I gather that this is a Republican Commissioner, and they should know better.

Somehow this whole issue has turned the Republicans into the Luddites, taking positions which would damn the Internet to the control of the likes of Comcast.

There is no reason to reconcile language, there is nothing to reconcile. It is a discussion about rocks and elephants, they have nothing in common.

I am continually amazed at the convolved and uneducated statements coming from Washington, but what does one expect! Just another lawyer!