[Discuss] Https - the solution to net neutrality

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Stuart Conner
> 
> When we, the consumers band together and demand that our isp's not slow
> down our, the customer's, net activity and/or change isp's and say why
> we're leaving. They listen to money. Otherwise they don't care.

I can't demand anything.  As I described in another post, they ripped out half of my TV channels in the middle of a 2yr contract, told me if I cancel my service I'll be hit with a $425 early termination fee, argued with me pointlessly for hours, and eventually I caved in and agreed to pay an extra $5/mo plus sign new 2yr contract to get my channels back, and then they hit me with the $425 early termination fee anyway, for cancelling my old contract and upgrading to a new one.  We are talking about pure, pure assholes here.  They know you don't have any other alternative.


> I'm curious though. If you vpn from work, why doesn't the content stream
> get crippled upstream from there? No matter who the last mile isp is, don't
> the big telecoms own the internet backbones?

Explained like this:  I'm on my VZ network, and I request traffic from Netflix, which is on Layer3.  VZ itself, and Layer3 itself, are mostly unsaturated.  But the junction point between the two networks gets overloaded because it's the common chokepoint.

So I VPN in to work which is on Earthlink, and doesn't service thousands of home users all demanding netflix at the same time.  So the junction points from Layer3 to Earthlink are fine ...  As are the junction points from Earthlink to VZ.  I'm essentially routing around the congested chokepoint by virtue of the fact that I'm doing something atypical.

If there were thousands of consumers on VZ demanding traffic from thousands of providers on Layer3, then the answer would be obvious:  Layer3 and VZ must mutually upgrade their junction point in order to provide the services that each of their respective customer bases are paying for.  But since the traffic is mostly sent from a small number of "big guys," VZ sees the opportunity to be money grabbing and shake them down for a larger recurring payment, as well as setting the precedent for continuing to extort fees out of the content providers in the future without any net neutrality.  

VZ says these are costly upgrades.  But the fact of the matter is, most of the hardware is already in place and the upgrades are usually a few network cards.  Layer3 has offered to pay for the upgrades, but VZ isn't interested in that.  They want a large recurring payment from Netflix, Google, etc.