Jimtac.com

I know about all of the reasons that ISPs don’t want “Net Neutrality”, and some make sense to me, and some really do not.

Any ISP that wants to claim to be a forward thinking company should be looking at the demographic that really cares about issues like “Net Neutrality”, and the kind of money that they spend on internet services. These people are the kind of people who tend to not want any services other than internet access itself, but are willing to spend more for faster access.

I never truly liked the tern “Net Neutrality”, since it’s only those few geeks that live in technology [like me] that can define what that means. For most non-techie people that I speak to, if they’ve even heard of the term, they think that it means that there is less government involvement, or that the internet is not being restricted to a few certain users. My thought is that the argument should be renamed to something more along the lines of “internet Service Discrimination”, in order to speak to what the issue is, rather than the desired outcome.

What I would like to see ISPs adopt is a set of principles rather than block or degrade traffic that is being sent over VOIP protocols such as skype, or even the much maligned bittorrent protocol as a couple of examples. I personally would choose an ISP that decided to not filter any traffic, but instead adopted three network management policies, and be very transparent about how those policies are administered.

Your traffic will not be restricted unless you violate one or more these policies:
1. Traffic is not detrimental to the capacity/connectivity of others on the network.
2. Traffic is not detrimental to the network itself.
3. Traffic is not in violation of any laws.

These three principles are simple enough to provide direction to the consumer in language that allows a lay-person to understand, but also broad enough to allow for the required network management that any responsible network provider needs to do.

I have a few friends and acquaintances that come down on my wanting to have neutrality legislation to allow for “network management” at all, but without that management ability, networks are likely to be quickly overwhelmed by those who would choose to abuse it. As much as we would all like to think that people who use the internet are all adults and would act as such, we all know that is just not the case.

[Disclaimer: I work for a company that (amongst other things) is an ISP, and my personal views do not in any way reflect those of my employer or my coworkers]

Earlier today there was a great post from Ars Technica about the necessity of advertising on the internet, or rather the harm done by ad-blocking software. Now over the years I’ve been doing personal websites, business, and at one point even a podcast with my good friend Neil; all for myself, and all out of my own pocket. This  is pretty much how any of these sites that become ad-supported businesses started themselves. I applaud their ability to be able to quit their “day jobs”, and even grow into something bigger than themselves, which is just amazing to me.

The issue with ad-blocking is one that can be quite polarizing, for instance there is one camp that thinks that ad-blocking is a god given right of the internet, and the other thinks that it’s the tool of the devil. Luckily the Ars article tried to split the difference, though unfortunately it comes across being quite a bit on the latter, and it’s perfectly understandable why as well, since it’s not just one individual relying on that ad revenue. If it was a one person site then they could pack things up and it’s only  really affects themselves, but once you become responsible for others, then he whole world changes.

I personally do use ad blockers in firefox, [though not in chrome which I now primarily use on all of my Macs], but I use a more surgical approach than simply hitting block every time I see an ad. The whole reason that I started using adblock in the first place was because of those distasteful ads that the Ars Technica article spoke of, them and the ones that block my view of the content that I would otherwise prefer to support, and if I have to keep blocking ads when visiting a particular site, I just stop visiting those sites since I’m obviously not the target audience for the ads that they are accepting, and supporting sites that accept ads that I find objectionable [in whatever sense] is not something that I’ll be doing anytime soon.

I’m not going to stop using ad-blockers to remove content that I don’t want to be subjected to, ads or otherwise, but I will continue to make judicious use of the whitelist, as well as the blacklist features of them, in order to ensure that I contribute to the content that I want to see remains available for me to consume, and I hope that you do to.

I very much understand the need to advertise on podcasts, especially video podcasts, they’re expensive to make, and moreso to host and serve. That being said I do take a bit of an issue to short podcasts inserting long ads into their shows. To me I have a personal annoyance level of 1.5:1 content:ads, which seems high to most, but to me if the content is good I’ll sit through ads to ensure I can keep getting my free entertainment.

This week I was glad to see that one of my favorite comic strips turned video podcast ‘Dilbert’ got a sponsor, and with it being the perennial Audible, one that I use myself. The problem, as you may have surmised, is that ‘Dilbert’ has a normal runtime (including credit plates) of ~20 seconds, however with the pre- AND post-roll ads works out to be ~59 seconds. As such the math works out to be much more than 1.5:1 favoring the ads, which means that I’ll probably be unsubscribing by the end of the week, since the content just isn’t worth the waste in my time.

I’m sure that ‘Dilbert’ is not the only only one who does this, Revision3′s ‘Film Riot’ had come close a couple of times in their shorter episodes. I get that advertisers like buying specific chunks of ad time, (30/60/90/120 seconds), and buy sponsorship deals for a period of episodes, or time. This means that whether your episode is 30 minutes, or 3 minutes, your 3 sponsors still want their full 30 second spots.

I do believe that if you are going to accepting advertising, you should be giving both your advertisers, and more importantly, your audience more value. When you’re in your garage with your friends doing something on your own, it’s acceptable to vary length and quality. Once you accept that money, there is an expectation on the part of the advertiser that the quality will go up in order to show that thier money is worth it. However on the part of the viewing audience, the annoyance/intrusions of inserting ads is something that should not impinge on the viewing experience.

If done correctly, it will feel like a minor bump in the flow of the show; the aforementioned ‘Film Riot’ does an amazing job at this, to the point of actually making the ads enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately even this can break the creator/consumer relationship if it exceeds the new content that the viewer/listener tuned in to get, the very content that made the show successful enough to garner the attention of advertisers.

I hope that they will figure out that it’s bad to have more advertising than content, but if not, it will at least help me thin out my podcast subscriptions.

Tim

Recently there has been a renewed focus on the debate over “Net Neutrality”. The new head of the FCC in the U.S. has officially brought forth the proposal to change the existing informal “behavioral suggestions” into actual regulatory policy with some teeth to them, as well as adding a couple of new ones.

The current ISP landscape includes a lot of secrecy in how the traffic is managed (or shaped), which allows the control of speed/priority/access of traffic on their networks. The main problem with this, is that other than different protocols, bits are all the same as far as the network hardware and software are concerned, it’s only the people in charge of companies operating these networks who are making a distinction based on the content being transmitted.

The way people are using the Internet these days, shows an enormous increase in rich media services (HD video, Internet television, remote file sharing/backups, etc). These are the services that many ISPs claim are “different” kinds of bits, when in actual fact it really is not, it’s just a fact that there are so many more packets needed to send this data.

To illustrate one of the possible problems with a lack of network neutrality regulation, I have a small scenario: Imagine visiting your favorite video website one day only to find that everything takes twice as long to load as the previous day, and everyone that you know on your ISP are having the same issue, while your neighbor who has a different ISP does not, all with no explanation. When you call up your ISP and get past the initial “we reserve the right to limit any traffic that affects our network” line, you eventually find out that your favorite website’s agreement with your ISP to provide unimpeded access to you, has expired, and the connection to/from your ISP has been artificially degraded pending re-negotiation of the agreement.

This for all intents and purposes amounts to website blackmail, where low-traffic sites get free passes, but big sites who supposedly have money to pay, would have to do just that in order to provide a service. Another scenario would be where services deemed to be in competition with the ISP’s other revenue streams (TV, telephony, etc.), are simply denied access to the network all together, or degraded to the point where they are effectively unusable, in an effort to drive subscribers towards using the ISP’s other services.

This is not to say that there is some nefarious conspiracy going on between companies, but it does make sense in a strict cost/benefit analysis. If you can charge more, or limit usage only by modifying your terms of service, then an increase in the cost of operation is kept to a minimum. If you force people to monitor (and therefor limit) their own bandwidth usage by way of including asterisks and fine print, then you limit the requirement to expand/advance your network… Brilliant economically speaking, but this is only a stalling technique which most ISPs have begun to move past as customer demand for increased speed. As well a lack of brand loyalty has led to a “speed race” between local providers. This shift in customer perception has led to a dramatic scramble for new ideas to monetize providing internet access.

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This brings us to the heart of the Net Neutrality debate in relation to how this affects ISPs. As I had mentioned previously, the curtain on how the ISP networks control the flow of traffic is currently threatened with being tossed to the way-side, and to any business giving up secrecy can be a scary loss of control which has been so tightly held.

To me, any type of secrecy surrounding services that you are paying for, especially one that has become such an integral part of modern life as the internet, is a very anti-consumer thing.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT:

I understand that there is a need to manage network traffic, if for no other reason, than to ensure that all of the customers can access the service. However I strongly feel that these management techniques should be transparent. If streets are clearly marked, and traffic signs abound, you know how you can safely get around a city; the same can be said for clear network management policies. People wouldn’t put up with their local municipality closing a road to a local business park with no explanation, or telling you that your car was no longer allowed to drive the streets because of the music that you were listening to.

In a world of transparent network management there would be a requirement to not only be upfront with how shaping of netwok traffic is being done, and by what policy, but also to notify customers of a change in that management scheme. It also means that consumers can make an informed choice as to whether or not to choose one provider over another.

DEVICES AND SERVICES:

Another big chunk of the Net Neutrality debate (similar to network management), is one of restricting legal devices, and services on a network. An example of this would be if a Telco decided to restrict a VoIP service such as Skype on their network in order to protect their voice services. Another would be if the a cable company decided to restrict the usage of a device like a Roku box for streaming HD content over the internet instead of purchasing a CATV bundle. Also cases involving a provider saying that you can’t connect your game console or brand of PC, because of some arbitrary choice.

New rules would strictly prohibit an ISP from blocking access to legal devices and services. However, if there is a device detected that is attempting to circumvent laws, prevent others from conducting lawful activities, or to harm the operation of the ISP’s network; then the ISP still would retain the right to cut off access to that device.

TIERED ACCESS:

Probably the most confusing issue in the Net Neutrality debate is the one over Tiered Access. The problem is that we have become used to tiered speeds in our internet access, which is quite different than what the tiering being talked about here is. In this case the tiers are in regards to access to content and services on the internet. With this kind of tiered system, an ISP could potentially charge you an additional fee to connect your game console as part of a “gaming” package, or even when your PC opens a known game related port, just like tiers of cable tv packages. Also on the other end a company that provides a service (like XBOX Live) could be charged a fee to allow access to the ISP’s network, on top of the what that company is paying to their own ISP, and what is being paid to the ISP by the end user.

That would be like Ford having to pay a tax to allow their vehicles access to a highway, then again to allow said vehicle onto surface streets at each city that vehicle is driven to; all the while the gas tax is collected from the driver at the pump every time they fill up on top of the cost of the gas, and the purchase of the vehicle.

Ultimately I feel that when it comes to the internet, all bits should be treated equally, regardless of which website they come from. Currently there are speed limits imposed by ISPs, which is how they charge end users more for access, as well there are download caps in place for pretty well all internet access. While I would like my “unlimited” internet access to actually be unlimited, it looks like the solution will probably end up being us going back to the days of hard download caps being king.

While these rules may not be currently proposed here in Canada by the CRTC (Canada’s FCC), I’m hopeful because, generally when the U.S. adopts as a policy, especially in regards to telecommunication, it becomes an example which tends to spread. I’m all for a good policy spreading for once.