I'm immediately suspicious of anything in the Register with Andrew Orlowski's name on it. In particular, since this article includes a slam or two at Google by its subject, Orlowski has a long history of writing articles either slamming Google or trying to portray in in the worst possible light. There are some interesting points made, but I suspect there's a lot more to be said about them than presented in the article, given Orlowski's long-standing biases.
Well, even though the byline is Orolowski, and he does have a big downer on Google, the guy he is interviewing certainly raises some valid points, so I don't want to dismiss them via an ad hominem argument.
I personally interpret what is being said about the way people should use the internet's available bandwidth in the same way I look at Communism: It is a nice idea in theory, but it only works if everyone does things the same way. Anyone who exploits the system for their own gain will rise above the others, thus encouraging them to do the same, at which time the system has failed.
I understand why the sellers of online streamed video or VOIP want guaranteed bandwidth for their services. I also understand why people (including myself) who don't use these services don't want our packets treated as "second class".
I freely admit to not using the internet as "fairly" as some do - I use a download acceerator, which as touched on in the article, will open multiple streams to any site I want to downlaod from, and pull down data as fast as my ISP will allow, effectively bypassing any throttling put in place by the data provider.
In a multi-tier ineternet world, my downlaod rate would potentially suffer if all my neighbours were streaming video, and clearly I don't want that.
I suspect the big unknown is this: Is the current level of service we get from the internet 1st tier, 2nd tier or in between? If it is already 2nd tier, I'm happy with it as it is.
Of course there is the hidden threat of ISPs slowly throttling back the bandwidth of the 2nd tier net until we all jump ship and pay the premium for high quality service. At which point we're all back to square one, with the exception of the ISPs, who've all managed to increase their profits...
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2006-07-18 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 07:37 am (UTC)I personally interpret what is being said about the way people should use the internet's available bandwidth in the same way I look at Communism: It is a nice idea in theory, but it only works if everyone does things the same way. Anyone who exploits the system for their own gain will rise above the others, thus encouraging them to do the same, at which time the system has failed.
I understand why the sellers of online streamed video or VOIP want guaranteed bandwidth for their services. I also understand why people (including myself) who don't use these services don't want our packets treated as "second class".
I freely admit to not using the internet as "fairly" as some do - I use a download acceerator, which as touched on in the article, will open multiple streams to any site I want to downlaod from, and pull down data as fast as my ISP will allow, effectively bypassing any throttling put in place by the data provider.
In a multi-tier ineternet world, my downlaod rate would potentially suffer if all my neighbours were streaming video, and clearly I don't want that.
I suspect the big unknown is this: Is the current level of service we get from the internet 1st tier, 2nd tier or in between? If it is already 2nd tier, I'm happy with it as it is.
Of course there is the hidden threat of ISPs slowly throttling back the bandwidth of the 2nd tier net until we all jump ship and pay the premium for high quality service. At which point we're all back to square one, with the exception of the ISPs, who've all managed to increase their profits...