* Seth Johnson:
(A) Internet.â The term âInternetâ means the worldwide, publicly accessible system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP), some characteristics of which include:
So I put all my customers behind a NAT device (or just a stateful packet filter). They are no longer publicly accessible, and hence not subject to the provisions of this section.
That could be trivially addressed through a Truth in Advertising provision. Something I've been advocating for years. Don't call it Internet access if it isn't. This has bothered me for years at hotels where I end up using GPRS because their stupid "Internet access" system is some sort of web proxy that resets any connection over two minutes; I need to have SSH! And often you can't even log in with a UNIX laptop because they require a web browser with flash and javascript and all sorts of other garbage... I realize that there are some practical realities to operating large scale customer ISP's. I know a number that use (or have used) NAT, or limit port 25, or have a per-month maximum number of gigs per connection. These limitations are rarely disclosed to customers up front, and I believe that to be something that ought to be corrected. So that's already addressed by the dpsproject folks in Sec. 3(3). Which makes me reasonably happy. But there's a flip side to that problem. Restricting companies from calling it "Internet access" may not have the desired effect. And this is where network neutrality definitions also become a problem. Let's say I'm Joe's Telephone & Telegraph - JT&T. I'm a big telco and I want to offer my hundred million subscribers a DSL solution that will allow me to offer IPTV and other nifty stuff, but I definitely want to be able to treat my customers as a somewhat captive audience. I'm not really convinced that Sec. 3 is sufficiently strong enough that I might not be able to get away with deploying "JT&T Planetconnect", my own IPTV/VoIP/content portal service that also includes Internet access. My quick read of Sec. 3 makes me wonder if there isn't a loophole if I simply don't *say* that it includes access to the Internet, don't *charge* for access to the Internet, etc. A question for the lawyers to puzzle out, to be sure. Further, I wonder if the wide brush strokes in Sec. 3 (1)(B) might actually prohibit things like BCP38.
Fixing that would probably require companies to open up their corporate networks, which is a non-starter.
I don't see why. Unless they're in the business of hauling Internet traffic, a company's connection to the Internet is at the edge of their network. If they want to install a content control device, bandwidth limiter, unplug the Ethernet, whatever, beyond their Internet demarc, that is a choice they've made and it is an internal networking choice. It may affect the quality of their Internet experience, but it is not being imposed by a third party, which is what net neutrality is largely about.
(I've wondered for quite some time if "net neutrality" implies that Ebay or Google must carry third party traffic on their corporate networks, by the way.)
No, why would it? (note that I may be missing something; I'm not aware of eBay or Google selling transit or transport, and if they are, that changes my reply.) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.