[IP] Lee W McKnight on Bennett Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Rob Frieden [rmf5@psu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 4:21 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] Lee W McKnight on  Bennett Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle

Hello All:

         As someone, also unfunded/unsponsored, but interested in the topic of network neutrality, I respectfully disagree with the notion that this issue is nothing more or less than a matter of Google's Internet distribution costs.  That view is equally narrow as the notion, expoused by several economists at the recent International Telecommunications Society conference (see http://www.itsworld.org/Montreal2008/)
that network neutrality advocacy does nothing more than delay or frustrate the rightful efforts of ISPs somehow "entitled" to extract more rents from content providers such as Google.

       I often find myself in the middle between the two network neutrality pole: the Yoo/Wu continuum perhaps.  On the demand side, I have no problem with content providers willingly opting in for better than best efforts, premium QOS routing at a higher price.  On the other hand the sponsored researchers who try to establish some new economic rule that two sided-markets require cash payments from upstream content providers have it wrong: Google and other content providers pay for access, but their ISPs may negotiate a zero cost peering agreement.

       My primary concern lies in whether upstream content providers--including the yet to be discovered or created next Google--face retaliation from ISPs for not opting for premium QOS routing. If the smart folks at Enron could learn how to manipulate the flow of electrons what prevents smart ISP operators from similarly manipulating the flow of packets similarly requiring “urgent” real time delivery?
Put another way will ISPs retaliate against opt-out content providers with the creation of artificial congestion, by dropping packets, inserting traffic resend commands and partitioning bandwidth with an eye toward forcing migration to premium service even as the division guarantees inferior service?

       Regards,

       Rob Frieden
--
Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law
Penn State University
102 Carnegie Building, University Park, PA  16802
office: (814) 863-7996; fax (814) 863-8161
Web page:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/m/rmf5/
Faculty profile:
http://www.psu.edu/dept/comm/faculty/frieden.html
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