[IP] Net Neutrality
Begin forwarded message:
From: Rob Frieden <rmf5@xxxxxxx>
Date: January 30, 2006 2:49:46 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Net Neutrality
Hello Professor Farber:
Like many others, I am attempting to make sense of the Net
neutrality issue. See http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/m/rmf5/
(click on Net Neutrality Piece).
The piece offers a few aviation analogies to help promote a
shared understanding of the issue. I conclude that unless and until
an ISP like SBC-at&t can provide a complete managed link offering
superior QOS, net neutrality of the best efforts sort stands as
standard operating procedure. I question whether any ISP could hit
up Google for additional compensation if that ISP lacks privity of
contract, i.e., a direct contract-based interconnection and carriage
agreement.
Several years ago I wrote an article in Telecommunications
Policy entitled Revenge of the Bellheads: How the Netheads Lost
Control of the Internet. My premise was that because the major
telecom carriers owned most of the major Tier-1 ISPs eventually the
Bellhead mindset would attempt to impose telecom pricing and
structural assumptions. Now that the industry has consolidated
further the Bellheads, e.g., SBC/at&t CEO Ed Whitacre wants to impose
end-to-end pricing premiums based on the assumption that a telecom
call carriage and termination structure should apply. This mindset
ignores the fact that IRUs, VPNs and transit agreements in telecom
accord the lessee far greater control and pricing power vis a vis
endusers than Internet best efforts routing via the advertised route
of a peering or transit providing ISP.
Regards,
Rob Frieden
Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications
Penn State University
102 Carnegie Building, University Park, PA 16802
office: (814) 863-7996; fax (814) 863-8161
home: (814) 867-2545
Web page: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/m/rmf5/
Faculty profile: http://www.psu.edu/dept/comm/faculty/frieden.html
SSRN Papers Site: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?
per_id=102928
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