Re: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality

[William Waites <wwaites () tardis ed ac uk>]

It certainly seems to be Friday.

On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:27:08 +0000, "Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund () medline com> said:

    > That statement completely confuses me.  Why is asymmetry evil?
    > Does that not reflect what "Joe Average User" actually needs and
    > wants? ... There is no technical reason that it can't be
    > symmetric it is just a reflection of what the market wants.

This is a self-fulling prophecy. As long as the edge networks have
asymmetry built into them popular programs and services will be
developed that are structured to account for this. As long as the
popular programs and services are made like this, the "average user"
will not know that they might want something different.

It doesn't have to be this way, its an artefact of a choice on the
part of the larger (mostly telephone company) ISPs in the 1990s. It
also happens to suit capital because it is more obvious how to make
money at the expense of the users with an asymmetric network and
centralised "Web 2.0" style services.

Thankfully the cracks are starting to show. I was pleased to hear the
surprised and shocked praise when I installed a symmetric radio
service to someone in the neighbourhood and it was no longer painful
for them to upload their photographs. Multi-party videoconferencing
doesn't work well unless at least one participant (or a server) is on
good, symmetric bandwidth. These are just boring mundane
applications. Imagine the more interesting ones that might emerge if
the restriction of asymmetry was no longer commonplace...

-w

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