With the current uproar about Internet neutrality, and the perhaps appropriate misgivings about the Google and Verizon proposal to the FCC, it seems timely to weigh in on this issue that has the potential to affect us all.

I've posted on this topic before, and after carefully reading through the Google posts about the deal here's where I stand:

First, the Verizon/ Google deal allows classification, and prioritization by class, of the traffic on the Internet. It also makes a concession to 'legal use' but leaves out the definition of what a legal use is. While it may make sense on the surface (who doesn't want their VOIP calls to be clear?), this classification is actually a bad thing because it de-democratizes the traffic on the Internet, and puts the control of what packets go where and how fast into the hands of a very small handful of carriers. Additionally it allows provisions for de-prioritizing (or even simply dropping) packets if they're 'illegal'. Can you hear the peer-to-peer sites being shut down already? Because there's nothing legal about filesharing, right? Wrong. As one example, most Linux distributions use BitTorrent to distribute their CD images because the files are huge, and hosting bandwidth is expensive. Why not use the power of the Internet to spread that load amongst the thousands of Linux users out there? But ISP's absolutely hate peer-to-peer - they see it is a bandwidth hog that is only used for illegitimate purposes.

Today, a packet on the Internet is just a packet. The core routers at Level3 or Comcast or Verizon don't care whether it's a SIP packet bound for your VOIP provider, or a Peer 2 Peer packet shared by your music (or Linux) loving neighbors, or a VPN packet bound from your workstation to your office as you work from a coffee shop. The routers move the packets along with no regard or care for what the packet is, or where it's going.

Now imagine that your ISP is allowed to de-prioritize your VPN traffic, because more users want to watch Hulu or Netflix at the same time as you're trying to work. Suddenly your ability to work is severely impacted because you, and your usage pattern at that moment, is in the minority. Is that fair? You pay your bill every month like everyone else, right? But because you're in the minority, your traffic gets pushed down the scale.

Of course, the above example presumes that everything is working just as the carriers expected it to. However, that's rarely the case. For example, many peer-to-peer sites have already modified their traffic to look just like regular web surfing traffic (HTTP). Why? Because firewalls often (try) to block peer-to-peer by attempting to classify the traffic just like Verizon and Google would like to do. So, the file sharing sites simply modify their traffic patterns to look just like HTTP. Now, the firewalls not only have to look at the ports involved in the traffic, they actually have to try to decipher the packets o and determine whether it's really a web page, or if it's peer-to-peer masquerading as a web page. Once they figure that out, guess what's next? You guessed it... encrypting the traffic so that the snooping firewalls can't 'see' in to the packets on the fly to see what they're all about. It's a constant cat-and-mouse game that ends up accomplishing very little and wasting unbelievable amounts of effort, CPU cycles and money. Because today, despite the ISPs best efforts, guess what still accounts for the vast majority of Internet usage? You guessed it: peer-to-peer.

Finally, the deal they struck applies *only* to wired Internet service (meaning, in large measure, Cable and DSL, FIOS, etc.). Their deal gives a free pass regarding *any* FCC intervention to wireless Internet providers (um, like Verizon Wireless, maybe?). This doesn't sound like a big deal - after all anyone who's used any Cellular based Internet services knows that it's horrifically slow. That may be an argument that allowing traffic shaping would be, if not desirable, then at least permissible, right?

Wrong. And here's why: a large number of industry analysts agree that Wired internet will account for a smaller and smaller fraction of the overall Internet user base as the wireless (cellular based) carries continue their testing of 4g and LTE, technologies that push well north of 100mbps to the end point. That sounds like a huge gimme to the cellular industry to me - the only requirement for the cellular carriers is some undefined transparency in what they prioritize or (perhaps more importantly) de-prioritize. If the majority of users within 10 years are going to be using the Internet via a cellular network, it would seem pretty obvious that the same rules should apply to all, no?

So here's my takeaway, based on my own experience as a network engineer for a small Cable ISP: Leave it alone. Let users police their own bandwidth, at their gateway device. That will allow them to prioritize VOIP, or HTTP, or VPN as it comes in to their network, and do the same for packets as they leave their network. Once that packets hits the Internet however, it's on it's own and subject to the bandwidth limitations of the networks between it's source and destination. But it's on equal footing with the billions of other packets winging their way across the ether, as it should be.