Comments on: A Reminder of What “Net Neutrality” Is Really About

By: dmetzler

dmetzler — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:40:15 +0000

“How does that work? I and my neighbor are online and I go to Google and he goes to Yahoo and my bits get sent before his?”

I work in the IT industry. To answer your question. You and your neighbor are online, you have cable connections (shared bandwidth), and you are sharing with a bunch of gamers who are also competing for bandwidth. To put it simply, priority is placed on the packets. You go to Google. If your network provider desires, they place a priority on Google packets. Therefore when both of your packets are waiting in the queue to be delivered, yours are delivered before the Yahoo.

The perception is that Google is faster, and Yahoo is slower. That’s how the higher payors can gain by paying more. Your Yahoo content would still be delivered. It’s just that people would talk about how much slower it is than Google.

By: Paul Rodriguez

Paul Rodriguez — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:13:58 +0000

I work in the cable industry and I can’t speak for AT&T, Verizon and the other telephone companies. You so blithely say that “ATT etc” (Do you mean all ISPs here?) “all want to be able to upsell one group over the other.” Would you care to document that? Feel free to link to the appropriate news articles.

You says they would “then send those [Google] bits BEFORE the Yahoo bits. Not instead of those bits.” How does that work? I and my neighbor are online and I go to Google and he goes to Yahoo and my bits get sent before his? What if two sites aren’t “competing at the same time for space…”?

By: mrbill

mrbill — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0000

The ones that NEED to stay together will stay together , just as always. You just wont be able to “give preference” to Google over Yahoo. ATT etc all want to be able to upsell one group over the other. They want to negotiate higher fees for say Google and they would then send those bits BEFORE the Yahoo bits. Not instead of those bits. If something needs to be sequenced etc like videos, they will still be…but whoever paid higher fees will simply be sent FIRST if they are competing at the same time for space.

HE who paid more goes First.