Gneumatic

Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent users’ bandwidth seems to be reigniting the Network Neutrality debate. Privileging certain types of transmissions to meet network traffic shaping targets is one thing; intentionally interfering with all peer-to-peer traffic is something else altogether.  But hey, if Verizon can censor text messages sent over their wireless network, then why shouldn’t AT&T decide the appropriate political content of a rock concert?

The Internet is actually a layered suite of networks and protocols, each of which perform separate functions. The application layer (a web page, an email, etc.) is responsible for the content of a message transmitted over the Internet. Beneath the application layer are transport and network layers that handle error correction and addressing, respectively. The lowest layer – the data link layer – handles local network interactions exclusively. What this means is that the lower levels are indifferent to the type of content they transmit. The network is pure bandwidth, without any intelligence to discern whether transmitted bits belong to an email, a web page, or a video stream. The ‘intelligence’ lies at the end-points of the network in the servers that host content and the client applications (browsers, email, etc.) used to access it.

Embedding control and intelligence at the network periphery, instead of the middle, was a conscious and intentional decision on the part of the Internet’s original architects. This ‘end-to-end’ model has allowed innovation to flourish online without any centralized control over content or services.

However, the networks that constitute the backbone of the Internet are owned by major telcos and cable providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. These companies want to change the existing architecture so that they can route traffic based on content type. The rationale is that rich media, such as video or VoIP are more susceptible to errors or network congestion, whereas, say, email does not require the same level of efficiency for effective delivery.
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