Net Nutrality

[Brains]

I miss those days. I ran a 5 node BBS out of the house on old networked IBM PS/2's. We had BRE, Trade Wars, and a handful of other little door games available (on top of the downloadable content, message boards, etc.). Fun times, and I'm still friends to this day with a few of the other sysops in the area I grew up.

 

[karlac]

I miss those days. I ran a 5 node BBS out of the house on old networked IBM PS/2's. We had BRE, Trade Wars, and a handful of other little door games available (on top of the downloadable content, message boards, etc.). Fun times, and I'm still friends to this day with a few of the other sysops in the area I grew up.

Some time around 2005 I turned off an old box (on a succession of UPS') that had been continuously online, including countless power outages, for over 20 years.

After about 15 years, was afraid to turn it off ...

 

[Brains]

Some time around 2005 I turned off an old box (on a succession of UPS') that had been continuously online, including countless power outages, for over 20 years.

After about 15 years, was afraid to turn it off ...

So obviously not running Windows I definitely haven't gone anywhere close to 20 years uptime, that's pretty crazy - especially if the box was still doing something useful. I have a couple non-critical hosts in my current environment with 3+ years uptime, everything else gets restarted along side kernel updates.

 

[Renegade]

Some time around 2005 I turned off an old box (on a succession of UPS') that had been continuously online, including countless power outages, for over 20 years.

Been decades since I had such a reliable power connection. I was out for 4 days once.

 

[benenglish]

We had a Win 3.1 machine acting as a phone system front-end. It was installed when Win 3.1 was new, never connected to the internet, never updated, and ran continuously until it was turned off in 2008. Total runtime was ~15 years.

I didn't know the machine existed until I had to replace it. The biggest obstacle in the whole process was the employee responsible for using it who threw fits that she was being forced to learn a new UI for managing phones.

 

[Brains]

employee ... who threw fits that she was being forced to learn

I think she, and a few more folks like her, all work here now.

 

[TheDan]

It was installed when Win 3.1 was new, never connected to the internet, never updated, and ran continuously until it was turned off in 2008.

Yep, that's the secret.

 

[karlac]

So obviously not running Windows I definitely haven't gone anywhere close to 20 years uptime, that's pretty crazy - especially if the box was still doing something useful. I have a couple non-critical hosts in my current environment with 3+ years uptime, everything else gets restarted along side kernel updates.

MS-DOS box ... had been running a Fido mail node since the mid 80's.

 

[benenglish]

I think she, and a few more folks like her, all work here now.

Unfortunately, no. I'll see her at the company Christmas lunch tomorrow. And yeah, after all these years, they still invite me back.

 

[FledfromNJ]

Net Neutrality is bad! It's crony capitalism. Companies like Netflix, Google, etc. say that ISP will do bad things. When they don't want to increase their cost so that they can ensure you don't have lag when watching their services. They don't have to pay, but they will probably have lag because of their content. So who will pay if they don't have to pay for faster speeds, um the consumer will in the long run. You will see that increase on your bill and not on your monthly Netflix. Here is a unique idea, if your ISP does something you don't like switch, cut your spend, protest, etc. We have seen big business get destroyed in days for poor decisions. Lets not let Minority Report play out because of what "Could Happen". If something does, then get off your but and do something about it instead of outsourcing to the Gov't. I think most big business support some type of Crony Capitalism including ISPs, but Net Neutrality is bad and are fixing problems that don't exist today and if they do, you can fix by the power of the purse.

 

[Renegade]

Net Neutrality is bad! It's crony capitalism.

You have it backwards.

 

[Brains]

Pure Net Neutrality is a utopian pipe dream. It won't ever work, and from a tech standpoint it's a recipe for disaster. Repealing it won't change anything, the 'net was built without it and operates best without it.

 

[Renegade]

Pure Net Neutrality is a utopian pipe dream. It won't ever work, and from a tech standpoint it's a recipe for disaster. Repealing it won't change anything, the 'net was built without it and operates best without it.

NN has been working since day 1, it is still working today. The net was built with NN, and there has never been a time when it was not neutral.

Fake News Media has Faked Out a lot of folks on this one.

 

[Brains]

NN has been working since day 1, it is still working today. The net was built with NN, and there has never been a time when it was not neutral.

Fake News Media has Faked Out a lot of folks on this one.

Well, not quite. The net was built with a significant number of controls baked right into the IP protocol. In reality the net simply won't work right if those 'anti-net-neutrality' controls were 'removed'. Voice calls, for instance, are tagged with realtime QoS. Connectionless/bulk/streaming stuff often transits over UDP, while connection-based communications goes TCP. ICMP? Hell, drop it if you want, who cares. True Net Neutrality would by definition have us undo all that and treat every packet as just another packet.

Much of the talk is about "whose" packet it is, and (dis)allowing someone from being able to "buy a fast lane" when that is exactly what we must to be able to do. Say you have a service and DC on the west coast and customers on the east. You need transit across the entire conus, and you need to guarantee a certain level of service in order to make your service operate. If we implement NN where I cannot do that, my service will at peak times fail to work. My only resolution at that point, is I have to light up a DC in the back yard of my customers. I couldn't go to Level 3 and say "Hey I need to buy 200mbps realtime" and have them reply "ok, but we need 90 days to upgrade Equinix from 10G to 40G, we're near capacity." Rather they'd just sell me "a fair connection" and we all hope for the best.

You want Netflix to work right? Under NN they will be forced to build DC after DC after DC peered directly with local carriers, because now the transit networks are under no incentive to improve performance. Everyone's terrible performance is a utopian equal, and all the uneducated are happy. Or not, because nothing works right. When you do not have NN, some number of service providers will buy n mbps with a QoS from transit network providers. Since those are guaranteed, there's a financial requirement for the transit providers to ensure the network has sufficient capacity, and a revenue stream coming in to pay for the equipment necessary to do it. Since that purchased capacity is merely 'reserved', there's nearly always plenty of surplus bandwidth available. With NN, there's saturated networks, users screaming about why nothing works right, a broke transit carrier trying to spread the bills equally and 'fairly', the big service providers basically just waiting for the little guys to not be able to afford to peer, then shelling out the same money as they would anyway so their service will work again.

Who wins with NN? Nobody. It's a piece of ignorant feel-good legislation by people who are afraid of paying another dollar a month for Netflix. The internet was designed around, and thrives on NOT being over-regulated, and NN regulation would cause more failure than fixes.

 

[Renegade]

Well, not quite. The net was built with a significant number of controls baked right into the IP protocol.

Yes quite. First the Net existed prior to the adoption of IP. Second, nothing in the IP protocol differentiates packets based on carrier business deals. Packets are packets to a router.

In reality the net simply won't work right if those 'anti-net-neutrality' controls were 'removed'. Voice calls, for instance, are tagged with realtime QoS. Connectionless/bulk/streaming stuff often transits over UDP, while connection-based communications goes TCP. ICMP? Hell, drop it if you want, who cares. True Net Neutrality would by definition have us undo all that and treat every packet as just another packet.

Again, it has been working right since day 1. QOs stuff has nothing to do with what NN means.

Much of the talk is about "whose" packet it is, and (dis)allowing someone from being able to "buy a fast lane" when that is exactly what we must to be able to do.

Fast lanes already exist. Netflix is not sending their data down a T1. They have bought access to a fast lane.

With NN, there's saturated networks,

Saturation is possible without NN.

Who wins with NN? Nobody. It's a piece of ignorant feel-good legislation by people who are afraid of paying another dollar a month for Netflix.

This is the biggest problem. The Fake News Media has pretty much lied about what NN is and isn't. First it is NOT legislation. It is a basic set of principles adopted by the geeks when the Internet was created.

The internet was designed around, and thrives on NOT being over-regulated, and NN regulation would cause more failure than fixes.

Exactly, and repealing NN just changed the original design. It is about to get overregulated, and more failure is ahead.

 

[Lunyfringe]

If any NN law is over-simplified, it could technically make it illegal to block a DDOS attack... you have to treat every packet the same, even if it has nefarious intent?
This kind of nonsense can happen when congresscritters try to legislate that which they don't understand.

 

[Renegade]

If any NN law is over-simplified, it could technically make it illegal to block a DDOS attack... you have to treat every packet the same, even if it has nefarious intent?
This kind of nonsense can happen when congresscritters try to legislate that which they don't understand.

If that were true, we would not be posting as none of the prior DDOS attacks would have been stopped. but somehow the geeks figured out how to have NN and stop a DDOS.

 

[Brains]

Yes quite. First the Net existed prior to the adoption of IP. Second, nothing in the IP protocol differentiates packets based on carrier business deals. Packets are packets to a router.

Yeah and the telegraph existed before the telephone. *yawn*

ROFL! I guess there's a bunch of CCNA's and CCIE's who will be quite surprised they spent a LOT of time and money to learn a whole lotta nothin'! Packets are most certainly not 'just packets' to a router. Every datagram is inspected and interacted with. Every. Last. One.

Again, it has been working right since day 1. QOs stuff has nothing to do with what NN means.

Seriously, WHAT? QoS is at the foundation of what people are arguing. What do you believe would happen if suddenly every packet from every service/device were suddenly all tagged CS6, since that would be 'fair' and 'equal'? How about removing the tag from every packet? Hey, to those routers, packets are just packets, right? What about ingress/egress queue priorities? We can just set those to defaults. Should just work right and everyone can gather to sing kumbaya. Lets do that!

Also "NN" day one was nowhere near day one of the modern Internet. By a lot. A whole lot.

Fast lanes already exist. Netflix is not sending their data down a T1. They have bought access to a fast lane.
Saturation is possible without NN.

This is the biggest problem. The Fake News Media has pretty much lied about what NN is and isn't. First it is NOT legislation. It is a basic set of principles adopted by the geeks when the Internet was created.

You're confusing port and/or line rates which nobody is actually arguing, with bandwidth or service allocations which everyone is. In large scale instances, services like Netflix are functionally 'directly connected' so port rates are a moot point. Netflix for instance is on AWS, which is directly and regionally peered with many of the biggest carriers.

Exactly, and repealing NN just changed the original design. It is about to get overregulated, and more failure is ahead.

Just stop. The mere concept of NN *did* *not* *exist* when the 'net was turned loose on the public in the early 90's. Hell folks were so "anti-NN" back then, if you caused a ruckus and made trouble on a circuit, it was pretty likely they'd just unplug you. Now days, they protectively and equitably rate limit everything by COS.

So to take a BIG step back, and get back to what NN really is about, it's about (lack of) competition. It's only a problem because we've mucked with regulating the 'last mile' providers, what business classification they fall under, who is allowed to compete, etc. It's a "solution" trying to create a problem. It's a problem for a solution to a problem that we aren't addressing (bite on that one for a bit). What's the problem? Getting access to provide network services to the home unless you pay lobbyists enough money to wrangle lock-in away from the incumbent carriers. How many people have only one, MAYBE two choices for who to get a last-mile internet connection to their home? Pretty much all of us, and that is the problem. That is the problem this whole NN nonsense is trying to quietly tiptoe around, the problem of having a big group of people with their hands in each others drawers - and nobody else is invited to "their" party. NN is being sold as a big carrier problem, when it isn't. It's a last mile problem. Comcast, AT&T, and others can really put the screws to the end user as they see fit because they don't fear competition. Joe's Internet and Bait Shop can't pull fiber to your house, no matter how much you want it because AT&T 'owns' the government granted 'rights' to do so. As wireless tech improves and more airspace opens up, I get the feeling we're going to see the Internet heal itself around this once again via ubiquitous mesh networks - provided the gov' allows enough unlicensed airspace to open up. Watch for litigation and lobbying in this area soon.

 

[Renegade]

Seriously, WHAT? QoS is at the foundation of what people are arguing.

No it is not. You are the only one bringing it up. The NN debate has nothing do with anything you are talking about.

Just stop. The mere concept of NN *did* *not* *exist* when the 'net was turned loose on the public in the early 90's.

Of course it existed. There was no choice for it to exist as there were few intelligent routers on the internet that could differentiate packets in real time until later in its life.

The internet existed long before the early 90's. The Internet has been NN since day 1, and it is still NN today. That will change next year.

 

[WarHawk_AVG]

Net Neutrality was implemented and signed into law by the same administration that said "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" so...not really concerned that it went away...