Any thoughts on whether Google's practice of edge caching (storing content such as YouTube videos on servers close to people's homes for faster loads, etc, as I understand it) violates an open, neutral Net?
No, I don't think so. This is completely standard practice. All the big players do this already (or, mostly, they pay someone like akamai to do it for them.)
An ISP has a set amount of bandwidth resources to distribute to it's customers. If Google makes a deal with ISPs to prioritize it's traffic over other traffic as a matter of policy - that would violate the spirit of a neutral network (whatever "neutral network" means exactly.) But if google is just spending money on improving it's infrastructure (by buying more and faster servers, by developing faster and smarter database technology, by building more datacenters in geographically diverse regions, or by moving parts of their datacenters directly into the major ISP datacenters) this is just them doing everything they can do to improve their delivery of web pages. I'm free to do the same (which I guess is the key to it not being anti-neutral,) regardless of the fact that I don't have the money to do so. To me arguing the opposite would be like saying Google can't buy servers with processors faster than 1.8Ghz because that's all I could afford!
Now, if these deals had some sort of exclusivity clause where other people were prohibited by the Google partnered ISP from purchasing the same, that would be a different story. But no one I have read is saying there is any exclusivity. This is just Google upgrading their network in a completely standard and accepted way.
Thanks. I realize the text-and-low-res pictures web is changing into the video-and-multimedia web and my mental image of a finely-atomized, perfectly distributed mesh is changing. Any clumps or concentrations make me nervous, though, since the web's distribution of power is one of the best things that's happened in my lifetime.
I agree with Jim. Edge caching, by itself, doesn't violate the spirit of net neutrality. I haven't read the WSJ report on this, but have heard it was misleading.
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- tom moody 12-15-2008 5:15 pm
No, I don't think so. This is completely standard practice. All the big players do this already (or, mostly, they pay someone like akamai to do it for them.)
An ISP has a set amount of bandwidth resources to distribute to it's customers. If Google makes a deal with ISPs to prioritize it's traffic over other traffic as a matter of policy - that would violate the spirit of a neutral network (whatever "neutral network" means exactly.) But if google is just spending money on improving it's infrastructure (by buying more and faster servers, by developing faster and smarter database technology, by building more datacenters in geographically diverse regions, or by moving parts of their datacenters directly into the major ISP datacenters) this is just them doing everything they can do to improve their delivery of web pages. I'm free to do the same (which I guess is the key to it not being anti-neutral,) regardless of the fact that I don't have the money to do so. To me arguing the opposite would be like saying Google can't buy servers with processors faster than 1.8Ghz because that's all I could afford!
Now, if these deals had some sort of exclusivity clause where other people were prohibited by the Google partnered ISP from purchasing the same, that would be a different story. But no one I have read is saying there is any exclusivity. This is just Google upgrading their network in a completely standard and accepted way.
- jim 12-16-2008 2:44 pm
Thanks. I realize the text-and-low-res pictures web is changing into the video-and-multimedia web and my mental image of a finely-atomized, perfectly distributed mesh is changing. Any clumps or concentrations make me nervous, though, since the web's distribution of power is one of the best things that's happened in my lifetime.
- tom moody 12-16-2008 3:54 pm
I agree with Jim. Edge caching, by itself, doesn't violate the spirit of net neutrality. I haven't read the WSJ report on this, but have heard it was misleading.
- mark 12-16-2008 5:14 pm