[discuss] African take on Net Neutrality

Wed May 14 06:50:57 UTC 2014

At 03:43 14/05/2014, Ali Hussein wrote:
>@fsp4net
>I think the post from Chip sort of answers your query to my post?

At 03:43 14/05/2014, Ali Hussein wrote:
>@fsp4net
>I think the post from Chip sort of answers your query to my post?

It does.

However, the reason why we want to work on a fail-secure plan for the 
nets and support the concept of a VGNSO is that we consider 
infrastructures from an independent user initiative and not from an 
ISP point of view. This makes us to pragmatically separate the three 
catenet, internet and VGNs realities.

This is simply because my browser, my OS, my mobile, my mailbox, my 
dropbox, my apps, my bank account, my sources of updates, my 
firewall, my antivirus, my facebook, my twitter, my favorites, my ISP 
competitive proposition, my passwords, my box, my wifi, the NSA 
involvement, my domain names, my site, my VPS, etc. start making a 
big virtual global network of resources I am to manage, rationalize 
and pay and a "digitality" of mine within the world digital ecosystem 
I need to know, and master before I can even use it!

Our reasoning is as follows: I am somewhere in the world, with my 
personality, my business, my family, etc.: I look at the way I can 
internet with other peoples and optimize my connection(s) for the 
budget I can spend for my digital relations. So I look first at the 
connections and machnes (hardware). Then at the way to get content 
through and process it (software). Then at what I can do with it and 
others (brainware). In so doing I am no more theorical than needed to 
pragmatically get results. Very grassroots and I see that the needs 
and solutions are quite similar everywhere.

Where I leave I have 6 Meg max wifi. So I must spend a lot of money 
for a remote machine I would have replicated at home would I have 
access to fiber. And I would not have got hacked by ICANN aficionados 
to punish me to support VGN experimentations :-)

Neutrality for me is everything that helps, in a fair and legal 
manner, reducing the barriers to my free exchange capability for what 
I intend to do. I am certainly aware that there can be fair 
neutrality justments of technical, economical, political nature since 
what I want to do is not what Google wants to do for me. This is 
where a certain "digizen" attitude must develop within the Internet Governance.

Our idea is that:

(1) this digizenship is something the multitude must polycratically 
(i.e. a well studied and described extension of democracy to 
self-sovereign stakeholders and individualities) develop in common, 
with the help of states, civil society, business, technicians, 
academics, etc. And we know this will not develop and deploy in one day.

(2) the diversity among these stakeholders and individualities makes 
the common technology itself the only mutually bounding possible 
"treaty" (we say "concordance": code is law, law induces code). So we 
prefer to consider ethitechnic issues and equilibria than the 
survival of ICANN in an obsolete form. IANA transition for us does 
not mean a supervision transfer from NTIA to ICANN, but the 
transition of the nascent digizenry from an US supervized IANA to a 
non multitudarily supervized IANA (this supervision becoming the 
result of a supervision by billions of VGN supervisor programs and 
Masters and will serve as a common informational spine to billions of 
customized VGNICs - virtual global network information center).

jfc
fsp4net alliance

>>Anriette,
>>
>>Thank you for posting this to 1Net.  I had just read this article 
>>right before your posting.  Iâ€™ve been following 
>><http://manypossibilities.net>manypossibilities.net for several 
>>years and find it a good resource for tracking fiber deployment in 
>>Africa (among other things).
>>
>>It provides an interesting perspective from Africa, but the 
>>concepts describe could apply globally just like concepts discussed in the US.
>>
>>I do have a couple of concerns about this article that it continues 
>>the expansion of what falls under the term â€œNet Neutralityâ€ in 
>>its discussion of two issues:
>>  *  Web caching (Google Cache)
>>  *  Zero Rating
>>
>>The discussion on Net Neutrality has already gone way beyond the 
>>original concern over blocking and degradation of traffic.
>>
>>Web Caching:
>>The article claims that Google Cache violates net 
>>neutrality.  Iâ€™ve now seen that claim repeated on another African 
>>Internet-related mail list so people are picking up the idea.
>>
>>This claim expands the concept of net neutrality from Internet 
>>access to operation of services that run over the Internet 
>>(over-the-top or edge providers).
>>Google Cache is just one example of web caching that has been an 
>>operational mechanism on the Internet since before Google existed 
>>(squid v1.0 was released in 1996).  It follows a basic design 
>>principle of placing content as close to the consumer as is 
>>feasible to reduce latency and cost of expensive underwater 
>>bits.  So web caching (e.g., Google Cache) is not a valid example 
>>of a good violation of Net Neutrality since it is really unrelated 
>>to Net Neutrality.
>>
>>Zero Rating:
>>The concept of zero rating is a little more difficult.  The Net 
>>Neutrality debate has traditionally focused on blocking or 
>>degrading of traffic by an Internet access provider.  In the last 
>>few years it has been expanded to include the idea of providing 
>>enhanced service to a particular class of data.
>>These all had in common the manipulation of the data flow in the network.
>>Now is being proposed the idea that Net Neutrality includes 
>>business relationships that donâ€™t require direct manipulation of 
>>data flow in the network.  Zero rating is one example of this, but 
>>not the only one.
>>
>>Is this is really a Net Neutrality issue or is it an example of an 
>>innovative business offering?
>>
>>My view is that we still need flexibility to allow for innovation 
>>in business practices of ISPs *and* edge providers.
>>
>>Chip
>>
>>
>>On May 13, 2014, at 6:48 AM, Anriette Esterhuysen 
>><<mailto:anriette at apc.org>anriette at apc.org> wrote:
>>
>>>This is an interesting read on network neutrality from an African 
>>>internet perspective.  I would summarise it as saying the 
>>>principle is critical. How regulators apply it has to be sensitive 
>>>to local contexts. The writer is Steve Song.
>>>
>>><http://manypossibilities.net/2014/05/net-neutrality-in-africa/>http://manypossibilities.net/2014/05/net-neutrality-in-africa/
>>>
>>>Anriette
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