RSSAdvocacy groups already nervous about Xohm WiMAX policies
By Tim Conneally | Published September 30, 2008, 6:05 PM
Sprint's Xohm WiMAX network barely got its feet on the ground before neutrality advocates began to tear apart the service's acceptable use and network management policy.
Sprint's terms of service include the passage: "XOHM may provide various Service plans with different characteristics, including different speeds and usage limitations. You agree to comply with these limitations. In addition, your use of the Service may not result in an excessive burden of system or network resources, may not weaken network performance, and may not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service. To ensure a high-quality experience for its entire subscriber base, XOHM may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing."
The advocacy group Free Press issued a statement yesterday afternoon highlighting this passage, and expressed its hope that Sprint will disclose the exact tools and techniques that it will use, so as to "demonstrate why it is necessary to maintain a closed network when consumers demand an open Internet."
The Open Internet Business Model, however, has been frequently mentioned by Sprint in its discussion of WiMAX, and in an effort to live by its principles, it's never been secretive about the Quality of Service controls it considers necessary.
Last year, for example, Sprint's Barry West spoke at NXTcomm about the model, and how it allows data plans to be sold that allow a user to connect all of his devices to WiMAX at any time and in any fashion, while the network provider balances the maximum level of throughput for each.
Though the new policy does cite file sharing programs directly, these "throttling" stipulations are not necessarily carte blanche for Sprint to squash the bandwidth of file sharers, but could rather be looking forward to a network where subscribers are connecting all of their devices at the same time. Unfortunately, though, it does boil down to interpretation until Sprint discloses its planned methods.
The major concern here should not have been the potential limits placed upon users of the service, but rather that in its announcement of the service yesterday morning, Sprint prominently used the phrase "without usage limitations."
Maybe Sprint and others should restrict the number subscription of of the service until they expand their capability.
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If the statement of usage would say "you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, and however you want", someone would also complain.
You cannot please everyone because people make unreasonable and illogical demands.
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The "neutrality" advocates obviously have never designed or managed a network... and it's pretty clear from statements like "why ... maintain a closed network when consumers demand an open Internet" that they are not very educated.
Aside from the question of who gave them the right to speak for consumers, they are wrong.
Consumers don't demand an "open Internet" ... whatever that means. Consumers demand fast access speeds, a traffic profile generous enough for normal surfing, email, youtube and similar applications at a reasonably cheap price.
Sounds like that is exactly what Sprint is offering.
What these "neutrality" advocates want is all-you-can-eat-at-access-line-speed for the price of a typical traffic profile, so that they can run bittorrent or limewire to obtain illegal copies of copyrighted material without paying the authors.
Sorry. All-you-can-eat-at-access-line-speed service might be available from some companies, but it isn't the same price as normal consumer service. Based on the resource consumption compared to a normal consumer, that kind of unlimited service would be $500 per month, not $50.
In fact, it's hard to tell if demanding all-you-can-eat-at-access-line-speed for the same price as normal consumer service is foolish, ignorant or disingenuous.
Read more:
http://blog.teracomtraining.com/net-neutrality
http://blog.teracomtrain...ternet-a-public-utility
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astroturf often? Who do you work for?
Net Neutrality is a term whose definition is twisted and turned so much, i am even confused by all the FUD by the large ISP's.
Net Neutrality simply means if the cable company or telco is going to give special treatment to certain types of data, such as VOIP or IPTV, they need to do it for all sources of that data, not just their own.
It has nothing to do with applications or "all-you-can-eat-at-access-line-speed for the price of a typical traffic profile".
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Why would anyone want to build out a last-mile network? All the ivory tower academic folks and chubby entitlement geeks continue to not understand a business model (nor, I assume, know how to balance their own checkbooks).
Last green field mile capacity, in a wireless world, is cost prohibitive compared to cable and even DSL.
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