- Monday, 9 November 2009
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A man is known by his friends, the devil is known by his fiends
Sprint Nextel kills net neutrality
SPRINT NEXTEL'S new Xohm WiMax service in Baltimore has been slammed because it prevents users from getting full and unfettered access to the Web.
Sprint's Acceptable Use and Network Management Policy for its high-speed data network said that usage that might "result in an excessive burden on system or network resources" could be punished.
Xohm will use tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing, Sprint said.
This is similar to what Comcast got told off for by the Federal Communications Commission.
Public interest group Free Press told the Washington Post that Sprint's policy could go against the FCC's broadband policy statement.
It is worried about the kinds of tools and techniques Sprint will use to monitor traffic. ยต
L'Inq
Washington Post
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This ongoing flap about net neutrality is missing the main point. An industrial T1 service runs between $500 and $1000 per month depending on where you are. That works out to $1.25 to $2.50 per GB if you use the link continuously. There is surprizingly little discount for higher industrial connection rates. Looking at a sample satellite provider (where total bandwidth is dear) hard limits on downloaded bytes per month are imposed. The available packages range from $50 to $80 per mo with effective costs of $4.70 to $6.66 per GB (at full allowed utilization). Be prepared for all the ISPs to set a monthly download limit in the neighborhood of 20 GB. The INQ would do the world a favor by identifying the real total throughput limitations that exist in the system and in the process exposing the fallacy of all the services being hyped that require huge throughput. This is just next dot com or mortgage bust waiting to happen.
What these net-nuetrality zealots will wind up doing is force the entire billing model to by-the-byte or bucket. The current all you can eat model will become extinct. And why? Because some people think it is their absolute right to swap (copyrighted) content with perfect strangers.

Please consider the unintended consequences of an utterly net-nuetral world before you jump on the bandwagon.