I was reading and noticed this article purportedly supporting non-net-neutrality. Intrigued, I read the excerpt which cited Akamai as an example of non-net-neutrality. I have a few friends at Akamai (well, less now) and I understand what they do pretty well. Unfortunately, this clown, Professor Yoo does not.

In case you haven’t kept up on net politics. Network neutrality is probably the most important issue the net has faced. The elevator explanation is that with network neutrality (as it is now) every packet has the same priority. This is a good thing. I can be assured that while my data might hit some congestion, at least everyone else will hit the same congestion. In a non-net-neutral scenario, traffic priority is up for the highest bidder. This is something the big ISPs and traffic providers are trying to push. They see dollar signs with big companies who are pushing a lot of traffic. Apparently its not enough that both you and I as a consumer pay for bandwith, as well as the providers like Google or CNN.

Where does Akamai fit in? As Yoo-hoo explains in his article, Akamai provides a content-caching infrastructure that puts content closer to end users, rather than having all traffic go to one end point. Most of the major web sites (Amazon, Apple, CNN, MSNBC) use Akamai’s services. In essence, they are paying more to provide a higher quality of service to their end user.

The difference that Professor Yoo doesn’t understand is this. Without Akamai, CNN and MSNBC have the same priority level. In utterly-too-simple terms, they have the same chance of getting traffic to their consumers in a timely fashion. If net-neutrality were to come to an end, that neutral level of services goes away. Thats the rub. The traffic priority goes to the highest bidder. What if CNN goes to all the major ISPs and says “Listen, we want you to put our traffic above MSBNC at any cost.” No matter how much they bid, MSNBC is screwed.

Thats not to say there isn’t a case for a totally non-neutral Internet. For example, Voice-over-IP traffic is generally very small in size but demands low delays. Peer-to-peer file sharing is massive in size, and not as delay (or latency) critical. If we could legitimately prioritize traffic, and even charge people for using services like P2P that might be ok. Unfortunately there are technical reasons that make this effectively impossible.

Yoo has other flaws in his argument. This one is the only one that is glaring enough that I care to respond to.

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