http://bennettblog.disqus.com/Networking technology and policyenThu, 01 Mar 2007 07:18:15 -0000http://bennett.com/blog/2006/07/the-trouble-with-end-to-end/#comment-2134533<p>That's one of the great ironies of net neutrality, isn't it? The phone network, with all of its wicked "intelligence", was designed to provide a fixed pool of resources - bandwidth - to every call in progress, with no variation. But packet networks simply provide us with an opportunity to grab what we can from a common pool of resources and count on us to use them in a kind and gentlemanly fashion. It's completely absurd to demand that the packet network behave as nothing more than an amped-up phone network, yet that's what they seem to want: dedicated bandwidth at the price of pooled bandwidth.</p><p>It's completely nuts.</p>Richard BennettThu, 01 Mar 2007 07:18:15 -0000http://bennett.com/blog/2006/07/the-trouble-with-end-to-end/#comment-2134532<blockquote>We’ve all heard that the Internet is an end-to-end network. This means that it’s different in some major way from the telephone network, and different from other types of packet networks that we might very well be dependent upon had it not been for the success of the Internet, which of course is a result of its superior, end-to-end architecture.</blockquote><p></p><p>I have heard many neutralists argue this, but I question how many actually believe it. When you press some Neutralists, they eventually say something like: "If I pay for 6 Mbps and a website pays for 6 Mbps, then we should connect at 6 Mbps."</p><p>Correct me if I am wrong. However, that statement seems inconsistent with the actual structure of the Internet. Futhermore, it sounds more like the old "hub-and-spoke" switched telephone system.</p>MnZThu, 27 Jul 2006 15:15:12 -0000