The next net neutrality showdown, on the edge of the network

Pay no attention to that fast lane behind the curtain

At one time, the original language enabled entities to "enable any content, application, or service made available by the Internet to be offered, provided, or posted on the basis that...(A) is reasonable and non-discriminatory, including with respect to quality of service, access speed and bandwidth; (B) is at least equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth that such broadband service provider offers to affiliated content, applications, or services made available via the public Internet into the network of such service provider; (C) does not impose a charge on the basis of the type of content, applications, or service made available via the Internet into the network of such broadband service provider."

Clearly, Verizon's Partner Port Network would fall outside the boundaries of what this particular bill would have permitted. At the time this language was introduced, it was perceived as being "anti-Google" -- as effectively disabling the firm perceived as the leading content deliverer on the Internet, from leasing the fast lane for itself.

So it was something of a shock when Google came out in favor of net neutrality legislation, at least in principle. Still, Google's explanation comes with a very prominent asterisk, explained last year in a blog post by its leading Washington counsel, Richard Whitt. "Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the content," Whitt wrote. "...Providers should have the flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation."

"Edge caching" -- moving high-bandwidth content closer to its end viewer, with fewer hops along the way -- sounds curiously similar to the way Verizon describes its new service.

As Verizon explained last week: "Under the Partner Port Program, content owners and CDNs deposit their consumer-focused content directly onto the Verizon Internet backbone network at regional carrier 'hotels' without the need for connections that use longer, less direct and often costly middlemen architectures that involve multiple connections, or 'hops,' among multiple carriers. By bypassing these pathways, content owners and CDNs can deliver to their broadband customers on Verizon's networks lower 'latency' -- the time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another."

What Google may be doing is jockeying for position as apparently in favor of net neutrality, while at the same time cutting a path for the very type of service that ignited the net neutrality debate in the first place. That raises the ire of technologists such as journalist and engineer George Ou.

"Google is pushing hard for the Markey 2006 and Snowe/Dorgan 2006 proposals that would ban QoS [quality of service] prioritization based on the source," Ou told Betanews. "Those bills would also prohibit surcharges on QoS prioritization and Google was sure to leave an exception for all other Internet related businesses by specifically targeting broadband in the legislation. This ensures a exemption to content caching (usually in the form of CDNs like Akamai or LimeLight) which offers not just a 'fast lane,' but a warp speed lane that operates at an instantaneous speed because they bypass the need to retransmit data. Content caching operates 10,000 times faster (the typical number of clients each caching server services) than the type of QoS prioritization Google is lobbying hard to ban."

In an optimum scenario for Google, Ou believes, legislation could conceivably enable the type of re-engineering that both Google and Verizon are trying to establish, while in their wake effectively banning the type of QoS prioritization that would enable smaller services to compete -- enforcing exclusivity in the name of neutrality. If edge caching were permitted and were available to such businesses, the whole question of QoS prioritization would be moot for them; Google and Verizon wouldn't need QoS because edge caching -- through "hotels" established along the very water's edge, if you will -- would be orders of magnitude more efficient.

"If net neutrality proponents want to prohibit companies from gaining a content distribution advantage through financial might," stated Ou, "then they should have a problem with content caching and not QoS prioritization. If they truly believe in their cause to create a state of equality that never existed on the Internet, then they should be calling for a ban on caching technologies. But that would be just as silly as banning QoS prioritization."