In his post Industry analyst Benoit Felten questions whether the telcos are B.S.-ing us with this notion of “bandwidth hogs” From his post:

Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, the way that telcos identify the Bandwidth Hogs is not by monitoring if they cause unfair traffic congestion for other users. No, they just measure the total data downloaded per user, list the top 5% and call them hogs.

And:

TCP/IP is by definition an egalitarian protocol. Implemented well, it should result in an equal distribution of available bandwidth in the operator’s network between end-users; so the concept of a bandwidth hog is by definition an impossibility. An end-user can download all his access line will sustain when the network is comparatively empty, but as soon as it fills up from other users’ traffic, his own download (or upload) rate will diminish until it’s no bigger than what anyone else gets.

Also see: Congestion Neutrality by Herman Wagter that explains more of the nuts and bolts of how TCP/IP works. (Via Ars Techica)

In many ways this story is far field from our contemporary debates about network management, file sharing, and the perils of protocol discrimination. But the main questions seem to remain the same—to what degree will we let Western Union then and ISPs now pick winners and losers on our communications backbone? And when do government regulations grow so onerous that they discourage network investment and innovation?

These are tough questions, but the horrific problems of the “Victorian Internet” suggest that government overreach isn’t the only thing to fear. In 1876, laissez-faire “freedom for all” meant (in practice) the freedom for Henry Nash Smith to read your telegrams if he didn’t like who you supported for President. It meant freedom for Associated Press to block criticism of Western Union, and even to put potential critics and competitors out of business. And it meant freedom for a scoundrel to hijack the system at his leisure.

From How Robber Barons hijacked the “Victorian Internet”. (Via Mutate → Social Physicist)

In one of my moments of Random Thoughtitude, I was thinking about what my ideal country would look like. My first thought was infrastructure. I want a government that adequately funds and maintains a viable, nation-wide mass transit system and mandates bike lanes on every road. I want an educational system that actually teaches kids.

My next thought was: and what if our telecommunications infrastructure was owned and maintained by the government? What if our cable wires, our radio, our phone lines, and — the thing that sparked my original thought — our Internet were seen as massive public works projects on the order of sewers and roads?

Corporations would then compete in other ways. They might, for example, offer special content and charge for access to it. Or they might sell the hardware to connect to this otherwise national infrastructure.

Telecommunications, and the Internet in particular, has become this sort of basic, critical business commodity that is key to economic growth. But the corporations that run them are either too concerned with profits or really don’t have enough capital to upgrade their networks.

And we wouldn’t have this ‘Net Neutrality issue of corporations wanting to charge more or limit the flow of certain forms of data because boo-frickin-hoo, they don’t want to invest in their systems. Corporations are, after all, legally-bound to pursue profit. Their decisions must be made — for the bottom line, not the common good. Our government, on the other hand, would really have to treat all data the same and invest in our systems because we were all paying for it with our tax dollars.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Or does it? I thought some more and remembered that China controls its Internet infrastructure. And they have a few issues with censorship. Ditto Iran.

Our own government also has issues with freedom and privacy. Maybe handing them the keys to the Internet car would not be such a good idea after all.

I realized then that this is a pretty big conundrum. I wholeheartedly believe that corporations are evil, heartless, parasites who are incapable of doing The Right Thing unless it will make money. But I also believe the U.S. government is more concerned with maintaining power, control, and protecting their own personal safety and wealth than with building a just, free, and fair society.

So the question becomes: Who do you trust more? Corporations or Government?

And as importantly, what entities do you trust or would you trust? What does your ideal nation look like?