NET NEUTRALITY FIGHT TO END?
The ongoing battle over the FCC’s ‘net neutrality’ rules has been bitter, and has hitherto offered no sign of abating. Several engineers at Stanford University, however, claim to have found a way out of the impasse. We don’t have to fight over this, they say. A technical fix is at hand.
The Stanford engineers say they have pioneered a technique that would enable internet users to tell ISPs and online publishers when or if they want ‘preferential delivery’ for some data. (An ISP is an internet service provider.)
‘Net neutrality’ means ISPs must treat all data equally. They won’t be allowed to favor some content, nor to block or throttle other content.
The political battle over such net regulations has been loud and ferocious.
Professor Nick McKeown, Associate Professor Sachin Katti, and PhD Yiannia Yiakoumis say their new method, ‘Network Cookies’, could render the debate moot. An open internet and preferential delivery can coexist. The user decides what content gets favored delivery, while ISP administrators and content sources are unbiased; they throttle or speed data only in response to user preferences.
The Stanford engineering team field-tested the Network Cookies on 161 home networks connected with Google, sending boosted service requests from home routers to the ISP. The Network Cookies got heavy consumer use.
McKeown said, “…They’re simple to use and powerful. They enable you to fast-lane or zero-rate traffic from any application or website you want, not just the few, very popular applications. This is particularly important for smaller content providers– and their users, who can’t afford to establish relationships with ISPs. Second, they’re practical to deploy. They don’t overwhelm the user or bog down user devices and network operators…”
If this is all McKeown’s team says it is, then there may be no need for the Federal Government to weigh in on ‘net neutrality’ at all.
(For the best internet service, you need a reliable connection. Talk to us. We can help.)