Hance Haney

Japan Does It, Too

An inconvenient fact (for opponents of network management):

A survey by the Japan Internet Providers Association shows 40% of Japanese ISPs perform network management, according to Yomiuri Shimbun, and the trend is growing.

Of the 276 respondents, 69 companies said they restricted information flow through their lines. A total of 106 companies, including those that rent lines from infrastructure owners, impose such restrictions. Twenty-nine companies said they were planning to take similar measures.

This is somewhat ironic because advocates for a centrally-planned national broadband strategy led by bureaucrats cite Japan as one of the successful examples the U.S. should follow. See, e.g., “Down to the Wire,” by Thomas Bleha in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2005).

Hat tip: Ken Robinson

March 3, 2008 | Comments |

discussion by DISQUS

Add New Comment

Viewing 4 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    Hance, maybe I'm missing something, but it looks to me like what Japan is doing is throttling traffic on an application-neutral manner based on a user's total bandwidth consumption. This is generally cited by network neutrality advocates as an alternative to application-focused filtering policies such as Comcast uses with regard to BitTorrent.
    • ^
    • v
    Can we get some more specific terminology than "network management" out there?

    I'm concerned that, in its way, this term is as generic as "transportation", "law enforcement", or "nutrition". (Or, to take an example where concerns about discrimination are very salient, "human resources" or "employment practices".)
    • ^
    • v

    Only 40%? Any sensible ISP does "network management".

    The trouble with your argument, though, is that you are confusing "network management" with "net neutrality".

    Quoting wikipedia:

    "Network management refers to the activities, methods, procedures, and tools that pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networked systems."

    Net Neutrality: "[..] network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, that does not restrict content, sites, or platforms and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams would be considered neutral by most observers."

    • ^
    • v
    I haven't investigated whether this is true.

    But I personally have said many times that the Asian countries, while often possibly good models for deployment, are certainly not good role models for net neutrality; the glaring example is China.
blog comments powered by Disqus