Network Neutrality Podcast

A comment on the almost universal tendency of people to equate end-to-end with net neutrality, which you make in passing in your podcast, too.

In sum, the equation is false and misleading no matter which end you apply it to. The two principles are different in content, and, more importantly, different in their normative interpretation.

Net neutrality is about neutrality in a very abstract and often vague sense (due to the problem that neutrality always implies some specific purpose, for there is no absolute neutrality) beyond common carriage. Now, some have applied the same level of abstraction to end-to-end, saying it is about having no functions in the network and all functions at the end points. Having simplified end-to-end this way, plus claiming the internet has (or had) always been end-to-end (after all the principle was “invented”, so popular parlance goes, by the very people who have created the internet) leads to the neat conclusion that adhering to the end-to-end principle will also achieve the purposes of the new net neutrality principle.

But, in actual fact, end-to-end has never been about having all functions at the ends and non in the network. The normative purpose of the principle was a technical one, not one of control and power. And, it was most definitely not about “innovation”, “democracy”, and “free speech”. It was about error correction. Saltzer, Reed, and Clark opened the floodgates of interpretative scope in 1981; but as for the Arpanet and TCP/IP which were developed mostly in the 1970s, end-to-end considerations may at most be construed to have informed (and have been derived from) the splitting of TCP into IP and TCP in order to make IP “thinner” and more suitable for applications that needed no error correction. Yet, and inevitably, there are a host of functions relevant to the end points within the network. The question, of course, is which functions. but most don’t get to that question in the first place.

The proper distinction between end-to-end and net neutrality is not merely of academic concern, it is crucial to understanding and appreciating the elusiveness of bending the end-to-end principle as a computer science practice of the 1970s to today’s concerns about “innovation” and sovereignty of end users. Again, the often quoted link between end-to-end and net neutrality does not logically flow from the contents and purposes of the two. They are not the same.

We should thus distinguish very carefully between discrimination on technical grounds and discrimination on economical and political grounds.

Just my 2 Euro cents.

A comment on the almost universal tendency of people to equate end-to-end with net neutrality, which you make in passing in your podcast, too.

In sum, the equation is false and misleading no matter which end you apply it to. The two principles are different in content, and, more importantly, different in their normative interpretation.

Net neutrality is about neutrality in a very abstract and often vague sense (due to the problem that neutrality always implies some specific purpose, for there is no absolute neutrality) beyond common carriage. Now, some have applied the same level of abstraction to end-to-end, saying it is about having no functions in the network and all functions at the end points. Having simplified end-to-end this way, plus claiming the internet has (or had) always been end-to-end (after all the principle was “invented”, so popular parlance goes, by the very people who have created the internet) leads to the neat conclusion that adhering to the end-to-end principle will also achieve the purposes of the new net neutrality principle.

But, in actual fact, end-to-end has never been about having all functions at the ends and non in the network. The normative purpose of the principle was a technical one, not one of control and power. And, it was most definitely not about “innovation”, “democracy”, and “free speech”. It was about error correction. Saltzer, Reed, and Clark opened the floodgates of interpretative scope in 1981; but as for the Arpanet and TCP/IP which were developed mostly in the 1970s, end-to-end considerations may at most be construed to have informed (and have been derived from) the splitting of TCP into IP and TCP in order to make IP “thinner” and more suitable for applications that needed no error correction. Yet, and inevitably, there are a host of functions relevant to the end points within the network. The question, of course, is which functions. but most don’t get to that question in the first place.

The proper distinction between end-to-end and net neutrality is not merely of academic concern, it is crucial to understanding and appreciating the elusiveness of bending the end-to-end principle as a computer science practice of the 1970s to today’s concerns about “innovation” and sovereignty of end users. Again, the often quoted link between end-to-end and net neutrality does not logically flow from the contents and purposes of the two. They are not the same.

We should thus distinguish very carefully between discrimination on technical grounds and discrimination on economical and political grounds.

Just my 2 Euro cents.