why strict Net neutrality works best: simple beats complex

The IT industry has little respect for its veterans. Like they say, if you
don't learn from history, you are condemned to repeat it. A brief history
lesson, therefore. I presented this as an invited paper at the Pune
conference the ITU organized,  called "Beyond the Internet" about 5 years
ago, let me know if you would like a copy.

The development of the Internet began roughly around the same time that the
telecom companies and the ITU began work on developing X.25 and X.400
standards and technology, analogous to TCP-IP and Internet email. Even with
the weight of the ITU and all the governments and telcos of the world
behind them, X.25 and X.400 have virtually disappeared, only surviving in
niches. Why? Because they were far more complex.

Ethernet beat token ring and all its competitors, again, because it was the
simplest: A node that wants to transmit first listens, and if there is
nothing on the line, goes ahead and transmits. If two nodes both decide to
start transmitting at the same time and cause a collision, they wait a
random amount of time each, so as to be unlikely to collide again. WiFi did
spectacularly well as a wireless technology even with garbage spectrum,
because it essentially implements Ethernet in the air.

Internet telephony beats conventional again because of simplicity. If a
conventional phone call costs you 100 Rupees, less than 1 Rupee is the
actual cost of carrying the call.The cost of calculating how long you
spoke, from which to which number, at what time, on what plan, then sending
you the bill, fighting with you over the amount, sending goons to
collect... is of course at least an order of magnitude greater. And then,
certainly not least, is the cost of a Shahrukh Khan or equivalent to help
sell it to you.

Any violation of net neutrality adds to complexity. Once you let the
marketing guys call the shots, the complexity only grows. Any change you
implement involves changing the software, which becomes bloated and buggy.
This is why I believe that strict net neutrality will win.

Arun Mehta

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