Welcome to the inaugural post in the IPeak Networks blog. My name is Matthew Williams. I am the founder and CTO of IPeak Networks and the inventor of IPQ™. IPQ stands for Internet Performance and Quality and that is what it delivers – an Internet with higher performance and higher quality. That phrase also perfectly captures the focus of this blog. Having set the stage a bit, let me open with this…
I believe that Internet users have a universal right to performance and quality, and you shouldn’t be forced to pay extra to get the quality and performance you need. It is pretty clear that the Internet is neither a novelty nor a luxury. So much of modern life relies upon and assumes the universal availability of the Internet that ‘information highway’ no longer adequately describes the breadth of the Internet.
Now, there are people that use the Internet more than others. A telecommunter remotely logging into work each day … a grandparent checking e-mail once a day … a bittorrent user downloading large files – they will all use the Internet differently. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) recognize this fact and offer different access packages: dial-up, basic DSL, extreme DSL, and so on. However, a disturbing trend is emerging. ISPs are looking for ways to charge users twice. Once for general Internet access and then again to guarantee that your important traffic makes it to the far end. Think of it as a protection racket for the 21st century. Pay them more money or the ISP can’t be held responsible for your packets!
ISPs justify this by saying that it costs money to send traffic to popular destinations on the Internet. Well, of course it does, but that’s what we are paying ISPs for in the first place! Asking to be paid twice borders on the criminal. ISPs also claim that the Internet will break down if they don’t charge more for important traffic. In particular, senstive applications like Voice over IP (VoIP) will suffer. I don’t agree with ISPs charging twice for important traffic, but it does bring up an important point. The Internet does not differentiate between “regular” traffic like web surfing and e-mail and “sensitive” traffic like VoIP or video conferencing. Too much regular traffic can indeed negatively effect sensitive traffic.
Although the Internet Protocol standard does support different classes of service, it is not practical to implement this technology on the Internet for both political and technical reasons. This is why IPeak’s IPQ is so important – if allows end-users themselves to prioritize their own traffic and guarantees that their sensitive traffic will experience a better Internet.
Network neutrality is the name given to this situation Should ISPs be able to charge more and, very importantly, be given the control of which packets are more important. I am strongly for network neutrality and against ISPs having that level of control. ISPs tend to be large companies with varied interests. Your ISP may also be your telephone and television provider. If they were given the controls for which traffic was treated better than the rest, you can bet that a competitor’s VoIP or IPTV traffic wouldn’t be treated very well at all.
The Internet is simply too important to allow a few corporations to decide its fate.
What do you think?
