The problem really is that too many of the "proponents" of "net neutrality" don't actually understand the core precepts upon which the Internet is built. Network neutrality is a principle between providers relating to peering and transit. The initiating institutions of NSFNET didn't provide "net neutrality" to their students or faculty and until the mid-90s the principle of no commercial use of the network overrode any concept of "net neutrality". It was at the CIX that the fundamental ideas of settlement free provisioning and network neutrality was established, BUT CIX was location where commercial enterprises who had identified their common interest in networking came together - as soon as that started to fall out CIX really lost its core element (which fortunately had been overtaken by the NAPs but I digress - well I digress from a digression) and it became partly a selected interests lobbying group. My fear (and experience) is that this is at hold in SA as well with an inordinate amount of lobbying being directed against certain telecos and not enough getting the commercial agreements necessary to make things work done. With some irony, while in the US context it was AT&T on the rebound against the new "incumbents" in South Africa it is Telkom who is the unfortunate ass (donkey) with a target on its back.
Google are proponents of net neutrality and consequently they have invested heavily in ensuring that access (imagine the implications for the SA Internet if Google were to donate a few billion in purchasing the last mile copper to lease out to ECNs with the revenue going towards SANREN ...), in reality so are Netflix - who provide the appliances to ISP for free [with the ISP carrying operational costing) the same cannot be said about many other services and complainants.
I am dead against content providers paying ISPs for preferential treatment of their content, however content providers have an obligation in investing in ensuring their content is distributed at their carriage rather than hoping to entrap consumer facing ISPs (and in reality telecos - who historically have been treated differently from other ECNs, and this is the essence of the net neutrality debate in the US has arisen out of) into having to subsidize poor host planning and provisionally - its like expecting the Post Office to fund the collection and distribution of newspapers so that the newspaper companies can profit on the subscriptions.
The real network neutrality debate in South Africa is going to be about the fact that Telkom is obliged to allow whoever to run services over their copper network whilst it is clear that Naspers, Vodacom and MTN are aiming at exclusivity provisioning on their fibre networks. South African's to an extent are going to increasingly be faced with the choice between deeply closed content driven FTTH that is susceptible to what John Oliver succinctly called "cable company ****ery" and an approach towards fibre where consumers are able to - getting the right blend is going to be a major challenge and hopefully it will be possible to ensure that in FTTH installations Platco and ODM (when they come out of business rescue) will be able to sell content rather than simply having DSTV over fibre in complexes and the furtherance of a Multichoice monopoly.
BUT before we can even contemplate South Africa as a location for discussions on unlocking the miracle of interconnected computing we have to make sure that we don't get ourselves tripped by a regulatory captured environment dominated by political appointments that are both deeply amusing and deeply disturbing (granted we can't complain about the CoS appointment to the telecoms ministry as ultimately we made a very nepotism driven CBO appointment).
The information era was served largely by a collection of academics and entrepreneurs and the Internet Society, and not by the ITU. It was a bearded man at Marina del Rey who oversaw:
Rather than some-self interested schmuck trying to corner a market and when that market cornering exercise fails falls back to renteer behaviour dependant on regulatory capture. The Internet exists because of people reaching out to one another and just building things, it dies when that ability to grasp this. There is a problem in the South African ADSL market at the moment that the cost of provisioning the underlying demand of some consumers is at too high a price for consumer products and while trying to get customers to more responsibly use the limited (and fundamentally contended) resources that make up internet access is not only a valid but necessary exercise it should not be seen as license to take to insulting clients or ... As a society South Africa needs to get an earnest understanding of the need to get capital invested in those projects that serve as a catalyst for the Internet - we need to get the IPConnect pricing to half of what it currently is, but this can only happen if there is a proper future for the assets that make up IPConnect and delivering reasonable revenue on those assets. So far we've heard a lot of complaining about the price of IPConnect and not much in the way of solutions - in my view the IPConnect price can be halved over a few years in addition to the existing price reduction schedule by way of a proper contract between TW and the largest ISPs (including TI).
<as a bit of a side note, this thread is a sort of feedback thread that we didn't create on all matters relating in any shape or form to Crystal Web. We are really happy to have tangential discussions on feedback on a broad array of topics - including how to make the Internet for the bulk of South African consumers better. A core component of the operating culture we wish to build up as a company is a co-operative competitive structure. We see a great future for South African ISPs who are able to recognize this culture of co-operation, experimentation and who see the Internet as part of the progress of humanity. In some respects it is an offtopic-topic on all things Crystal Web>
(aka completely unwatchable)