Internet Peering Doesn’t Need Fixing – NetComp CommActUpdate Submission

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Scott Cleland

Scott Cleland is a precursor: a proven thought leader with a long track record of industry firsts. Cleland is President of Precursor® LLC, a Fortune 500 research consultancy specializing in the future of Internet competition, property rights, privacy, cyber-security and cyber-ideology; algorithmic markets; and communications competition and de-regulation. Cleland authors the widely-read PrecursorBlog and serves as Chairman of NetCompetition® a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests. A world-leading research authority on Google, Cleland authored the book: Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. and is publisher of the watchdog site Google Monitor.
Cleland served as Deputy United States Coordinator for Communications and Information Policy in the George H. W. Bush Administration. Eight Congressional subcommittees have sought Cleland’s expert testimony and Institutional Investor twice ranked him the #1 independent analyst in his field. Scott Cleland has been profiled in Fortune, National Journal, Barrons, WSJ’s Smart Money, and Investors Business Daily. Ten publications have featured his op-eds. For a full bio see: www.ScottCleland.com.

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The old adage is true here; “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

The Internet peering marketplace works exceptionally well and it has for its entire twenty year history. The unparalleled success, growth, and resiliency of the unregulated model for the Internet backbone peering marketplace has been nothing short of phenomenal in enabling and ensuring everyone reasonable access to the Internet.

Inter-networked computer networks are effectively the opposite of railroad, electricity, and telephone networks; trying to impose telephone interconnection rules on IP inter-networking is akin to forcing a square peg into a round hole. It predictably breaks both the peg and the hole.

Please see NetCompetition’s House CommActUpdate submission on interconnection — here. (3 pages)

Summary of What Congress Needs to Know

As Congress considers modernizing communications legislation concerning Internet peering and interconnection issues, it is imperative to understand how Internet peering and voice interconnection are fundamentally different from two key policymaking perspectives.

How Internet networks are completely different from railroad and electricity networks.

1. Place-independent vs. place-dependent
2. Software-dependent vs. hardware dependent
3. Digital vs. analog

How IP packet networking fundamentally differs from legacy voice interconnection.

1. Circuit technology vs. packet-switching technology
2. Continuous vs. discontinuous transmission
3. Predictable vs. unpredictable transmission
4. Unitary service vs. multiple services
5. Centralized vs. decentralized architectures
6. Location-driven vs. location-agnostic
7. Best efforts vs. guarantees
8. Accounting simplicity vs. complexity
9. Access vs. connection

To see the full three page analysis submitted to the House CommActUpdate click here.

[Originally published at Precursor Blog]