Google to release software to test ISPs' net neutrality

The concept of “net neutrality” -- where ISPs let you do whatever you want on your internet connection unimpeded with any artifical controls or limitations -- is rather like the concept of “democracy” – most people agree that it’s the system to aspire to, yet few are naive enough to argue that any system has achieved it in its purest, most desirable form.

The net neutrality debate is focused mainly around home broadband customers, who won't pay the kinds of prices telcos would like to charge for a completely unrestricted internet connection, but who still expect that the bandwidth they pay for should be theirs to do with as they will, without interference from the ISP. Quite reasonably, home broadband users think: "if you chew up your bandwidth with peer-to-peer traffic, that’s your business and no-one else’s."

In reality we’re a long way from net neutrality. The level of ISP interference varies from country to country, but in the US there have been some high profile instances of packet disruption originating from ISPs. In August 2007, TorrentFreak reported that ComCast was actively preventing its users from seeding files. Through its partnership with Sandvine, ComCast masqueraded as a P2P end host and used forged TCP RST (reset) packets to disrupt various protocols used in peer-to-peer networking as well as its users’ ability to upload. While ostensibly working with BitTorrent to provide a more protocol-agnostic environment, ComCast is still lobbying hard for bills to protect copyrighted material, which many see as simply a veiled attempt to legitimate its current activities rather than any genuine concern to protect copyright.

Partly in response to this, but also in response to the wider implications of blatant ISP interference, Google recently announced that it is developing tools which will allow users to see exactly what is happening on their connections, and to determine whether their ISP is surreptitiously undermining traffic flow.

At the recent Innovation 08 panel on Net Neutrality at Santa Clara University, Google’s Senior Policy Director Richard Whitt stated that:

"We're trying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they're not happy with what they're getting -- that they think certain services are being tampered with ... if the broadband providers aren’t going to tell you exactly what’s happening on their networks, we want to give users the power to find out for themselves."

Google hasn’t yet announced what sort of shape these tools will take, or when they will be available to users.

Google has a big vested interest in ensuring the network neutrality issue alive and kicking, because it stands to lose if ISPs start tampering with traffic too much. Several large ISPs in the US have said that since Google causes so much traffic to be generated through YouTube and other service, that Google should start paying some of the ISPs' costs if they want their traffic to continue to be carried at full speed. Understandably, Google sees it as a form of extortion and strongly disagrees.

There is a flip-side, though. Technology consultant George Ou, who was part of the Santa Clara panel discussion, believes that net neutrality has the potential to stifle and stagnate certain technologies which are vulnerable to latency and jitter, such as VOIP, online gaming and IPTV:

"If you forbid prioritization, you forbid converged networks, and if you forbid converged networks, you get a bunch of tiny networks that are designed to do very specific things. Why not merge them into one fat pipe and let the consumer pick and choose what they want to run? Even mild usage of BitTorrent on a single computer in a home can ruin the experience for everyone in that home. If prioritization technology is banned in Broadband, then we'll simply end up with less functional broadband...”

It’s not often that we can claim that we’re lucky with our broadband service in Australia, but it’s possible that the very things which cause us to complain the most might also be the factors which protect us from this sort of ISP behaviour. Volume charging, on peak/off peak rates, excess data blocks, relatively low ADSL speeds and expensive monthly fees mean that Australian ISPs don’t have much incentive to interfere with how customers use their broadband.

Of course that doesn’t stop some Aussie ISPs from blocking ports that are commonly used for P2P, but that’s probably preferable to deliberately sabotaging open ports. But the ever-increasing push from consumers for faster access and unmetered usage may mean that if we ever get our wish, it could come with some nasty surprises, US-style.