Specifications

justify charging it higher Internet rates.
YouTube also sends and receives other,
smaller kinds of fi les, and even its videos
are much smaller than a full episode of CSI
or a feature fi lm.
It makes no more sense to give phone
and cable companies life-or-death power
over Internet commerce than it did to
give railroads that power over inter-
state commerce. Might it make sense
to let Internet carriers charge different
rates for different kinds of fi les? Then we
would need a “Net Commerce Commis-
sion” to set complicated rate schedules
for carried products, just as the railroads
and pipelines have. You don’t need a Ph.D.
in public policy to see the possibilities for
arguments and lawsuits.—Dave Datz
A VoIP Reality Check
In regard to your IP PBX Buying Guide
(“Small Business Talks Big,” page 67) and
your Solutions article (“Virtual Phone
Systems,” page 79) in your September 4
issue, you make many arguments in favor
of such systems but fail to inform readers
properly about the negatives. I have to
say that the largest issue with the IP PBX
systems you reviewed is reliability. All
those systems are computer-based, and as
we are all painfully aware, computers are
not really reliable.
Phone systems have customized
architectures that were designed from the
ground up to be reliable; they are not based
on a PC architecture that’s over 30 years
old. Newer phone systems include flash
memory for voice storage, instead of hard
drives that wear out. The recurring costs of
hosted phone systems, along with the fact
that you never actually own anything, can
be bested by purchasing a traditional phone
system using a monthly lease payment with
a small buyout at the end of the lease.
In addition, both articles fail to point
out the human element. If you buy or
lease a phone system, you can have tech-
Three Views on Net Neutrality
I read Lance Ulanoff’s column on Net
neutrality (“A Nitwit’s Guide to Net Neu-
trality,” page 7) in the September 18 issue.
Although we are on the same side, I think
his analogy is off. Here is my view of Net
neutrality: I pay my ISP n dollars per
month for x bandwidth. I should be able
to use that bandwidth however I choose.
Ulanoff says: “To be fair, ISPs charge that
bandwidth hogs like Google and You-
Tube pay no more than joesblog.com for
serving content over their networks.”
This is not a fair statement. Google’s ISP
charges Google a ton of money for getting
those bits onto the backbone. And my ISP
charges me for taking those bits off the
backbone. What the ISPs want is for my
ISP to be able to charge Google.
Here is the analogy that I like to use. I
pay my local road commission via prop-
erty taxes so much per year for road con-
struction and upkeep. I use these roads
to go to businesses such as McDonald’s
and Target. But McDonald’s doesn’t give
a dime to my local road commission. It is
freeloading. In a road-unneutral world, my
road commission would ask me where I
was going every time I left my house and
ask that business for a fee. If the business
paid, I could drive 50 miles per hour to that
business. If it didn’t pay, I could only drive
20 MPH and might have to wait longer at
every red light.
The only reason Net neutrality is an
issue is that the ISPs for home users have
an oligopoly—cable and DSL. In a truly
competitive market, I could choose an ISP
that was neutral, and others could choose
an ISP that was “packet-shaped.” I might
pay a little more, but that would be fine.
—Bill Doran
Under Ulanoff’s interpretation of this
issue, no one should ever be allowed to
charge more to provide more service. So I
should be able to get your magazine at the
price I pay for my newspaper, 50 cents, and
a Rolls-Royce for the cost of a Ford Escort.
I already willingly pay more for wireless
broadband than slow dial-up so I can have
faster service. This, like stealing copy-
righted content, is one more example of his
generation’s “something for nothing” atti-
tude. When can I expect my lower-priced
magazine?—Bill Deaver
Here’s another analogy for Net neutrality:
“common carrier,” as applied to railroads
and oil pipelines. In the late 1800s, Ameri-
cans saw two justifi cations for regulating
privately owned railroads. First, to lay
track, railroad companies needed rights
of way through both private and public
land, which required both public support
and full cooperation from the government.
Second, because the public did not want
two or more railroads to compete by laying
parallel tracks through one right of way, a
railroad in that path had monopoly power
that could—and did—selectively ruin cus-
tomers through discriminatory pricing.
So, the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion was born to regulate railroads. The
railroads were called “common carriers,”
and the ICC banned them from using dis-
criminatory pricing—but only for custom-
ers, not for products shipped, for which the
ICC issued rate schedules. So, a railroad
today can charge different rates for cars
and computers, but it cannot discriminate
between Mitsubishi and Yamaha, which
both ship both cars and computers. The
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
applies the same logic to pipelines and oil
companies shipping different kinds of oil.
The common-carrier principles apply
to the Net. Phone and cable companies
cannot string cable or use the air waves
without public and government help, and
communities don’t want multiple cables
covering the same ground. If carriers
could charge different customers different
rates, they would have the power to nour-
ish some customers and to kill others.
To cite the YouTube example, you
cannot use the large size of video files to
 e only reason Net neutrality is an issue is that the
ISPs for home users have an oligopoly—cable and DSL.
In a truly competitive market, I could choose an
ISP that was neutral.
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14 PC MAGAZINE NO
VEMBER 6, 2007