Wish It Were True…

Well a commentator over at Public Knowledge says –

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Monday hearing in Cambridge, Mass., will be a reality check about how control of the Internet can be accomplished, by whom, and what the consequences will be.

Commissioners will have the chance to question, in public, representatives of businesses that could be affected by Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent and to make Comcast defend itself in the face of live criticism from those who know the Internet best. Comcast and the FCC will have to tell David Reed, who originated the “end to end” architecture idea for the Internet why it’s better to have Comcast and other network operators take control, rather than users and content suppliers. BitTorrent will note how the technology is going mainstream, used by such respectable customers as NASA.

We can certainly hope that it is the case. A little blood letting is always good for the tyrant(s). But I suspect that this will be more of a talking head kind of affair. Why? Well consider two facts –

1) The two antagonists Comcast vs Bittorret are on two seperate panels between 2 time intervals. You would really want the have those two representative on the panel at the same time.

2) Bittorrent is not a carrier but a tool. So how does that fit in a discussion from the FCC view as it relates to network management. Bittorrent is not a practice but the cause for having one. Bittorrent will not manage the network. Also keep in mind that Bittorrent is already making moves to defeat the current network mgt tools deployed by Comcast.

Mr. Brodsky, wish this was going to be an a ‘effective’ meeting but I am afraid it is going to be a droll CYA type discussion. The speaker alignment swages against it.

Linky.