Some thoughts about Network Neutrality

I was watching a conference on net neutrality a month or so ago (http://www.netneutrality2008.org/About.html) and I started thinking about the implications of the current situation.

It seems to me that we either will get an internet that gets partitioned hierarchically according to the ISPs wishes and best performance of the internet backbone. Or alternatively IPv6 and wireless routing will force the Internet to become more properly decentralised.

I know theoretically the Internet is decentralised for the perspective of the IP packet, but that does not necessarily mean that the architecture as it is rolled out will be decentralised. I believe we naturally put faith in forms of authority that allow us to go about our daily business in a rational way. Sometimes these authorities abuse their position, but in that case they tend also to lose their authority too.

So what stops us from centralising about the most convenient connection to the internet? (i.e. a reasonably priced ISP) – Not much. Until people are able to freely share their wireless connections with their neighbours and are able to correctly route packets between networks (i.e. when we drop NAT and move to IPv6), I don’t think this will happen.