The unreasonable extremes of the FreePress Comcast petition

The FreePress Comcast petition alleging that Comcast's network management has violated the FCC's net neutality policy is based on at least four extreme and unreasonable positions by the petitioners.

First, the "pro-neutrality" petitioners are asking the FCC to actively discriminate in favor of the few p2p users at the expense of the vast majority's quality of service. 

• It is extreme and unreasonable to petition that p2p traffic cannot be managed because p2p applications, by design, "efficiency shift."
  • They make downloading more efficient for the few who use the p2p application, by taking away the efficiency of the many by hogging other's bandwidth! 
  • There is nothing neutal at all about p2p!
  • p2p users reach out and consume bandwidth designed for the use of others.  
• In other words, the petitioners have taken the extreme and unreasonable position that p2p users have the unlimited right to consume everyone else's bandwidth even when that usage harms the rights of everyone else. 
  • How is that responsible or rational?

The second extreme and unreasonable position is that the petitioners have proposed fines for Comcast that could total $2.3 trillion! Yes that is a "tr" with that illion.

• The proposed fines are almost a thousand times Comcast's annual revenues! -- Almost the size of the entire U.S. federal budget!
  • Extreme.
  • Unreasonable.
• And they wonder why no one takes them seriously... 

The third extreme and unreasonable position of the petitioners is the level of minutia they expect the FCC to get involved in. 

• Micro-management of network operators is not enough, they demand nano-management!
  • To put this bit-police request in perspective, there are more bits on the Internet than their are grains of sand on the beaches of the world.
    • The petitioners request is like asking the FCC to ensure that all grains of sand are treated equally by incoming waves.
      • Extreme.
      • Unreasonable.
• To further put this preposterousness in perspective...
  • Does anyone think that a regulator should worry itself about investigating whether package delivery competitors (USPS, Fedex, UPS, DHL, or Airborne) treat every package delivery equally?
    • How is a mail-package delivery different than Internet Protocol packet delivery in terms of importance?
    • Why investigate bit packet equality if you don't investigate mail package equality?
    • Shouldn't we have a "investigation neutrality" policy that a FCC bit-packet equality investigation should get no more government resources than a mail-package equality investigation?
      • Fair is fair. 

Finally, the petitioner's expectation that no application will ever be delayed is extreme and unreasonable.

• When Internet network traffic exceeds the available bandwidth, IP packets are dropped or lost. They often eventually get reconstructed and arrive at their destination.
• When too many people try to use the telephone network at once, like they do on Mother's Day, one can get a busy signal. Eventually one gets through.  
• If there is too much usage on a particular cell site at a given point in time, one's cell phone does not get a dial tone. Eventually one can get a dial tone and the call goes through. 
  • Communications networks do not have infinite capacity and are not perfect. Never have been and never will be in the real world.
  • If the petitioners think all IP packets must be treated equally and if they are not, there should be a federal case warranting $2.3 trillion in fines, the petitioners should get a life.
    • Last time I looked... the declaration of independence did not say bits have inalienable rights... and the constitution did not grant bits equal protection under the law.   

Bottom line: The petitioners have lost all sense of proportion and perspective.

• Not only are they "missing the forest for the trees..."
• They are missing the trees for the leaves...
• and they are missing the leaves for the Chlorophyll.