In the past few months there's no doubt that a majority of
the articles in this blog have been critical of TWIT. I'd hope that the criticism could be taken as
constructive instead of denigrating but ego can get in the way. There's no shortage of fanboy shills in any
TWIT chatroom or forum discussion but you learn nothing from people who always
agree with you.
That said, credit where credit is due. To many, it's obvious what's wrong with TWIT
these days but what about what's right? Happily,
every now and then the cream rises to the top and we get an experience that
delivers on the promise of what TWIT
could be or at least what many thought it once was.
This week's episode of Security
Now provided one of those moments...
TWIT's weekly foray into the world of online security hosted
by Steve Gibson (Security guru and
creator of SpinRite) and Leo Laporte tries to unravel topics that can often
leave even the most geeky of techies dazed and confused.
The average show presents complex security topics in a
comprehensive yet understandable format with the aim of educating a wider
audience. Whether you're an IT pro or
dyed in the wool techie, Steve's got your fix but even the casual viewer will
find something of value here.
This week
was a little different, however. There
was still in depth coverage of the latest security concerns but the program
started with a discussion between Laporte, Gibson and guest Brett Glass best known for creating
the world's first Wireless ISP (WISP) in Laramie Wyoming otherwise known as Lariat.
The conversation started out friendly enough with the topic
being Net Neutrality but soon became a debate with Glass advocating for ISP's,
Laporte for content producers and Gibson as the somewhat unwilling referee.
For the most part It stayed civil but upon Glass's dissertation
on the woes of high bandwidth use content producers "unfairly"
burdening ISP's "limited" bandwidth Laporte rose in opposition.
From the podcast transcript...
BRETT: ...So the chairman
of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, went ahead and proposed that, when they made some new
rules to try to keep ISPs from misbehaving, they allow what's called
"two-sided markets." And
immediately there was this tremendous hue and cry that you're hearing all over
the Internet: "Oh, no, that's
creating a fast lane. That's somehow
unfair." Most of this was actually
the result of lobbying by Netflix and Google, who simply didn't want any of the
money to flow back from them to the ISPs.
They wanted to keep it all. And
so when you hear people talking about that, that's, you know, a lot of it is
due to the publicity campaigns by the content providers that want to keep more
of the total money that the customer is paying.
STEVE: That does make a lot of sense, Brett.
LEO: Not to me. But I'd like to jump
in. It makes no sense at all.
BRETT: Please.
LEO: What you're saying is of course you want to make more money. I don't blame you. That's exactly what Comcast wants to do, and
so does Google, and everybody else wants to make more money. What doesn't make sense is for you to undercharge and then
draw more money from the provider. You
need to charge what your service costs you.
And the problem is not Netflix, which can afford it, or Google, which
could afford it, but TWiT, which can't afford it.
So what you're telling me
is that, if I wanted access, and your customers were downloading a lot of TWiT,
I'd have to give you some money. That's
not how the Internet was designed, Brett.
You know that perfectly well. It
was never designed for edge providers to pay Internet service providers. You're a utility. You provide a utility. It's as if the water company says, well,
you're drinking an awful lot of water.
We're going to have to figure out some way to get some money from the
reservoir. Your job is to provide free
access to the Internet. Why is that not
your job?
And
with that we were off to the races...
Everyone
likes a good debate but this wasn't about the conflict between two obviously
opposing viewpoints.
To be clear, I wasn't looking for the podcast version of
some Jerry Springer chair throwing exchange.
Rather it was about that one delicious moment where Laporte elevated
TWIT's content above the mediocrity viewers have been subjected to in recent
months. Anyone watching would have seen
Laporte advocating not only for himself but his viewers.
Glass'
presentation, on the other hand, ultimately made him look like an industry
shill and Laporte was having none of it.
Glass' ridiculous assertion of the "suffering" of ISP's at the
hands of the likes of Netflix held no water.
Perhaps
Laporte did a little research on Glass prior to the show. A quick search found almost the same
arguments from Glass in a forum discussion
about Time Warner abandoning usage caps in 2009.
Watch the video below and see if you agree that this was a
splendid example of the kind of programming that we need to see more of on
TWIT.
