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Thread ID: 69002	2006-05-19 01:05:00	Net Neutrality	Jimmy D (2061)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
455905	2006-05-19 01:05:00	is it inforced in new zealand? are our ISP's blocking us from sites we love? if you dont know what net neutrality is go here (www.savetheinternet.com) you could also ask a ninja (http://www.askaninja.com)	Jimmy D (2061)
455906	2006-05-19 05:53:00	you could also ask a ninja (http://www.askaninja.com) Not affliated with our much loved and loathed Ninja, I suppose? :lol: No intention of picking on you, Ninja. :p Cheers :)	Renmoo (66)
455907	2006-05-19 06:04:00	.	ninja (1671)
455908	2006-05-19 09:56:00	i've already started a thread on this :P	motorbyclist (188)
455909	2006-05-21 22:37:00	lol no James, the ninja explained it perfectly, i would just like to know if it happens here in NZ? and motorbyclist, would you be so kind to post me the link to your thread? cheers	Jimmy D (2061)
455910	2006-05-22 02:23:00	It opens up too many questions, the majority of which aren't particularly relevant to the New Zealand internet as there aren't any Tier 1 providers here . ISP's in New Zealand have the option to engage in free peering at the local Internet Exchanges, the majority of them do . A couple (notable Telstra/Xtra) do not . ISP's in New Zealand then buy either (or both) national and international connectivity from a Tier 2 provider - Global Gateway/Telstra/MCI-Verizon/AT&T etc . The Tier 2 providers in New Zealand then buy international transit from one or more global carriers, places like Reach, Sprint, Verizon (Alter . Net), AT&T etc who are essentially Tier 1 carriers . Tier 1 carriers are basically giant freely peered interconnected networks . No transit between Tier 1 carriers is really charged for (essentially) . Occasionally you get bust ups or screw ups like the Level 3/Cogent depeering that occured last year - it broke the internet for a lot of people as a good chunk of interconnection was lost . The Net Neutrality stuff really only matters at that level - where the Tier 1 guys play ball . They should (imho) allow free, unfiltered, unprioritised access between all providers/sites/content on their networks - however as private companies they have the right to prioritise etc as they see fit . The Net Neutrality bill was supposed to try and stop that from happening . What can ISP's in New Zealand do? Effectively nothing . It's well above the level of any of the players in New Zealand - sure we have interconnection agreements etc here, but the real internet is overseas . To minimise the impact, NZ ISP's should try and use at least two international carriers with differing upstream providers . So in the event something happens like the Cogent/Level 3 bust up, their customers are not impacted as they can reach those regions of the internet via alternate paths . The WikiPedia article covers this well . . wikipedia . org/wiki/Network_neutrality" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org I personally am not fond of ISP's doing any filtering at all - I like my internet raw and ready thank you very much . But in a position of working for an ISP, there is a real benefit in putting consideration into certain base levels of filtering as a means of protecting your customers from the internet, and protecting the internet from your customers . Like some other ISP's we implement outbound port 25 blocking on dynamic IP ranges for our customers . It annoyed maybe a dozen people who were trying to run their own mail servers on dialup, but our filter counters show it blocking 10's of thousands of attempts from virus owned boxen belonging to our customers - taking a significant threat away from the internet at large . This is obviously no silver bullet, but for the medium term is very effective against current direct SMTP viruses . Another tactic we employ is blocking of known phishing sites . Every time we as net admins see a phising scam float by, or are informed of one via other channels, we try and put filters in to catch the messages and block the sites hosting the scam . It inevitably leads to the odd call from customers "trying to confirm my bank details but the site doesn't work" but on the whole is beneficial . It's arguable that some of these practices could be jeopardised by Net Neutrality if it was legally enforced as it takes away some of the ability to respond immediately to a threat/issue . Remember Blaster (the connect to the internet, machine reboots virus)? The morning that came out, we immediately put an inbound block on the port that the virus was using to compromise machiens - seriously reduced the number of infected customers on our network . For the most part, Network Operators are pretty sensible and responsible . The tech guys will argue the management guys against bad policy decisions that can affect things like this - though not always successfully . (I remember when Telstra de-peered the tech guys basically said "We're sorry, we tried") Anyway for New Zealand, it's not so much a big deal as long as ISP's keep an eye on what their upstream providers are doing .	ninja (1671)
455911	2006-05-22 02:34:00	wow thanks ninja, i pretty much understand how it works now. all i know of over here is traffic like schoolzone is prioritized for schools which is pretty much a good idea :) cheers	Jimmy D (2061)
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