Miles Fidelman <mfidelman(_at_)meetinghouse(_dot_)net> wrote:
John Leslie wrote:
Since no current ISP "provides the capability to transmit data
to and receive data from all or substantially all Internet endpoints,"
it's hard to see what the folks who wrote this think they're going
to regulate.
Wait a minute... isn't the Internet "capital I" defined precisely by the
collection of IP addresses that are reachable from each other?
I'm not aware of any definition which says that...
If you can't exchange IP packets with an endpoint, is it really on the
Internet?
The "Internet" is, by all definitions, one particular "network of
networks" which uses the IP protocol.
Thus, IMHO, an endpoint is "on the Internet" if it connects to one
of the networks in that particular "network of networks".
(Yes, NAT confuses things a bit - but arguably it's the public address
of a NAT device that's the "Internet endpoint").
That is a reasonable interpretation. But, I must disagree that there
is any generally-accepted definition of the term "Internet endpoint".
And yes, firewalls also complicate matters - but, the "Internet
wallplug" in my office has the "capability" to exchange packets with
all other IP addresses on the net
Fascinating... I've never heard of an "Internet wallplug" before...
- but that doesn't require that they be willing (or able) to respond.
I can understand your exception re: "willing"; but it seems strange
to claim that an "Internet endpoint" which is "unable" to respond fits
the new FCC definition.
Please understand what ISPs actually do:
1. We receive packets and _try_ to route them to another node which we
have reason to be "closer" to the destination address;
2. We advertise our "closeness" to particular ranges of IP addresses.
That's it, folks. Whatever else we do in support of these cannot
change the fact that we cannot deliver packets "to" most IP addresses;
and we cannot even know whether a packet we may deliver to a customer
is actually "from" a particular IP address (least of all whether it
is in response to a packet our customer asked us to forward).
It's all "best effort" -- which means we make no representation
whether any packet will reach the nominal destination.
Miles Fidelman
--
John Leslie <john(_at_)jlc(_dot_)net>