Net neutrality clarification

I want to make sure I’m clear on what net neutrality entails, because some discussions I’ve had recently made me think that I may be getting the setup wrong.

The way I understand the issue:
[ol]
[li]Some websites, like Youtube, result in the downloading of a very large amount of data compared to other sites, like SDMB[/li][li]ISPs, like AT&T and Comcast would like to be able to charge Youtube and other data-heavy sites a fee. If the fee is paid, then the data flows to the users normally, if the fee is not paid, the data is slowed down. [/li][li]There are also cases when the ISPs might want to slow down competing products regardless of any fees (e.g. provide faster rates to a competing video site that they own vs to Youtube), and also want to control the speed of different classes of data (e.g. P2P, ftp, etc)[/li][li]The above is just meant to control the flow of data from “The Internet” to the user’s home. The flow of data from a website like Youtube to “The Internet” is already paid by Youtube.[/li][/ol]

Are the above statements correct? My main question is about item #4 above.

When you visit Youtube.com, how does the data make its way to you exactly?

Does my ISP handle the entire connection, or does Youtube’s “ISP” handle the data flow from Youtube to some central cloud, and my ISP handles the data flow from that cloud to my home?

Not an expert, but basically you are right.

A company buys an internet connection. With it comes one or more IP addresses. You can have “private” IP addresses behind your firewall/router, but anything going on the internet has a unique public IP address.

In fact, very big companies like YouTube or Google have multiple connections to the inernet, often at different locations, to prevent a single point of failure.

IIRC, the few very big telcos are essentially a “backbone” for all internet traffic from one customer to another. It is possible to buy/rent your own fibre backbone across the USA, and possibly around the world. The flexibility of internet routing protocols - which advertise and find routes and send traffic on them - means you might even be able to let outside traffic use your private network… but why would you? Its costing you big bucks. ATT etc. are getting their money by renting masive connections to other users and resellers of internet services.

So the big telcos generally connect you and YouTube. Microsoft or Google might have a drop in most large cities so you can access their Mail etc. no matter what the telcos do, but in general… it’s through the backbone.

The problem is not just preferential or tariffed access. Should someone be able to sell a service as “The Internet” if, say, they block NetFlix entirely so you must use Big-Telco-Fix service; or they start a bidding war between NetFix and BlockBuster for the right to sevice their clients. OR, they are affiliated with some broadcaster and block the streaming of the shows from competitors. Should they be allowed to demand a share of any purchases on eBay or Amazon? Should they be able to intercept DNS and redirect your browsing, so you think you’re on Google but they send you to Bing because Microsoft pays them to? How about collecting our browsing habits and selling them to advertisers? Intercept web site data and replace the website’s ads with their own? Block VoIP because they are a telephone company and you can’t use a competing service?

Basically, should an internet provider be allowed to monkey with what you get from the web?

Report your web use to sales sites so state sales tax authorities can come after you?

You’ve got things basically right.

For the second part of your question, there are tiers of ISPs. Your ISP has an ISP. The top level are Tier 1 ISPs. The qualification for being a Tier 1 ISP is that you have free peering with all other Tier 1 ISPs. Peering is a connection between two networks - the assumption among Tier 1 networks is that data flow will be roughly equal in both directions, thus the free peering arrangement is mutually beneficial to each party.

Your ISP (and probably their ISP) is not a Tier 1 network, and its bandwidth usage will probably be asymmetric. So they pay for transit rights on bigger and bigger networks until they work their way up to a Tier 1 which can access the whole Internet. A given connection does not necessarily traverse a Tier 1 network; if it happens to be on the same ISP as you or a mid-level provider, traversing a Tier 1 would not be necessary. (But it may go that way anyway, depending on how their routing is set up.)

So between you and YouTube may be any number of ISPs, all of which have peering or transit arrangements with one another. Advocates of net neutrality want these arrangements to be independent of of what’s actually in the data being transmitted or what its final destination may be. You can charge more for using more bandwidth, but not for forwarding traffic on to your competitors.