U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R. AL) has taken a lot of flak for recent arguments he presented regarding Net Neutrality. I don't think I agree with his political position, but that's not the focus of this post. Sen. Stevens' 'crime' appears to be his use of the word 'tubes' to describe the architecture of the Internet: "The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's, it's a series of tubes,".
Geeks everywhere jumped on him for this, claiming that his 'tubes' analogy demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic Internet structure. I don't know anything about Sen. Stevens. I'd never heard of him prior to the 'tubes' controversy. I do feel that he's been unduly criticised over his choice of terminology by a community that freely uses the terms 'pipes' and 'soda straws' to describe the same thing.
Fair is fair, right? When a geek subscribes to a faster 'Net service, he or she typically refers to it as having gotten a 'bigger pipe'. Similarly, we tease our less-fortunate colleagues who (still?) live in dial-up land as having 'soda straw' connections.
My guess is that Sen. Stevens probably isn't really up to speed on Internet architecture. Few lawmakers can keep pace with the technologies they're charged with regulating (again - not a subtopic for this particular post). If the guy deserves criticism, let's not throw the stones which break the windows in our own glass houses. Fallacious arguments only serve to dilute the credibility of the accuser.
One request. As I know next to nothing about Sen. Stevens and I'm not yet well-informed about the Net Neutrality debate, kindly avoid these topics in any comments you might have. Thx!
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