Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Op-Ed Contributor

A Net Game for Google?

Portland, Ore.

MY three young sons never hit each other. They may poke, push, graze, bump or even slap, but they never hit, because Mom says hitting isn’t allowed. This same semantic technique fits the mind-set of technology companies like Google. The geekier these companies are, the more tactical is their use of language.

And so in last week’s controversy over whether Google and Verizon are hatching a deal to undermine net neutrality, it pays to look closely at their words. Both companies maintain that there is no deal and that no money will be paid for faster transmission of data. This is probably true in a literal sense, though something is clearly happening between the companies. I think Google has just found a way to fool Mom.

Net neutrality is the concept that all data packets are created equal and Internet service providers should not give priority to one kind of data (say, video conferencing) over another (say, e-mail). Internet partisans love net neutrality while telephone companies tend not to. Why not allow e-mail to run a little slower, they argue, if that lets services that need higher performance run faster? The difference is payment: users and the Federal Communications Commission worry that once a differentiation is made, the service providers will start charging for faster service and poorer users will suffer as a result. It’s a slippery slope.

Google has always been firmly on the side of net neutrality. So the news of a deal between Google and Verizon — one of the country’s largest broadband service providers — has caused consternation throughout geekdom. Has Google turned on its principles? The company says no, but then Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, has been making murky statements differentiating between wireless and wired data, suggesting to some a repudiation of neutrality. The truth is probably that Google has found a way to get special treatment from Verizon but without actually compromising net neutrality.

To see how it could work, you need to know a little about Google’s network of data centers, those windowless buildings around the country containing the servers that answer search queries, show maps, provide e-mail service and download YouTube videos. Several years ago, the company found a way to build a data center quickly and easily by simply filling a warehouse with stacked shipping containers — each one filled with computers. You just plug the containers together and flip the switch. Clever.

Google actually borrowed the shipping container concept from The Internet Archive, a digital library, which envisioned using such containers to replicate its archive in locations all around the world. Once Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, learned how they could work, he saw shipping containers as a way for Google, too, to get its data closer to users.

Proximity to users is important because of the way that data moves around the Internet — by hopping from one router to another. Each router looks at the packet of data and sends it on in the appropriate direction; the average data packet hops 18 times as it makes its way across the Internet. Because each hop takes time — only a matter of milliseconds, but still measurable time — the best way to speed transmission is to reduce the hops. This can be done either by creating a figurative fast lane, which violates net neutrality, or by simply putting the data closer to the user, which doesn’t.

Google’s agreement with Verizon could very well be merely a way for Google to get its data closer to users, by dropping its shipping containers into Verizon data centers, or perhaps their parking lots. The phone company’s data centers, after all, are typically only one or two hops from Internet users.

With servers so close to users, Google could not only send its data faster but also avoid sending it over the Internet backbone that connects service providers and for which they all pay. This would save space for other traffic — and money for both Verizon and Google, as their backbone bills decline (wishful thinking, but theoretically possible). Net neutrality would be not only intact, but enhanced.

Ideally, Google would pay Verizon not for priority carriage but for holding and powering its shipping containers. And the differentiation between wired and wireless networks may well be about the phone company not wanting to give shipping container access to its wireless data centers, since they could flood the limited wireless capacity.

Why wouldn’t the companies just tell us what they’re up to? If my guess is right, then I would think they’re silent because it’s a secret. They’d rather their competitors not know until a few hundred shipping containers are in place — and suddenly YouTube looks more like HBO.

Don’t tell Mom.

Robert X. Cringely is the author of the blog “I, Cringely.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section WK, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Net Game for Google?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT