Transparency Is Good But Intelligence Is Better

[Commentary] Sending bits across the web is far more complicated than most people may realize. Those bits pass through pipes owned by different companies, multiple routers, a variety of servers and even your home equipment, which means a transparent window on what an ISP is doing doesn't always mean you can watch a live broadcast without significant skips, buffering and other problems that may have a web user railing against their broadband provider. Not to say that the FCC rules aren't a good thing, but getting a quality video or even web site experience isn't just an ISP issue, nor will network neutrality ensure high-quality video delivered via broadband. So what does this mean for those of us who just want their online video to work? Knowing what your ISP is doing to your traffic is a key step, but for the best experience, I think there's a market for a network intelligence-gathering service offered ideally by the content provider that a user can click on to get a sense of what issues might be halting content between the provider and the user's home. Maybe the button starts a ping test and delivers the results in a user-friendly format noting which servers may be causing problems.