re: Net Neutrality Debate Wydens> What about users who want to stream HDTV down the narrow "hobo class" neutral > bandwidth that you posit? That would block or severely impair TCP data > applications. TCP's dynamics (slow start) are based on everybody going along.
But that is EXACTLY what we have today. Thus the carriers need to do *something* if they want high-quality services to be offered on their networks.
I think that as long as a best-effort channel is available with a non-trivial bandwidth% guarantee, that the principle of fairness is maintained.
This also requires that the carriers are not doing things to foreign packets other than marking them for QoS. (one could artificially rate-limit rather than letting priority queuing handle things. This is one service that Sandburst/Ellacoya, et al provide. It is most often used to keep P2P file sharing from drowning out other services.)
re: Net Neutrality Debate Wydens> What the telcos want to do is charge for their services based on the value > of the content, not their cost of delivering it. This involves "deep packet > inspection", something that is blatantly illegal for common carriers but > tolerated for "information" providers (ISPs). Thus they will demand a take > of each e-commerce purchase and a take from "content" providers. They will > selectively authorize you to visit web sites of their choice (walled garden > -- pay to enter) and read your mail. The IMS model provides tools for this
This isn't a very good take on the problem. Deep packet inspection & filtering is a necessity for operating a network. Period. That is how service providers prevent (active) viruses from spreading and contain denial-of-service attacks.
It is also necessary to have a contract or other understanding as to what exactly comprises high priority traffic. Otherwise anyone can mark a packet as high-priority, and eat into the bandwidth set aside for traffic which genuinely needs it. (picture a VoIP 911 call which gets drowned out because some butthole wants to download a big file, and marks the packets for high priority). To handle this, there needs to be some sort of filters at the entrances to the network which enforce the proper priority tagging and rate limiting. Just rate-limiting isn't enough. If it were, then the current system would suffice, and it does not.
There seems to be a fear about the 'walled garden' scenario, and it would indeed be ugly, anticompetitive, and damaging to the economy. However, it is also unsustainable from a business standpoint, since not every provider is going to play ATT's game.
re: Net Neutrality Debate Wydens> But that is EXACTLY what we have today. > Thus the carriers need to do *something* if they want high-quality services to be offered on their networks.
I think you, like most people here, are conflating the instant situation (how ISPs behave in a competitive market, facing today's demands) with the potential situations. For instance, I was reasonably comfortable going outside today wearing a parka with an insulated hood and ski gloves. However, I'd be uncomfortable dressed that way in, say, July. Comfort requires the ability to respond to changing conditions.
Verizon can already offer high-quality video and audio services. FiOS, for instance, is an ATM-based network with a lambda dedicated to HFC-type streams. What's missing that needs the IP stream, which runs atop one ATM PVC, to be buggered? Even most ADSL has an ATM layer beneath the IP; why not have separate virtual channels? Cable does Video On Demand on digital cable carriers, not the cable modem stream.
IP networks are managed, in reality, by threats. If one ISP is seen as spam-friendly, then it can be blacklisted by others. No regulators, no questions asked. Hell, I often lose my subscription to the isp-clec mailing list because some dumb-arsed blacklist bot puts them on their blacklist, which my mail service provider uses. I don't like losing good mail like that but recognize that the spam flood has to be fought. And so do other threats. Since IP is just a datagram stream, there is not much that can be done to manage traffic flows except to throw packets on the ground. And there are times when that has to be selective.
The quality of service provided by an ISP is somewhat dependent on how well they select which packets to deliver and which to discard. I just don't want the selection made by a monopoly carrier for its own commercial or political reasons, when I have no real choice of alternatives. (Duopoly does not count.)
re: Net Neutrality Debate Wydensspel> Deep packet inspection & filtering is a necessity for operating a network. Period. That is how service providers prevent (active) viruses from spreading and contain denial-of-service attacks.
Uh, no. Email servers at the edge of the network might block mail-borne viruses, and it's necessary to detect other kinds of malware flowing all over. But the DPI I'm talking about -- the stuff Rod Randall is trying to sell in his famous Don't Get Skyped presentation -- is there to tap the "value" of the payload. It is there, in his classic example, to charge for email sent to other's servers in order to protect SMS revenue. It is there to detect downloads, in order to charge for them, not by the byte but by the imputed value.
>... However, it is also unsustainable from a business standpoint, since not every provider is going to play ATT's game.
But you miss the point. SBC (faux-AT&T) could never do this when other ISPs were out there. THAT is why they pushed so hard for 02-33, to kick the other ISPs out. They can only sell Fat Wasteband, Broadband Internet's Evil Twin, if there is no reasonably-priced Internet alternative. It is a monopolist's scenario, and they have Kevin Martin's full support in being that monopolist. It is targeted for 2008, to take effect just before the election cycle. Funny coincidence.
re: Net Neutrality Debate WydensThe ISPs with any real power are also the long distance and local dial tone carriers. Tier 2 carriers support the QoS fees, since they don't want to get charged any more than what they are already paying. The tier 1's business model to recover their IP networks are: - Through lesser tier providers (direct to customer resellers like Earthlink, AOL), and LECs. - The resellers and LECs recover their networks directly from the customer. - Some companies act as a tier 1, a LEC, and a wholeseller such as Qwest, Verizon, SBC/ATT.
Years ago, this business model worked fine, subsidized by VC capital and cash cow services such as long distance, business voice/dial tone. Those trusty revenue streams are drying up, while the IP networks have increased in usage.
So now, the tier 1s and LECs are looking at their old business model, and they see a group involved in heavy use of their networks who don't pay them directly to be on it. So they propose this QoS business model so that Goog, eBay, Bandwidth-happy-content-providerX can save their business.
No use playing the blame gameGǪ like it or not, the old business model no longer works, and if the tier 1s and LECs don't do something, everyone (customer, reseller, tier 1, LEC, content provider) will suffer. Is the solution for the tier 1s and LECs to get back to the drawing board and develop a better business model with the existing paying players? Do they simply charge higher rates to the existing players? Or is it legitimate for them to add content providers as PAYing players in the grand scheme of things?
re: Net Neutrality Debate WydensAfter all the discussion I think dh44 post #7 is the one that I anticipated would be a solution, but then it is based on common sense, compromise and experience.
"Why not compromise and mandate that the SPs have to reserve a TBD minimum percentage of "best effort", "net-neutral" bandwidth in their networks at all times. That way as SPs expand their networks to keep up with demand for premium services, they will also have to maintain a pre-determined level of "free" bandwidth."
re: Net Neutrality Debate Wydensold> Please amplify/describe 02-23 and it's effect.
FCC WC Docket 02-33 was the one that cancelled the Computer II rules and removed common carrier status from ILEC DSL services.
Under Computer II, the rule that took effect in 1983, LECs who provided enhanced services or terminal equipment were required to do so on an arms'-length basis, through a Fully Separate Subsidiary (relaxed in Computer III to accounting safeguards). Any underlying network capabilities used by their own enhanced services had to be made available, on the same terms, to other providers. This allowed the Internet to happen; ISPs could purchase whatever raw telecom services the LECs wanted. Computer II prevented the ILECs from designing ISDN and ATM around "teleservices" (turning the phone network into a big time-sharing system) and allowed the Internet to grow up instead. Computer II required ILECs to offer DSL as a raw telecom service to ISPs, as well as to their own captive ISPs. Hence Earthlink, Galaxy, and a lot of other ISPs could ride ILEC DSL pipes.
Powell proposed 02-33 but such a radical change met a lot of opposition so no action was taken. Then in 2004, VZ and SBC filed forbearance petitions, asking for basically the same thing. Forbearance petitions take effect unless the FCC acts. The Martin FCC then acted last summer, granting the petitions and approving 02-33, effective one year hence (though VZ has asked to hurry it). So no common carriage any more. ILECs can offer enhanced services without offering the underying service to other enhanced service providers. That is what led to the Network Neutrality debate: The threat that customers could switch to other ISPs was a powerful incentive to keep the Internet open. With that threat gone, the ILECs can commence modeling their monopoly ISPs after their Wireless Web abominations.
BTW, the FCC's pathetically-weak excuse was that the Supreme Courts' decision in Brand X led to it, but if you actually read Brand X, you'll know that it said just the opposite. Brand X held that the FCC was just barely within their allowable "Chevron deference" when they made a weak decision to not regulated cable modems as common carriers, and that it was therefore tolerable to have cable and ILECs regulated differently. It explicitly did not rule on the abolition of common carriage for ILECs.
re: Net Neutrality Debate WydensWhile the debate runs over here on the LightReading site it is fun to notice the report on Unstrung that Google is to team with EarthLink to promote a WiFi service that has a two tier fee structure!
Of course, this is two tier from the user vewpoint (free for basic or pay for better) but the next step would be "let advertisers pay for better service to users"...
re: Net Neutrality Debate WydensI believe message#6 by fgolstein very clearly explains the ramifications of violating net neutrality."CONTENT NEUTRAL" as fgolstein puts it should be the mantra.
The QoS etc are just red herrings thrown by the ILECS and lobbyists. Bits should be priced as bits and not not the value of the content.
If we let the ILECs get their way, we will keep living in telecommunication dark ages.
> bandwidth that you posit? That would block or severely impair TCP data
> applications. TCP's dynamics (slow start) are based on everybody going along.
But that is EXACTLY what we have today.
Thus the carriers need to do *something* if they want high-quality services to be offered on their networks.
I think that as long as a best-effort channel is available with a non-trivial bandwidth% guarantee, that the principle of fairness is maintained.
This also requires that the carriers are not doing things to foreign packets other than marking them for QoS. (one could artificially rate-limit rather than letting priority queuing handle things. This is one service that Sandburst/Ellacoya, et al provide. It is most often used to keep P2P file sharing from drowning out other services.)