[ NNSquad ] Re: Comments on NNSquad Purpose

["Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501@bobf.frankston.com>]

We need to distinguish between measure like bandwidth and latency over the
complete path vs within a single carriers' facilities. An extreme example is
getting under a megabit per second (which, at one time was pretty good)
between my 50Mbps connection in the US and a site in Hong Kong that might
advertise an even higher speed.

You need to know the two end points.

I'll avoid the policy question of what it means to make sure promises.

-----Original Message-----
From: nnsquad-bounces+bob19-0501=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org
[mailto:nnsquad-bounces+bob19-0501=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org] On Behalf
Of Phil Karn
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 21:33
To: Jay Sulzberger
Cc: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Comments on NNSquad Purpose


 [ This message is passed to the list since it contains discussion
    of technical parameters useful for measurement toolset R&D.
    Any discussion that strays from the technical (and you know
    what I mean) in response to this message will not be approved 
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                                                -- Lauren Weinstein
                                                   NNSquad Moderator ]



Jay Sulzberger wrote:

> our packet streams.  But the fact is that if we give two numbers,
> we have specified how good a Net connection is.
> 
> GIVE ME THE BANDWITH AND LATENCY LIMIT I PAID FOR!
> 
> DO NOT WIRETAP ME DO NOT DEGRADE MY STREAMS.
> 
> For if you do, I will produce evidence gathered by the
> hardworking folk of NNSquad, who use this small suite of Net
> tests, which give me back two numbers: bandwidth and lag.

I can think of three independent figures of merit for network neutrality:

1. Latency. I want to know how network latency changes with independent 
variables such as packet size, packet rate, source, destination, 
transport protocol, application protocol, user data, etc. Several other 
metrics can be expressed entirely in terms of latency: "Packet loss 
rate" is just the fraction of packets with infinite latency. "Bandwidth 
limit" is the packet size * rate product above which latency rises to 
keep the delivered size * rate product constant.

2. Transparency. Does the carrier deliver my packets to their specified 
destinations as I sent them, or are they intercepted and modified in 
some way? Transparent web proxying would be an example of 
non-transparent behavior. NAT would be another, although most NATs are 
under the customer's control and the ISP is to blame only for not making 
enough routeable IP addresses available.

3. Packet spoofing. Does the network inject packets that appear to be, 
but are not from the party with whom I am speaking? (apologies to Lily 
Tomlin) Comcast's TCP reset injection would be an example here.

What do people think of this list? Should anything be added? Changed? 
Redefined?

--Phil