[ NNSquad ] Re: EVDO Observation

["Fred Reimer" <freimer@ctiusa.com>]

Quotes clipped, comments embedded.

Fred Reimer, CISSP, CCNP, CQS-VPN, CQS-ISS
Senior Network Engineer
Coleman Technologies, Inc.
954-298-1697

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nnsquad-bounces+freimer=ctiusa.com@nnsquad.org
> [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+freimer=ctiusa.com@nnsquad.org] On
> Behalf Of Bob Frankston
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 11:27 PM
> To: 'Robb Topolski'
> Cc: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: EVDO Observation
> 
> This goes to the point I raised earlier -- where is the cap
> meter located.
> Obviously not within my home network. The real question is
> what is the
> factor that the carrier uses to measure the concentration of
> users per
> peered bit which is a real, though artificial cost. How much
> is against
> their own physical infrastructure.
> 
> This is a matter of accounting and the accounting models
> they use -- are
> these models public? Perhaps disclosed to the FCC? It would
> be useful for
> the purpose of the list to understand the assumption they
> are making in
> justifying their pricing/usage model.
> 
[Fred Reimer] 
The whole purpose of this group, as I understand it, is to do
exactly that, discover what, if anything, ISP's are doing to the
traffic that we send on the Internet.  The goals of the group
would immediately be met if ISP's volunteered such information,
or were forced to disclose such information.  I don't know any
that do to a sufficient measure.  It is not sufficient to have
some vague mention in a service agreement or AUP about some
theoretical cap or bandwidth guarantee.  I'd be much more
interested in the actual configurations on the routers and
switches.  Show us the class-map and policy-maps on your routers.
That's all we are after in this group.  It would be for others
(possibly a subset or superset of those on this group) to
determine whether such configurations treat traffic fairly and
are "neutral."  Unfortunately, unless it is regulated to the
extent that "ISP's must disclose any traffic engineering
configurations to the FCC" I don't see a realistic chance that
this will happen.  So, we are left with a precursor task of
trying to find out the configurations of the ISP's equipment
using other methods, before the discussion of what net neutrality
even is or what practices are considered acceptable or not (kind
of a reverse "acceptable use" policy for the ISP's).

I don't think it would be a good use of anyone's time to try and
get into general network management or analysis of Internet
traffic behavior in general.  If we keep the goal in mind, which
is to identify and document any active effort by ISP's to modify
traffic flow, then it may reduce the problem set into something
manageable.  To that end, is anyone aware of any utilities that
can take a traffic capture or other data and produce a guess of
what the possible behavior modifications or alterations by ISP's
may be (what may be the shaping bandwidth specified in the
policy-map, for example)?  It seems like quite a difficult if not
impossible task.

(policy discussion) - I suppose what I am most interested in
initially is network transparency, not necessarily network
neutrality.  Personally, I would not favor a totally neutral
network.  Knowing a bit about both security and VoIP, I see the
technical reasons, and one could argue requirements, for treating
some traffic different.  As said many many times already, that is
discussion for another group.  However, network transparency is
what this group seems to be focused on.  If the network were
transparent, such that we knew what each ISP chose for themselves
as their policy and actual implementation as far as traffic
engineering then we, the people, can either A) have an actual
informed choice as to which ISP we select, or B) agree that there
should be restrictions on what types of preferential treatment
ISP's may impose by way of our government and regulations.  Both
of those discussions are, again, not the purpose of this group as
I understand it.  We are after step 1, making the network
transparent first, before we can get to step 2 and decide what,
if anything, we need to do about any particular ISP or ISP
policy.  Unfortunately, since I believe ISP's will be very
reluctant to sharing their information (they'll use trade secret,
security, and other excuses) I think we are left with finding
small examples of "questionable" behavior, such as ComCast and
their treatment of Bit Torrent traffic, that we can bring to the
attention of the people in order to get some action (regulation)
for forcing network transparency.  Is that the official stated
goal of this group?  I don't believe so, but I think that is the
end result.

Thanks - Fred

   [ This project takes no stance on neutrality regulation -- it's simply out
     of scope for this effort.  I dare say that our personal views about such
     regulation cover a wide range, but these views are not relevant to the
     project.  Some observers seem to feel that the data NNSquad hopes to make
     available will lead to regulation, while others argue that the mere
     presence of an active NNSquad will help persuade ISPs to avoid activities
     that could lead to regulation.

     My view is that the project should collect, analyze, and distribute the
     associated data and reports, and as far as regulation is concerned, let
     the chips fall where they may.
                                       -- Lauren Weinstein
                                          NNSquad Moderator ]

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