[ NNSquad ] LARIAT comments to the FCC regarding Comcast

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.net>]

BEFORE THE
Federal Communications Commission
WASHINGTON, D.C.

In the matter
of

        

        

) WC Docket No.
07-52
Broadband Industry
Practices

    

)

Laurence Brett (?Brett?) Glass, a sole proprietor doing business as
LARIAT, a wireless Internet service provider in Albany County,
Wyoming,  responds to the Public Notices issued by the FCC?s
Wireline Competition Bureau on January 13, 20081 with the following
comments. He further prays for dismissal of the Petition for Declaratory
Ruling and Petition for Rulemaking filed by Free Press et al and Vuze,
Inc., respectively.2 This document, which contains corrections of minor
typographical and grammatical errors, supercedes and replaces an earlier
comment also submitted on February 13, 2008.

1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

LARIAT was among the first, if it was not the very first, of the
approximately 8000 wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) now doing
business within the continental United States. With more than 15 years of
experience and an Electrical Engineer (MSEE Stanford 1985) at the helm,
LARIAT provides high quality broadband Internet to a large and growing
service area, less than 5% of which has access to ?wired? broadband
options (e.g. DSL or cable modem service). It also competes gamely with
much larger providers ? including Bresnan Communications and Qwest ? in
the few more densely populated areas of Albany County where these
services are deployed.

While LARIAT has been severely disadvantaged by current spectrum
allocation policies, which make it impossible for any small ISP to obtain
licensed radio spectrum at a reasonable cost, it has nonetheless been
able to employ careful engineering and unlicensed (Part 15) spectrum to
provide service to areas which other providers cannot reliably
reach.  It likewise employs sophisticated technological solutions ?
including P2P mitigation, traffic prioritization, and caching ? to
provide customers with fast, economical service despite the extremely
high cost of Internet backbone bandwidth in Albany County, where
wholesale monthly charges range from $100 per megabit per second (Mbps)
to several hundred dollars per Mbps.

Petitioners, as well as commenters who advocate of an overly expansive
definition of  ?network neutrality,? are in essence asking the FCC
to ban these technologies. However, these technologies constitute
reasonable network management and are vital to keeping networks running
smoothly ? often in the face of attempts, by computer hardware and
software, to monopolize and/or abuse them.

Should the FCC mandate that small, independent, and/or rural ISPs cease
to employ these and similar technological measures to ensure the quality
of their service,  many or most small, local operators would have to
raise prices dramatically or quit business.

47 USC § 230(b) states that it is the policy of the United States to
?promote the development of the Internet and other interactive computer
services and other interactive media? ? and also ?to preserve the vibrant
and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and
other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State
regulation.? Regulation and micromanagement of Internet service providers
would be contrary to this policy and would hinder innovation and
broadband deployment.

2. DISCUSSION

Both the Vuze Petition and the Free Press Petition ask the FCC to
prohibit network management practices such as the prioritization of
certain forms of traffic and restrictions on the use of so-called
peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols ? including, but not limited to, BitTorrent.
This discussion will explain why prohibitions on reasonable network
management could hobble or preclude the deployment of many useful
Internet applications, such as VoIP. It will also explain the economic
motivations of Vuze and similar companies who may petition the Commission
to force ISPs to allow unfettered use of P2P.

....

Full text:

http://tinyurl.com/2wf6nd