NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: FCC paths to Internet network management? A thin thin slice of pie anyone?
At the risk of sounding like, well you know who, what is this concept of "disrupting others"? Isn't that the whole point of the first amendment and any marketplace? By its very nature we have competing interests. The question is how these competing interests are resolved. If you have a fixed pie then you may not a have a good solution and, as Lauren points out, if one of the competitors owns the pie and treats any sharing as a concession we have the situation we have now. Fortunately we do not have a fixed pie. So why are we spending nearly 100% of our effort fighting over crumbs? And worse, why are we fighting over a micro-pie when it's totally and 100% artificial. If the citizens of Laramie cannot get it together to pool their efforts into requiring a DSL modem on every copper pair for $50 or less or fiber to dwellings (MDU or single family homes) for $1k, then that's their decision. And their remaining options are meager -- you can read Turnbull's "The Mountain People" to understand the effects of extreme poverty. Of course even with an unlimited pie we'd still have behavior that we'd want to control by policy -- but it's not network policy just normal social policy like discouraging harassment. At least with bits we can choose to use technology rather. I've pretty much given up opening up my paper may -- now that I can get most of my bills online I shuffle through paper envelopes in case there's a real letter buried somewhere in the pile. For the most part, disruption is a necessary and vital source of economic vitality and to have a third party with an inherent conflict of interest preventing disruption is self-inflicted damage. If you've chosen a small pie you don't have any good options so the only response is to explain to those people that they should just get a larger pie. For those with large pies (as with "broadband") the consequences are less dire and we should emphasize that the Internet protocols are designed to support statistically fair sharing but without promises. You are still fighting over a fixed pie and anyone making promises is either lying or strongly biased to particular usage models. What is important is that we focus most of our attention on eliminating the scarcity. This means growing the pie as we can while accepting the limitations at scale. If I'm sharing a gigabit pipe among ten people than I may have trouble if I want 50 2Mbps HD streams at once. We'll just have to live with that limit until the pie grows some more. I know it's tough but so be it. BTW, I changed my FiOS service to 20/20 decided to do some simple tests -- using http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest (without judging whether it's an effective test) I used to get 4Mbps to me from LA. I tried the metering last night (admittedly at night) and got 10/10. So just to be safe I tried again just now during the day and got 13/11. Is the pie growing? NY went from 20/18 last night to 20/11 just now. I do see the effect of rate-limiting. With 50Mbps (50/5) service I could get 34Mbps from NY but now got just above 20. This is a very interesting result -- David Reed has observed that latency goes down as the net grows. These results make a lot of sense because as the net grows we use more long haul fiber links rather than having to pass through a myriad of routers because eliminating intermediate routers boosts performance and we have the funding for simple solutions. Yet our Malthusian fixed pie assumption is so deeply embodied in our psyche that we seem unable to act rationally even when the evidence for abundant capacity is all around us. -----Original Message----- From: nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of Lauren Weinstein Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 01:53 To: Brett Glass Cc: Lauren Weinstein; nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: FCC paths to Internet network management? (from IP) The following is my personal opinion, not a statement on behalf of NNSquad. At the risk of sounding a bit like Bob Frankston, I don't accept the premise that ISPs have any intrinsic right to monitor my applications and micromanage my use of the Internet, beyond flow control as necessary to keep their networks healthy. Even the fact that a user is choosing to run application A or application B can be viewed as an element of content that should be none of the ISPs' business. Even if users choose to run 24/7 VPNs, with all applications layered within those encrypted channels, ISPs' main concerns should be that those subscribers' bandwidth usage stays within their contractual limits and that their overall throughput is managed to the extent necessary to avoid unfair impacts on other subscribers or the network itself. This implies that any subscriber should be able to run servers if they wish. If a subscriber were determined to be engaging in illegal activities or actions that were disrupting other users (e.g. spam), they would be subject to appropriate actions, of course, but it's inappropriate to treat subscribers as if they were untrustworthy crooks on an a priori basis. "Disrupting other users" by this definition doesn't include the simple running of protocols that make heavy use of subscribed circuits. If ISPs have a problem with user throughput, they should be able to throttle the speed (not block!) as necessary. But such throttling rules should be spelled out clearly, so that when a person pays for a circuit of a specific advertised "up to this speed," they have some clue as to what they're actually paying for. This all doesn't address the problem of how to avoid ISPs managing bandwidth in ways that favor their own entertainment and related delivery systems over outside services, but that's another story. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator - - - > At 10:48 PM 2/28/2008, Lauren Weinstein wrote: > > > >Brett Glass says: "Sixth, there should be no obfuscation of P2P." > > > >Bzzzz! Sorry, no can do, at least if we're talking about some sort > >of enforced ban. I'm personally not a user of P2P currently, but I > >reserve the right to encrypt any or all of my Internet traffic for > >security and privacy purposes as I see fit, and most security > >consultants worth their salt recommend encrypting as much as > >possible, given the nature of the Internet today. > > Encrypt the content if you will, but if you try to obfuscate the > fact that you are DOING P2P, in violation of a contract you made > with your ISP, you are being dishonest. And if you announce from > the start your intent to be dishonest, then there can never be > a truce, much less a mutually beneficial agreement. And you will > be exactly the kind of customer whom we will be glad to send > packing. We like doing business honestly, with honest people. > > --Brett Glass >