NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Google response to WSJ 12/15/08 "Fast Track on the Web" story
Now you know why every Net Neutrality bill ever proposed all specifically target broadband and they don't apply to the type of non-neutral advantages that large dotcom companies can buy. Content caching [usually in the form of Content Delivery Networks (CDN)] is ultimate fast track mechanism for content distribution. Content caching is the only model that supports on-demand high quality video, not P2P or network prioritization. Content caching shows why the Internet never has and never will be equal. The Internet is only equal to those who can buy the same infrastructure but it's never been equal to everyone at any price. Richard Bennett also debunks this myth that everything has to be equal here http://bennett.com/blog/2008/12/google-gambles-in-casablanca/. Network prioritization is designed for a totally different purpose but people confuse it for a content delivery mechanism when it isn't. Network prioritization ensures that a network can support multiple applications as well as possible. That means bandwidth should be intelligently prioritized in favor of interactive applications with low duty cycles over background applications with non-stop usage. That means background applications aren't affected in terms of average bandwidth but the interactive application improves substantially. This does not conflict with the purpose of protocol agnostic network management which is designed to ensure equitable distribution of bandwidth between customers of the same broadband service tier. This system relies on a priority budget system to prevent users and application developers from abusing the system by labeling every packet as top priority. The other purpose of network prioritization is to mitigate jitter (large spikes in packet delay) which can even occur at very low network utilization levels. To fix this, we have to deliver the packets out-of-order such that the network toggles between packets of different applications at a higher rate which prevents real-time applications from timing out. Some will consider this "cutting in line" but it isn't because some applications pack the line with 10 to 100 times more packets and a smart network will quickly alternate between the different applications to prevent starvation. I cover this in my new report on network management released last Thursday. http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=205 The problem with Net Neutrality legislation is that they either try to ban network prioritization outright (Wyden bill in 2006) or they try to prohibit differentiated pricing and give everyone priority regardless of source (Snowe/Dorgan and Markey in 2006). The anti-tiering legislation effectively breaks prioritization because if every packet is prioritized, then no one is prioritized. If we can't look at the source of the packets, we can't determine whether people have exceeded their budgets and it's impossible to enforce a fair prioritization scheme. If we can't have differentiated pricing, then there's no effective way we can give people a priority budget which means there's no way to enforce a fair and meaningful prioritization scheme. The end result is that all the Net Neutrality proposals make it impossible to have a network prioritization system which makes broadband a less useful network that multitasks poorly. George Ou -----Original Message----- From: nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of Lauren Weinstein Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 9:52 PM To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Cc: lauren@vortex.com Subject: [ NNSquad ] Google response to WSJ 12/15/08 "Fast Track on the Web" story Google response to WSJ 12/15/08 "Fast Track on the Web" story http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/net-neutrality-and-benefits-o f-caching.html --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator