Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality

Mel Beckman mel at beckman.org
Fri Feb 27 19:57:20 UTC 2015


Kevin,

   It is NOT the ISP's responsibility to provide you with X Mbps if that was advertised as "UP TO x Mbps" (which is exactly how every broadband provider advertises its service -- check your contract). We're not talking about the Internet's capacity here. We're talking about the physical limits of an ISPs own uplink connection to the Internet. That costs much more than the income from the number of users it takes to saturate the uplink. 

Any discussion of Internet backbone limitations, while these limitations do in fact exist, has nothing to do with ISP oversubscription, which some are claiming is deceitful. It's not deceitful, it's essential.

See my earlier "iron man" example to Bill.

 -mel


On Feb 27, 2015, at 11:49 AM, "McElearney, Kevin" <Kevin_McElearney at cable.comcast.com>
 wrote:

> [Sorry for top-posting]
> 
> I actually think you are both right and partially wrong.  It IS the ISPs
> responsibility to provide you with the broadband that was advertised and
> you paid for.  This is also measured today by the FCC through Measuring
> Broadband America. 
> http://data.fcc.gov/download/measuring-broadband-america/2014/2014-Fixed-Me
> asuring-Broadband-America-Report.pdf
> 
> That said, your ISP is NOT “the Internet” and can’t guarantee “access the
> Internet sites of my choice at X megabits per second."  While ISPs do take
> the phone call for all Internet problems (sometimes not very well), they
> certainly don’t control all levels of the QoE.  ASPs may have server/site
> issues internally, CDNs may purposely throttle downloads (content owners
> contract commits), not all transit ISPs are created equal, TCP distance
> limitations, etc.
> 
> What would be interesting is if all these rules/principals and
> transparency requirements were to be applied to all involved in the
> consumer QoE.
> 
> 	- Kevin
> 
> On 2/27/15, 1:34 PM, "Mel Beckman" <mel at beckman.org> wrote:
> 
>> Bill,
>> 
>> This is not feasible. ISPs work by oversubscription, so it's never
>> possible for all (or even 10% of all) customers to simultaneously demand
>> their full bandwidth. If ISPs had to reserve the full bandwidth sold to
>> each customer in order to "do everything reasonably within your power to
>> make sure I can access the Internet sites of my choice at X megabits per
>> second", then broadband connections would cost thousands of dollars per
>> month.
>> 
>> Anyone who doesn't understand this fundamental fact of Internet
>> distribution will be unable to engage in reasonable discussion about ISP
>> practices.
>> 
>> On Feb 27, 2015, at 9:56 AM, William Herrin
>> <bill at herrin.us<mailto:bill at herrin.us>>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Deceit is Bad Behavior. If you sell me an X megabit per second
>> Internet access service, you should do everything reasonably within
>> your power to make sure I can access the Internet sites of my choice
>> at X megabits per second.
>> 
> 




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