Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality

Fri Feb 27 20:18:06 UTC 2015

On 27/02/2015 2:50 PM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
>> I have to take exception to your example.
>>
>> Water, gas, and to a great extent electrical systems do not work on
>> oversubscription, ie their aggregate capacity meets or exceeds the needs of
>> all their customers peak potential demand, at least from "normal" demand
>> standpoint.
>
> Hi Scott,
>
> Do you propose that Internet access service should NOT be expected to
> meet peak "normal" demand? That would certainly make ISP operating
> models unique among public utilities.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>

I've worked on both data network (Canada's X.25 Datapac) and 
circuit-switched network provisioning (Nortel's DMS switches, and some 
of my contributions appear in the ITU-T Orange Book). Circuit-switched 
provisioning had the useful concept of "grade of service". This meant 
that you set a target probability of delay or loss for a given load 
level on the network (Average Busy Season Busy Hour, 10 High Day Busy 
Hour, separate targets for each and provision to the most binding).

The same general concepts surely apply to IP network provisioning: you 
know you can't economically serve all the traffic at the absolute peak, 
but you set reasonable targets, assure yourself by simulation and 
analysis that your design will meet the target, and build accordingly.

Tom Taylor
>
>