NANOG as the Internet government?

Tue Aug 30 19:25:03 UTC 2005

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005, J. Oquendo wrote:

> /* ARTICLE
> Does the model still work? I'm not sure. In my view, the biggest concerns
> facing the Internet today are regulatory and operational, rather than
> technical. For example, how do we encourage providers to respect each
> other's QoS tags? Is it acceptable for providers to censor traffic for
> competitive advantage? Should providers be required to devote some of
> their revenues toward services "for the common good," such as universal
> Internet access?
> */

> Not only that how many large providers are willing to take a hit in the
> pockets getting everything running the way it should be run. Why should
> they when they could do some shoddy patchwork until the next big hit.

It's more than just that.  The article excerpt above mentions:

>> For example, how do we encourage providers to respect each other's QoS
>> tags?

This part is *not* regulatory in nature; it's financial.  QoS is still (even
today) a lucrative market.  Why would Tier-1 A care to carry packets from
Tier-1 B at a higher priority than anyone else's, unless Tier-1 B paid more
$$$ for the privilege?  If regulation were to step into this market, you'd
have the entire industry crying foul.

The other way round, however:

>> Is it acceptable for providers to censor traffic for competitive
>> advantage?

is indeed a regulatory issue.  For the most part, Tier-1s and other
providers high up the food chain don't filter because doing so is (1) too
much of a load on switching hardware, (2) too much risk of violating peers'
or downstreams' contracts, or (3) both.  The issue of traffic filtering is
much more prominent with the small-fries and leaf networks.

These two rhetorical questions are pretty clear.  Unfortunately, the
dividing area between regulatory and non-regulatory issues is a deep gray,
and it's much broader than most netizens realize.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv at duh.org> <tv at pobox.com> <todd at vierling.name>