BCP regarding TOS transparancy for internet traffic

Lars Erik Gullerud lerik at nolink.net
Wed May 25 20:27:20 UTC 2005


On Wed, 25 May 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:

> On 5/25/2005 3:42 PM, Lars Erik Gullerud wrote:
>
>> I.e. my customer with two offices who run their own IPSec tunnel between,
>> should in other words no longer be able to pay me for improved delivery
>> without buying a full VPN offering from me (which they don't really need,
>> or want)?
>
> If they don't need or want special handling what are they paying for? But
> since they are paying for it, perhaps its up to you to figure out how to
> deliver on your promise.

But here is what you don't seem to understand - I DO deliver on my 
promise. Said customer's packets WILL get special handling, my backbone 
routers will happily put whatever packets they tag with a non-BE DSCP in 
the appropriate queues as the packet traverses the network. Or if they 
prefer, we can even tag it FOR them on the access router they are 
connected to. Where's the offloaded complexity you refer to?

The "general population", who does NOT pay for that privilege, gets the 
BE-treatment, which is what they pay for. And that requires a rewrite of 
the DSCP/TOS for said traffic, otherwise how do you prevent packets 
from the "general population" filling up the queues you have reserved for 
the customers who pay you more? Rewrite-to-BE is pretty commonplace these 
days you know.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying this service (which a lot 
of ISPs offer, and a lot of customers pay them for), has no right to 
exist, and everyone should go out and buy provider-based VPNs or dedicated 
L2 connectivity instead. The thing is - not all customers WANT a 
provider-based VPN. And if customers want something, you can be sure 
providers are selling it.

> And yet, getting somebody to pay for something/nothing (as the case may
> be) doesn't come with a license to manhandle everybody else's traffic.

Sure it does. There is this new thing called the marketplace. If you pay 
me for special treatment, I will give you special treatment. If you don't, 
then I will carry your traffic according to the terms in your contract, 
which, in the case of best-effort service, is best-effort service. If you 
are unhappy with the service, you can buy a different service, or choose a 
different supplier.

That being said, I don't believe ANYONE has ever complained about their 
packets being "manhandled" by the DSCP being rewritten to BE - even 
customers seem to understand that "you get what you pay for", and special 
treatment in the form of QoS costs more money.

/leg




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