What Net Neutrality should and should not cover

Mon Apr 28 04:31:37 UTC 2014

>> #4 On QoS (ie fast lane?):
>> In some of the articles I skimmed there was a lot of talk about fast lane
>> traffic but what this sounds like today would be known as QoS and
>> classification marking that would really only become a factor under
>> instances of congestion. The tech bloggers and journalists all seems to be
>> unanimously opposed to this but I admit I am sort of scratching my head at
>> the outrage over something that has been in prevalent use on many major
>> networks for several years.
>
>It's prevalent on private work networks and users hate it. It
>generally disables activities the network owners don't approve of
>while engaging in doubletalk about how they're OK with it. Users don't
>want to see this migrate outward.
>
>Regards,
>Bill Herrin

A couple of things come into play here, I think:

1.  Prevalence of congestion on shared-bandwidth media, e.g. cable.
2.  Who controls the QoS?

A thumbsuck seems to indicate that #1 is high or at least significant enough to cause user-visible impact in e.g. places where cable internet providers in the US don't face any real competition.  So, QoS measures can come into play in those locales/situations.

For #2:  QoS is good.  Deciding which traffic gets passed and which dropped in congestion is, in and of itself, a good ability to have and can be a great value-added service.  "You want to run VoIP on the same line as your regular data but want to ensure your VoIP traffic gets through?  No problem:  Here's our QoS-Extraordinaire service!"  The concern comes from the direction the rules seem to be taking on this in shifting control/input on how QoS is applied from (a) just ensuring network-control doesn't get drowned out and (b) a value-add service where the customer picks their traffic prioritization, to an external party paying for preferred access to the BB-provider's customers.  As a customer of BB-provider, this means that someone else now has control over how my packets get delivered based on a deal they cut with BB-provider.  It's not about helping the end-user: It's about enriching BB-provider.  It's another situation of opening up a two-sided market and fostering a situation where established players on the content side who can afford to pay BB-providers A through ZZ get beneficial treatment and there can be a larger barrier to entry to the markets occupied by those players.

Yes, QoS should only come into play where congestion is involved.  But, from experience we can see there are ways to let BE traffic degrade to affect e.g. latency-sensitive traffic without having to actively throttle it.  Sure: the "commercially unreasonable" clauses *should* protect against that to a degree, but that's a very vague definition that creates a lot more regulatory overhead.  Rather than saying "you're not allowed to accept payment to prioritize one content provider's traffic over another's," the FCC would now have to investigate this situations on a case by case basis to determine if a specific situation is "commercially unreasonable".  So; basically, how much confidence do we have in the FCC's capacity/competence in enforcement of those types of regulations?  We could also tack on that this could create a "barn door" situation, where lax or vague rules go into effect, "the market decides", and then we have a helluva time trying to stuff the cat back in the bag because at that point this type of preferential treatment would already be an established/common practice.

--
Hugo
Network Specialist
Phone: 604.606.4448
Email: hslabbert at stargate.ca

Stargate Connections Inc.
http://www.stargate.ca

________________________________________
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces at nanog.org> on behalf of William Herrin <bill at herrin.us>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2014 10:56 AM
To: Rick Astley
Cc: NANOG Operators' Group
Subject: Re: What Net Neutrality should and should not cover

On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 2:05 AM, Rick Astley <jnanog at gmail.com> wrote:
> #3 On paid peering:
> I think this is where people start to disagree but I don't see what should
> be criminal about paid peering agreements. More specifically, I see serious
> problems once you outlaw paid peering and then look at the potential
> repercussions that would have.

Double-billing Rick. It's just that simple. Paid peering means you're
deliberately billing two customers for the same byte -- the peer and
the downstream. And not merely incidental to ordinary service - the
peer specifically connects to gain access to customers who already pay
you and no one else. Where those two customers have divergent
interests, you have to pick which one you'll serve even as you
continue to bill both. That's a corrupt practice.

What sort of corrupt practice? You might, for example, degrade your
residential customers' speed to the part of the Internet housing a
company you think should pay you for peering. Or permit the link to
deteriorate while energetically upgrading others to keep pace with the
times. Same difference.

This doesn't have to be true. You could bill downstreams for
consumption and exclude the paid peering from that calculation. But
you don't do that. And you aren't planning to.

> #4 On QoS (ie fast lane?):
> In some of the articles I skimmed there was a lot of talk about fast lane
> traffic but what this sounds like today would be known as QoS and
> classification marking that would really only become a factor under
> instances of congestion. The tech bloggers and journalists all seems to be
> unanimously opposed to this but I admit I am sort of scratching my head at
> the outrage over something that has been in prevalent use on many major
> networks for several years.

It's prevalent on private work networks and users hate it. It
generally disables activities the network owners don't approve of
while engaging in doubletalk about how they're OK with it. Users don't
want to see this migrate outward.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

--
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004