Subject: My comments to the press about RFC 2474

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:47:59 -0400

I want the whole community to be aware of the comments that I made to
the press yesterday.  Clearly, these comments do not represent IETF
consensus in any way.  They are my opinion, and the reporter was told to
express them as my opinion.

One thing that I said was not captured quite right.  The article says:
"With services that require certain speeds to operate smoothly, such as
Internet telephony, calls are given precedence over TV, Housley said."
I actually said that DiffServ can be used to make sure that traffic
associated with applications that require timely delivery, like voice
and video, to give preference over traffic associated with applications
without those demands, like email.

The whole article is copied below, and it is online here:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/tc_20100902_7144.php

Russ

=============

How Neutral Is The Internet?: Existing Limits Are In The Spotlight As
AT&T And A Consumer Advocacy Group Squabble Over Net Traffic
by Eliza Krigman
Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010

Whether the Internet is truly a democratic forum was called into
question this week in a dispute about Internet traffic management
between AT&T and the consumer advocacy group Free Press.

The feud boiled down to what it means to have "paid prioritization," a
phenomenon viewed as anathema by advocates of Internet openness, and to
what extent preferential treatment of content already takes place. The
issue is at the very heart of a broader debate about what regulatory
steps are necessary, if any, to ensure the Internet remains an engine of
economic growth and a platform of equal value to people across the
socioeconomic spectrum.

AT&T, in a letter filed with the Federal Communications Commission on
Monday, argued that paid prioritization of Internet traffic, contrary to
claims made by Free Press, is already a common practice of Web
management and consistent with protocols set by the Internet Engineering
Task Force. Largely unknown to people outside the technology field, IETF
is a professional organization composed of engineers that develop
standards for the Internet; for over two decades, it has played an
integral role in the management of the Internet.

The current chair of the IETF, Russ Housley, disagrees with AT&T's
assessment.

"AT&T's characterization is misleading," Housley said. "IETF
prioritization technology is geared toward letting network users
indicate how they want network providers to handle their traffic, and
there is no implication in the IETF about payment based on any
prioritization."

Dedicated lines of service, according to AT&T, are examples of current
paid prioritization schemes, a concept Free Press flatly disagrees with.

AT&T constructed "bogus interpretations of 'paid prioritization' that
reflect no arguments or statements made by the FCC or any proponents of
net neutrality," said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press.
The group calls paid prioritization an anti-consumer practice where
third-party content owners can pay an Internet service provider to "cut
to the front of the line" in Web traffic. It's a practice that would
lead to a pay-to-play scenario where only big business could afford the
premium channels needed to compete, net neutrality advocates say,
thereby squeezing the little guys out of the market.

But AT&T dismisses those assertions, saying Free Press' acceptance of
dedicated lines of service as a management practice is hypocritical
given its stance against paid prioritization.

"We understand why Free Press is upset with our letter," said Michael
Balmoris, spokesman for AT&T. "We outed them by shedding light on their
inconsistencies. After all, for years Free Press has used empty rhetoric
and faux-technical mumbo jumbo to demonize any paid prioritization."

In the conclusion of its letter, AT&T implored the FCC not to limit or
ban paid prioritization, positing that it would be "contrary to the
goals of innovation, investment, and growth and contrary to the
interests of small, medium-sized, and minority-owned businesses."

Most professionals in the telecommunications and Internet field
acknowledge that some content already does get right of way on the Web.
The debate hinges on to what extent it is appropriate and whether paying
for priority empowers networks at the expense of user control.

"Wireless use is prioritized," said Steve Largent, president and CEO of
CTIA-The Wireless Association. "Your voice calls take precedence over
your data usage, your interactive data usage is prioritized over your
standard data usage, and your 911 calls supersede all of it."

For wireless -- which operates on spectrum, a resource with dramatically
less capacity than physical cables -- prioritization is a big issue.

"One strand of fiber has more capacity that the entire electromagnetic
spectrum," Largent said, explaining the need for prioritization.

With services that require certain speeds to operate smoothly, such as
Internet telephony, calls are given precedence over TV, Housley said.
Otherwise, the call might be subject to jittery reception. In these
instances, Housley notes, the preferred treatment is consumer-driven by
the purchase of multiple products that share an access line.

As evidenced by the spat between AT&T and Free Press, whether network
providers should be able to charge online companies extra fees for
faster delivery of their traffic to consumers is extremely controversial.

The matter is under consideration by the FCC, which issued a formal
request for public comment Wednesday on whether open Internet rules
should apply to mobile broadband and specialized services.

The notice was released less than a month after Google and Verizon
released their proposed policy framework aimed at finding middle ground
on the network neutrality debate. Their proposal called for barring
wireline broadband providers from discriminating against or prioritizing
lawful Internet content, applications or services. However, the
framework called for exempting fast-growing wireless Internet services
from all the principles except for transparency and allowing for
specialized services to be fast-tracked over the Internet.

Public interest groups blast the FCC for stalling on a decision about
how to regulate broadband and protect consumers. Industry, including
AT&T, Verizon and CTIA, praised the commission for its fact-finding
endeavor.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:20:39 +1200

Russ,

It has been consistently hard to explain that diffserv is not a
prioritisation scheme, even within the technical community, let
alone to the regulators and the media. I think your comments as
quoted are as good as we can expect from journalists.

It should be a matter of concern to all of us here that the US FCC
isn't confused into regulating the technology. It would set a bad
precedent for regulators in other countries. I am making no comment
as to whether they should regulate carrier's charging practices; that's
entirely a national matter that shouldn't concern the IETF in any way.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 2010-09-03 05:47, Russ Housley wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 20:45:06 -0400

There is a fundamental problem with the way that Internet services are sold.

At present I have two companies that would like to sell me 'higher
speed' Internet service but I have absolutely no way to evaluate their
claims. In particular I have no way to know if changing provider or
paying my current provider more would make my existing applications
run any faster or better.

What I do know is that my Vonage service was fine when I first
subscribed but is now unusable. I have no way to know if changing
provider would change that. If I could be sure that one of the
carriers did not have a vested interest in sabotaging my VOIP service
from competing providers, that would be reason enough to switch.

One would like to sell me higher speed but will not raise their 250Gb
monthly bandwidth cap even if I pay more for the service.

I am quite willing to pay for higher bandwidth Internet. But at the
moment I have no idea what the value proposition that is being
presented to me in those offers. And if I don't know I am pretty sure
that Mrs B. Muggins has not got a clue.

So in my view the problem here is that when I pay for an X Mb/sec
connection at the moment I have no real way of knowing whether that is
really X Mb/sec all the time or X/n Mb/sec when I am using a service
that competes with my carrier.

There are two ways that this can get sorted. The first is that the
carriers can work out a way to address the issue and explain to the
customer what they are really offering. The second is regulation.

I really don't see why a regulation need amount to anything more than
the fairness in pricing rules that have been applied to other
industries who have proved to be unable to get it together on their
own. If I pay for X Mb/sec thats what I should get.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 12:08:03 -0400

> that competes with my carrier.

This sounds like there is potential for crowd sourcing here. 

For example, I can tell you nothing about Vonage, but a fair amount about Cox Cable Internet. What you want to
know is known, just not (yet) in a way you can easily access.

Would a Yelp type model be appropriate ?

Regards
Marshall

---

From: David Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:20:35 -0700 (PDT)

On Fri, 3 Sep 2010, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> For example, I can tell you nothing about Vonage, but a fair amount
> about Cox Cable Internet. What you want to know is known, just not (yet)
> in a way you can easily access.
> 

It might tell you something about customer service and might tell you if
there is a pattern of promising more than is delivered, but the last
mile of the connection is highly variable. Depending on the
carrier technologies, there may be distance issues and/or issues
re. folks the link is shared with, etc.

The only way to know is to make parallel installations and test them
using carefully constructed methodologies to try to factor out other
variables like origin server load, backbone load, etc. Then there
is all the automatic stuff most users aren't aware of which uses
up bandwidth and is almost impossible to identify. Close to a no
win situation for consumer class services.

I know from repeated experience that my installed speed will be downrated
from the promised speed. It has never not happened with multiple
providers and locations.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:03:38 -0400

Another article has come out on the same topic:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20015498-38.html#ixzz0yTtFP7M7

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:50:48 -0400

--On Friday, September 03, 2010 12:08 -0400 Marshall Eubanks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> For example, I can tell you nothing about Vonage, but a fair
> amount about Cox Cable Internet. What you want to know is
> known, just not (yet) in a way you can easily access.
> 

With the understanding that getting accurate and consistent
measurements is really hard (David Morris's note pointed out
some of the issues), have a look at http://www.testmy.net/ .
(Disclaimer: I not only have no affiliation with them other than
a sign-in to keep data, I haven't bother to find out who they
really are.)

     john

---

From: Ofer Inbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 15:25:25 -0400

> This sounds like there is potential for crowd sourcing here. 

In my case, I would be willing to pay a bit more to get rid of the
250G bandwidth cap, but not only won't my provider offer that, there's
no other provider available which will offer service to my house that
is comparable at all.  I have nowhere else to go, and I think that is
the typical situation for most households in the US.  Even if the
industry manages to get it together in terms of making clear what
level of service they offer, I don't know that there's any way out
of this conundrun other than legislation.

P.S. My neighborhood is about as far from being a tech backwater as
it is possible to be in the world.  Yet I still have only one viable
option for high speed Internet.  It's a business & law problem, not
a technology problem.
  -- Cos

---

From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 15:30:29 -0400

________________________________________
From: [email-masked] [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Ofer Inbar [[email-masked]]

It's a traditional monopoly problem.  Market-based mechanisms don't work if there isn't vigorous competition.  The traditional solution is "common carrier" regulation of "natural monopolies".

At the least, we need to define data carriage as a "common carrier" business, where the carrier must provide service on a non-discriminatory basis at published rates.

(Whatever happened to the dream of multiple WiMax providers?)

Dale

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 15:54:21 -0400

LTE for a start.. 

________________________________________
From: [email-masked] [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Ofer Inbar
[[email-masked]]

It's a traditional monopoly problem.  Market-based mechanisms don't work if
there isn't vigorous competition.  The traditional solution is "common
carrier" regulation of "natural monopolies".

At the least, we need to define data carriage as a "common carrier"
business, where the carrier must provide service on a non-discriminatory
basis at published rates.

Dale

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 16:10:51 -0400

Well first .. I do want to congratulate Russ for actually injecting a bit of
sanity into the ongoing NN debate and I think we all know he was speaking as
a individual. I'm personally +1 on his comments. The problem we collectively
have is that there is very little or no technical clue in the NN discussion,
a problem some of us that inhabit the orbit of the 495 DC beltway see quite
often.

Brian is equally correct in noting that being quoted out of context is par
for the course in DC circles, however it is vitally important that those of
us who can, point out to our National Regulatory Authorities the reality of
how the Internet actually operates and what we are doing to address ongoing
issues of network management and congestion control. 

This is extremely important in the ongoing discussions among NRA's on how to
transition classic PSTN and Emergency services from Analog POTS to a IP
world, something the IETF is technically involved with on multiple levels.

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-09-2517A1.pdf
 
Silence is not a option. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Russ
Housley
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 1:48 PM
To: IETF
Subject: My comments to the press about RFC 2474

Russ

=============

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 21:53:23 -0700

At 3:25 PM -0400 9/3/10, Ofer Inbar wrote:

>  I have nowhere else to go, and I think that is

Internet providers say the high cost of running wire or fibre to the 
house or neighborhood is prohibitive.  Telephone service used to be 
considered a regulated monopoly, and I have wondered if this model 
could work with outside plant, as a separate facility from Internet 
service.  The idea being that a regulated or even municipal entity 
builds and maintains the outside plant, with any Internet provider 
able to use it to offer service.  That way all details of the service 
are open to competition.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
But, something that only exists in thought is even better, as
you can read for yourself in my favorite book of (English)
verse and drawings, "The Space-Child's Mother Goose" (Verses
by Frederick Winsor, Illustrations by Marian Parry, Simon and
Schuster, 1958, unfortunately out of print):
    I have a pet hen whose name is Probable. She lays eggs in
    concept, being a sophist bird.  But not in reality at all;
    those would be inferior eggs; for thought is superior to
    reality.
--unknown

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 17:13:40 +0000

>a sign-in to keep data, I haven't bother to find out who they

A few folks met informally over lunch at the last IETF to discuss whether
there was a need for standardization around ISP performance/quality
measurements, and to understand what work was already going.

In the U.S., the FCC is adopting a similar model as in the UK, Sweden, and
other countries.  See http://www.testmyisp.com for info on a pilot test of
some measurements that are planned.

And you can also see http://www.speedtest.net, which is I think the most
popular web-based speed test globally these days (>1.5B tests collected).
They've also made their full dataset available at http://www.netindex.com.
With NetIndex you can click on your state and/or city and see who is tops
in speed.  So for example, if you lived in Redmond, you'd get this
http://www.netindex.com/download/4,201/Redmond/ and in Miami you'd get
this http://www.netindex.com/download/4,70/Miami/. The site also enables a
5-star rating, though it's pretty basic.

Lastly there are sites like http://www.broadbandreports.com/reviews that
provide more detailed ISP reviews.

-- Jason

---

From: "Chris Fenton \(Iridescent\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 14:57:51 -0500

This is interesting for many reasons but we should be clear that the
capability to delivery different levels of service priority and bandwidth
to individuals is different from the ability to charge for service
delivered. Legislation about what is fair or equitable should be driven by
the market conditions especially as network costs are very significant
requiring constant investment to maintain customer satisfaction. And of
course we haven't talked much about end to end service delivery yet but I
believe it will happen ! 

In the UK I see users very willing to pay for differentiated services. This
is quite amazing as a great deal of ISPs use BT's wholesale product where
its not viable to deploy their own. However the differentiated service
plans are still available and the vigorous market conditions drive prices
and as a consumer I change as regularly to get best price vs speed vs
cap.... Personally this is almost worse than having no choice ! 

Chris 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Worley, Dale R (Dale)
Sent: 03 September 2010 14:30
To: Ofer Inbar; IETF
Subject: RE: My comments to the press about RFC 2474

Dale

---

From: "Patrik Faltstrom (pfaltstr)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 07:17:57 +0200

On 4 sep 2010, at 07:06, "Randall Gellens" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The idea being that a regulated or even municipal entity builds and maintains the outside plant, with any Internet provider able to use it to offer service.  That way all details of the service are open to competition.

This is what for example us happening in Sweden all over the place. Most well known project in Sweden is the City of Stockholm where STOKAB is providing dark fiber (as a product) and nothing more.

In a similar way many villages and individual home owners dig down their own fiber.

I am sure it happens in other parts of the world as well.

   Patrik

---

From: Ben Niven-Jenkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 17:19:07 +0100

> I am sure it happens in other parts of the world as well.

http://www.openreach.com

For a regulated approach. Although part of BT, Openreach owns the outside plant and is regulated separately (& more tightly) than the Wholesale and other divisions. Open access to Openreach products to any ISP/network provider, Openreach must sell to BT on exactly the same terms as it does to its other customers including release of product plans etc.

If one needs more than "wires only" type access to the outside plant can be accessed through the (also) regulated Wholesale division.

It leads to many ISPs differentiating themselves from each other in a variety of ways so if you want a download cap >X GB or an ISP that doesn't mess with P2P you can probably find one. Some of the ISPs don't even own any infrastructure of their own and are really just branding & billing functions.

How well it works I leave as an exercise for the reader, however...

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/statistics/regional

has some stats on the number of distinct providers (i.e. those that operate some form of actual network rather than just reselling) with the numbers ranging from ~11 per Exchange (Central Office) on average in London to ~2 per exchange on average in Scotland.
 
ben

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 21:52:08 -0700

At 7:17 AM +0200 9/4/10, Patrik Faltstrom (pfaltstr) wrote:

>  This is what for example us happening in Sweden all over the place. 
> Most well known project in Sweden is the City of Stockholm where 
> STOKAB is providing dark fiber (as a product) and nothing more.
>

What is at the other end of the fiber (either STOKAB or individual 
home owners)?  Is there a central interconnect point where any ISP 
can connect?

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
Ever notice that people who are late are much jollier
than the people who have to wait for them?

---

From: Mans Nilsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 07:23:34 +0200

Subject: Re: My comments to the press about RFC 2474 Date: Tue, Sep 07, 2010 at 09:52:08PM -0700 Quoting Randall Gellens ([email-masked]):

> What is at the other end of the fiber (either STOKAB or individual home 
> owners)?  Is there a central interconnect point where any ISP can 
> connect?

Mostly, either the power companies or the telco have rolled out sparse
grid (interconnecting cities and within them, CO's.) The people doing
the digging are actually building last mile, which is missing
everywhere except in business areas of major towns. (and it is of
course available in places where this has been done) Last mile ends up
in either new mini-CO facilities or adjacent to previously existing
facilities so that the last mile can be lit and  connected to the
backbone.

In the case of STOKAB, they are present where you want them; which
means that basically all CO and colo facilities have a STOKAB ODF. My
current workplace has two. There is no central per se, even if STOKAB
do concentrate interconnection at a number of places in the Stockholm
area. Since their product is "e2e glass, period. " it is really only a
cable plant.
-- 
Måns Nilsson     primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina
MN-1334-RIPE                             +46 705 989668
I need to discuss BUY-BACK PROVISIONS with at least six studio SLEAZEBALLS!!

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 06:59:55 -0700

At 7:23 AM +0200 9/8/10, Mans Nilsson wrote:

>  Subject: Re: My comments to the press about RFC 2474 Date: Tue, Sep 
> 07, 2010 at 09:52:08PM -0700 Quoting Randall Gellens 
> ([email-masked]):
>

What are the two ends of "e2e glass"?  One is the home or business; 
is the other an ISP of one's choice?

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
And still I persist in wondering if folly must always
be man's nemesis.                    --Edgar Pangborn