NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Additional or differentiated services
The end-to-end cargo cult advocates no QoS of any kind on the Internet.
Google advocates no paid QoS on the Internet, though they're begrudgingly
going along with a "so long as you don't call it the Internet, and so long
as the GAO monitors it that it doesn't succeed".
Telepresence is certainly one example of bypassing the best-effort Internet.
A more common example is that many business users and even some home users
who don't want to deal with all the QoS problems just stick with circuit
switched solutions. A more personal example is that I'm going to be
reattaching the paid-TV wire because I can't get any reliable pay-per-view
over the Internet. Paying $45 for a low quality 1.2 Mbps PPV even only to
have it pause in the middle of a crucial moment sucks.
That's why the most extreme Net Neutrality advocates want to start
cannibalizing the circuit switched model into the Internet because they know
that the free market can't be trusted to kill it fast enough. That day
can't come soon enough for people like Bob Frankston and private property be
damned.
George
[ But these days even the paid-cable side can be shoddy as hell.
In my area TW over the last year or so transitioned to SDV
(Switched Digital Video) so that they could stuff more channels
onto the non-Internet side of the coax. The SDV is shoddy and
obviously underprovisioned. Channels can take two or three
minutes to initially appear -- if they appear at all, which they
frequently don't. Or they might appear for a few seconds then
drop out. Unattended DVR recordings are widely reported to be
impossible to make reliably, unless you're dealing with a non-SDV
channel, and TW has total control over how the channels are
allocated.
The point is that the artificial, virtual distinction between
services on the "private" vs. "public" sides of the cable is
creating ever more distortions.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
-----Original Message-----
From: nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org
[mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of
Richard Bennett
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 10:23 AM
To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Additional or differentiated services
It comes down to a question of whether Internet services are required
to be best efforts only; there are obviously many applications that a
best efforts, edge-managed system can't support, so the advanced
services loophole is a way to enable them to get done.
The neutrality lobby tends to demand no QoS management on the Internet,
so what else is a poor innovator to do but bypass the Internet when he
needs QoS? That's what the TelePresence-type systems do today.
RB
On 8/27/2010 9:51 AM, George Ou wrote:
>
> The most extreme form of Net Neutrality
>
<http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/08/the-three-extreme-forms-of-net-neutra
lity/>
> advocates taking private property used for delivering non-Internet
> services and mandating that it be used for Internet capacity. I know
> Bob would love to see this and he has no respect for private property
> which he like others mistakenly believes is public property
>
<http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/08/techdirt-mistakens-broadband-for-publ
ic-property/>,
> but it has no legal foundation.
>
> The Verizon-Google compromise sort of defends the right to enhanced or
> prioritized services so long as they're not called "Internet". That
> upsets the people that want to mandate equal service regardless of
> payment even though the Internet has always been equal service for
> equal payment.
>
> George Ou
>
> *From:* nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org
> [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+george_ou=lanarchitect.net@nnsquad.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Bob Frankston
> *Sent:* Friday, August 27, 2010 9:09 AM
> *To:* 'Ellrod, Rick E.'; nnsquad@nnsquad.org
> *Subject:* [ NNSquad ] Re: Additional or differentiated services
>
> Yes.
>
> What more can I say - it protects the current business model against
> the danger of being undercut by their most feared competition - users
> with lots of bits.
>
> We see a form of this in today's story about NECN "NECN HD a tough
> sell for Comcast
>
<http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/08/27/comcast_rival
s_slow_to_pick_up_necn_hd/>"
> Why not just make NECN, which is advertising sponsored, available over
> the top.
>
> Charter spokesman Tom Cohan said: "As Charter deploys new technologies
> that allows us to use our bandwidth more effectively, we are adding HD
> channels. NECN is certainly one of a number of channels that is under
> consideration for future carriage in HD
>
> At least FiOS says they plan to add it but we're talking about a
> signal that is broadcast from my city not that far from my house. Yet
> I can't get over the abundant local capacity all around me with 3+
> broadbands [sic]. I have to wait for FiOS to add it. You can argue
> whatever business model reasons you want but in the end I don't get to
> choose what I can watch. I have to accept what Verizon decides is in
> their interest. They don't want to risk a real marketplace where they
> don't have control.
>
> If this weren't bad enough I have to call FiOS support to find out why
> the signal on 690 (Comedy Central HD) is coming in so badly. I've got
> an IP connection with my VoD coming over IP over my Ethernet to my
> STB. Why is Verizon setting aside the bulk of their fiber the cable in
> my house that they poached from Comcast (who really owns the RG-6
> Comcast installed?) for an analog signal when they could do it far
> better over IP? That's not the only problem with FiOS insistence on
> pretending it's 1950; even over IP they use brittle protocols that
> live by and thus die by QoS.
>
> So, yes yes yes. It's all about maintaining a business model even as
> the technology as left it behind.
>
> *From:* nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org
> [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Ellrod, Rick E.
> *Sent:* Friday, August 27, 2010 09:33
> *To:* nnsquad@nnsquad.org
> *Subject:* [ NNSquad ] Additional or differentiated services
>
> I wonder whether Verizon's principal purpose in introducing this
> qualification might be to protect the current model (used, for
> example, in FiOS) under which cable service and Internet access are
> two distinct services, with traditional multichannel video delivery
> not subject to the kinds of conditions net neutrality would require
> for Internet traffic.
>
> Some commenters have seemed to assume net neutrality would
> automatically mean that the traditional cable product would have to be
> subsumed under Internet access, so that "over-the-top" Internet video
> could compete on a head-to-head basis with cable operator-delivered
> multichannel video. The exception in the Verizon-Google proposal might
> be designed to prevent such arguments, not for some hypothetical
> future service, but for current cable service.
>
> Rick Ellrod
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lauren Weinstein [mailto:lauren@vortex.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 4:40 PM
> To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org <mailto:nnsquad@nnsquad.org>
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Google, Verizon, and Getting Real
>
> Google, Verizon, and Getting Real
>
> http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000749.html
>
> Greetings. Reactions to the "Verizon-Google Legislative Framework
> Proposal" ( http://bit.ly/9EEEy7 [Lauren's Blog] ) have been
> splattering around the globe ever since the two firms announced the
> plan earlier this month ( http://bit.ly/cpO0bU [Google Public Policy
> Blog] ).
>
> . . .
>
> Nor is it clear what sorts of services would qualify for the
> "additional or differentiated services" offerings (that is, not part
> of the public Internet per se) proposed by the framework plan.
>
> Verizon's CEO, during the conference call announcing the proposal,
> specifically mentioned "entertainment services" and 3D television --
> but these seem among the more problematic examples -- especially given
> the rapid advances in video encoding technologies (including related
> to 3D).
>
> . . .
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>)
> http://www.vortex.com/lauren
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility):
> http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad):
> http://www.nnsquad.org Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for
> Transparent Internet Performance):
>
> http://www.gctip.org
> Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on
> Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
> Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz
>
--
Richard Bennett
Senior Research Fellow
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Washington, DC