NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Richard Bennett on Comcast and Fairness (from IP)
Hi Lauren, where is the original source to this reply. I'd love to see
the full context that the author seems to be talking about.
[ Presumably the article of interest is:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/richard_bennett_comcastle/
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
As for comments, it is interesting that a network engineer cannot see
his inherent bias for the telecommunications perspective. Net Neutrality
certainly isn't a science, rather it is a social-political issue, and
one where the policy will probably have to drive the technology.
The biggest item that I really disagree with is:
"But in the final analysis, we all know that some of our bits are more
important than others, and the network will work better if the layer 3
and layer 2 parts can communicate that sort of information between each
other. "
It is not the purpose of a network to determine the value of bits, nor
is it right to treat any bit as better than another. A text message
might be really important to someone else, but my ability to watch a
streaming news report is really important to me. Which one will the
carrier prioritize? This isn't a determination they can make, nor is it
one where the value of the transmission can be determined by the number
or amount of bits traveling.
In essence, it presumes a state of operation where the network is always
overloaded. A state of operation that is simply not necessary and can
be solved with strong carrier service quality standards and adequate
provisioning. Adding a bunch of equipment to manage scarcity, instead of
just eliminating that scarcity is just a bad allocation of resources. It
might make sense to the carriers, as it will allow them to derive
revenue from artificially created resource scarcity, but it certainly
doesn't help the consumer or the internet industries gain access to more
bandwidth.
I am content to advocate absolute neutrality, let the carriers charge
based upon neutral usage, and have competition in Internet service
resemble something similar to how power companies operate -- without any
regard to how the service is used.
Kevin McArthur
Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> ------- Forwarded Message
> From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
> To: "ip" <ip@v2.listbox.com>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:21:28 -0800
> Subject: [IP] Interesting -- comment from author -- F.C.C. to Look at
>
>
> ---------------
>
> From: Richard Bennett [richard@bennett.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 4:23 PM
> To: David Farber
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: F.C.C. to Look at Complaints Comcast Interferes With Net - New York Times
>
> As the author of the article in question, I'll gladly defend it. The
> fundamental point I was trying to make is simply that there's a huge
> hole in the architecture of the IETF protocol suite with respect to
> fairness. I'm a layer two protocol designer (Ethernet over UTP, WiFi 11n
> MSDU aggregation, and UWB DRP are in my portfolio), and in the course of
> my career have devoted an embarrassing amount of time to engineering
> fairness in network access. Most the younger generation takes it as
> given that if you understand TCP/IP you understand networking, but in
> fact most of the progress in network architectures over the last 30
> years has been at layers 1 and 2. And with the TCP-centric mindset, they
> tend to believe that all problems of networking can be solved by the
> application of the right RFCs. But in fact we all connect to our ISP
> over a layer 2 network, and each of these has its own challenges and
> problems.
>
> The carriers are often criticized for not using packet drop to resolve
> fairness problems, but that's not really the scope of packet drop, which
> is actually a solution to Internet congestion, not to the lack of
> fairness that may (or may not) be the underlying cause of the
> congestion. We need a different solution to fairness at layer 3,
> especially on layer 2 networks like DOCSIS where packet drop closes the
> door after the horse has run off.
>
> The buffet analogy needs a little refinement. What the bandwidth hog
> does is block the line to the all-you-can-eat buffet so that nobody else
> can get any food. That's not a behavior that would be tolerated in a
> restaurant, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a residential network.
> Unfortunately, it wasn't the huge problem when DOCSIS was designed, so
> the 1.0 and 1.1 versions of the technology don't address it, certainly
> not as well as Full-Duplex Ethernet, 802.11e WiFi, and DSL do.
>
> Some may argue that the Internet doesn't need a fairness system as it's
> mostly a local problem, and I have some sympathy for that point of view.
> But in the final analysis, we all know that some of our bits are more
> important than others, and the network will work better if the layer 3
> and layer 2 parts can communicate that sort of information between each
> other.
>
> I don't view this as a moral problem as much as an engineering problem.
> Moral philosophy is certainly a fascinating subject (as is video
> coding), but it's outside the scope of the current discussion.
>
> RB
>