[ NNSquad ] Re: Avoiding unfair ISP bandwidth manipulations

[Wes Felter <wesley@felter.org>]

On Mar 5, 2008, at 5:53 PM, Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> Question: Would this problem be mitigated if all IP-based traffic,
> other perhaps than basic not-on-demand, non-PPV TV, were subject to
> the same bandwidth caps and other limitations?  That is, if an ISP
> were cajoled or required to treat its own offerings that competed
> directly with external services as being subject to the same monthly
> bandwidth caps, throughput throttling, etc., what would be the
> effects?

Presumably the bandwidth used by the ISP's own services costs less to  
deliver because it stays within the ISP's network and doesn't go over  
the backbone. If the purpose of network management is to control  
transit costs, it makes sense to treat internal traffic differently.  
If the goal is managing last-mile congestion, it is logical that all  
traffic over the last mile should be treated equally.

I think such a rule would penalize service providers who use an all- 
IP architecture (like U-Verse) while leaving a big loophole for the  
cablecos, since it would exempt all their video from bandwidth  
management.

None of the internal services that I know of use any substantial  
upstream bandwidth or P2P, so such a rule could be used to whitewash  
network discrimination practices. e.g. "We're not unfairly blocking  
our competitors' P2P traffic, because we also block our own P2P  
traffic!"

Wes Felter - wesley@felter.org - http://felter.org/wesley/