[ NNSquad ] Re: Avoiding unfair ISP bandwidth manipulations

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

Note that I suggested an exemption for: "basic not-on-demand,
non-PPV TV" -- which would apply whether delivered via IP or some
other means.  And I carefully didn't include "blocking" in my list
of bandwidth management techniques that would be "harmonized" under
such a system, though I should have made that even more explicit.
Service-based blocking of that sort would be inappropriate from
the word go.

It is certainly true that upstream and peering issues would need to
be considered, and to the extent that multicast or other techniques
are used that minimize duplication of content toward the end user,
competing external unicast traffic may be more consumptive of
resources (depending on the program and traffic mix).

But at the end of the day we're still faced with a couple of key
issues.  One, various large U.S. ISPs appear to be reserving the
bulk of their bandwidth for their own content, squeezing external
Internet access into what's left and then complaining about
subscriber overuse or misuse.  Secondly, if ISP customers can buy a PPV
movie for $3 from their ISP, or $3 plus burn up a significant
proportion of their month's Internet allocation from an external
competitor (even if the competitor offers a higher quality product)
it's pretty clear what the typical choice will be.

Since so many of these decision factors are held to be proprietary by
ISPs, it's difficult to get beyond the guessing stage with much of
this without hard facts, which is to the advantage of the ISPs and
the disadvantage of competitors and customers.

--Lauren--
NNSquad Moderator

 - - -

> 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/
>