NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: One more from George Ou: "The need for a broadband transparency standard"
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Although I think my connectivity service is magical, it is not magic. It is made up of various components engineered to perform and fail under certain conditions. I do not think you need new regulation but get the trade description folk to examine the service. The FDA service labelling group would not tolerate a label saying .. the potential for this service is up to ..., provided nobody else is using it, or the average you can expect is xxx, . It would say, here are the resources we have put place for your connectivity and this is how we have engineered it to behave - Sir, Madam. When push into overload we or you can do the following..! Someone could surely do better than this effort - http://bbbritain.co.uk/kitemark.aspx I am not sure how you can create a US Broadband plan, if the US data transport network is not characterised or engineered to deliver a minimum set of outcomes. Mr President - The US data transport network (this key national resource) delivers most of your bits, most of the time in less than 20 milli-seconds (hi-5), and we do not wish to bother you with the detail of how. When the data transport network is busy, we will lose a few more of your bits but it will work most of the time - no worries! The messenger would surely get an almighty kicking. This imaginery conversation would have to begin with, .. US network engineers have engineered our data transport to achieve the following minimum outcomes by guaranteeing throughput with bounds on loss and delay at various load levels. Given this is a shared resource customers are clearly informed of the limits and this is what happens..They have the choice to use the resources they purchase as they wish but the operator can intervene when a customer breeches their busy period thresholds. During emergencies the following additional practices are being tested bla, bla, ... Given US connectivity works, then the engineers, either through trial and error, or cunnningly derived planning rules have built a data transport facility where the emergent properties can be determined and used to deliver a set of outcomes. Lack of transparency is a huge error. How can you exploit the resources fully if you do not know the limits or how to manage within the limits? More innovation and value can be created by describing to people the service they are buying. Mike > Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:30:48 -0700 > From: lauren@vortex.com > To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org > Subject: [ NNSquad ] One more from George Ou: "The need for a broadband transparency standard" > > > One more from George Ou: "The need for a broadband transparency standard" > > http://bit.ly/2mbkyk (Digital Society) > > - - - > > Comments from Lauren: > > The key line in George's piece for me is: > > "The problem for the broadband industry is that no one wants to > unilaterally advertise their network's actual limitations because > that would be handing a free marketing advantage to their > competitor." > > And therein lies the rub. But it's actually worse than that. The > major ISPs explicitly use all manner of confusion and obfuscation in > their marketing. Does AT&T admit the significant limitations of > U-verse Internet service? Sure, if you dig down far enough in the > promotional very fine print, and understand what it's saying. When > Time Warner Cable (TWC) promotes their top speeds, is it ever made > clear how much their "Speed Boost" (which increases speeds for a > limited amount of data in a download -- however that's defined) skews > the promoted numbers? Essentially no. > > For that matter, it seems ludicrous how AT&T and TWC promote their > services in glorious terms of "fiber optic" performance, even though > their actual connections to subscribers are usually by copper and coax > respectively -- with serious performance limitations especially > imposed by the former. Do they admit this? Yeah, deep in those fine > print footnotes, where they note that fiber optics need only apply to > "any portion" of the circuit. By that definition, virtually > everybody with an ordinary landline POTS phone has "digital phone > service," since fiber optics will probably be involved somewhere in > most calls. > > So the question really becomes, what incentive would there be for > these ISPs to "come clean" on all this, short of a regulatory > requirement? > > --Lauren-- > NNSquad Moderator Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. |