NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Irish Times: "A modest proposal on internet neutrality"
Two wireless operators in italy have introduced a data plan with X GB/mo
for Y eur with maximum possible access throughput, when you reach the
volume limit your access throughput is throttled to a low level (suitable
for email, I'd say), unless you buy additional volume by restarting your
monthly subscription.
On the fixed network there are many less problems as wholesale bitstream is
mandatory and that implies that in every access area there are all italian
ISPs, therefore there are always a number of them that do not throttle
traffic.
There are 13k exchanges in Italy and just about 3k of them, covering a
minimal part of the population, have non-fibre backhauling.
Ciao, s.
___
www.reeplay.it
www.eximia.it
[ This would seem to be a different situation -- that is, such
arrangements are more what we might call QoD "Quality
of Degradation," where you're being pushed down (often way down)
below normal, not getting a boost upward from "normal" priority.
Also, these only apply within their own "service areas" -- true
QoS to be really effective would typically need to be honored
end-to-end.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
- - -
...... Original Message .......
On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:06:35 -0700 "Barry Gold" <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>
wrote:
>Lauren Weinstein wrote:
>>
>> 1) Confusing RFCs that are explicitly "informational only" with IETF
>> standards is sloppy and not recommended.
>>
>> 2) Dan Bricklin's essay: "Why We Don't Need QOS: Trains, Cars, and
>> Internet Quality of Service" is still very good reading:
>> http://bit.ly/bL1W1J (Dan Bricklin's Web Site)
>
>I found Bricklin's essay interesting, but was bothered by the lack of
>either hard data or a well-founded mathematical model to back up his
>assertions and figures.
>
>> My own view is that there may be some role for carefully crafted
>> QoS -- but that a) it's critical that it not be capable of being unfairly
>> "gamed" - b) its use should be as limited as possible - c) if used at
>> all, it should generally apply equally to all traffic of the same
>> class - d) you should not be able to "buy" higher priority for arbitrary
>> data across the public Internet - and e) I'd much prefer to see
>> bandwidth capacity increases avoid the need for QoS at all.
>
>I'll reassert my proposed solution: each customer is allocated up to X
>amount of "high priority" traffic per time period (second? minute? hour?
>month? -- maybe different levels for each?), up to Y amount of "medium
>priority." The user chooses which packets will have what priority
>(well, actually the application chooses, but the user chooses which apps
>to use). If a user tries to exceed his allocation, his "high priority"
>traffic is automatically downgraded to "medium" and then to "low".
>
>This is, I believe, self-correcting. Yes, BT can try to "game" the
>system by marking its packets high priority -- except that after the
>first few Kb (in a second) or GB (in a day or month), those packets will
>be downgraded. And if the user is trying to use VoIP and has a BT
>client using up his high-priority allocation, he'll see really lousy
>performance on his VoIP. Then he calls up support and is told, "Your
>BT(*) traffic used up your high-priority allocation. If you'd like to
>uninstall that, I can then give you a temporary allocation so your voice
>traffic (or gaming traffic) will work better.:"
>
>(*) Or whatever app is trying to game the system for more bandwidth --
>and the chances are the ISP can figure out what app that is, either by
>looking at the packets as they go by, or by traffic analysis.
>