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Hey! New message, please read <http://google-adwords.com.co/use.php?0vf2> Richard Bennett
Re: On a future of open settlement free peering
So when you said: "I can only hope the holdouts will "see the light" before the weight of government crashes down on them" you were positing an unlikely outcome? For what purpose, trolling? BTW, I'm not a lobbyist, but you already knew that. RB On 7/29/14, 4:12 PM, William Herrin wrote: On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 6:21 PM, Richard Bennett wrote: It's interesting that an FCC ban on paid peering (or "on-net transit" if you prefer that expression) is now seen as a plausible and even likely outcome of the FCC's net neutrality expedition. I don't think an FCC ban on paid peering is a plausible outcome this go-around. The question, as I understand it, is reclassification of broadband. If they actually go for reclassification, then you guys are screwed. Paid peering would be the least of the dominoes to fall in the follow-on rulemaking which would be necessary as a result of reclassification. Reclassification might bring a serious discussion of L1/L2 structural separation to the table. It wouldn't be the FCC's first foray into structural separation and as far as I know the laws which allow are still on the books. If I was one of the eyeball network lobbyists, I'd be begging the FCC to let me try open peering and give it a chance to achieve the commission's public policy objectives WITHOUT reclassification. But then I guess that's why I'm not a telecom-paid lobbyist, eh? ;) Regards, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: On a future of open settlement free peering
are beginning to emerge about the poor interaction of video rate control algorithms and TCP congestion control that indicate that services such as YouTube and Netflix are actually their own worst enemies, see: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7521706465 , page 13, and http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7521389953 , page 8. So yeah, the demand for "free and open" interconnection is front and center, and it tends to submerge questions about the obligations of traffic sources to deliver to the best locations in an efficient way. There certainly are opportunities for abuse on both sides of the "gateway". RB On 7/29/14, 10:30 AM, William Herrin wrote: Howdy folks, It seems to me that we're moving in a direction where either ratioless, high-capacity settlement-free peering will be a industry requirement exercised voluntarily, or where some heavy-handed government regulation will compel some kind of interconnection that the holdouts find even less desirable. I can only hope the holdouts will "see the light" before the weight of government crashes down on them -- regulation has no winners, only losers and bigger losers. And sometimes the worst thing that can happen is you get what you ask for with no opportunity to later change your mind. I'm curious what lies beyond that horizon. If we stipulate for the sake of the discussion that open peering is the way it going to be, a critical part of network neutrality, what exactly will that mean? Will it be permissible for one network to ask the other to pay a one-time port cost for the initial interconnect, assuming its representative of the actual cost of a one-time equipment addition? To what degree is redundancy a requirement? If a network refuses to peer in more than one chancy location, does that mean their peering policy isn't really open? Will a network be compliant if the open peering connections are only available in its own data center? Or will they need to be available in neutral data centers? Would a refusal to connect to neutral peering fabrics constitute a refusal to connect to smaller networks? Or is it reasonable to state that anybody who can't come up with 10 gig ports and cross-connects isn't of threshold size? Can a peering policy be open if it's regionally restricted? If my peering points for the mid-Atlantic states only announce routes tied to my mid-Atlantic customers and only propagate your routes to those mid-Atlantic customers, is that acceptable behavior? Or have I mis-served my customers if I don't pull all of them to the location you find it convenient to peer? Food for thought, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
On 7/28/14, 12:39 PM, William Herrin wrote: There is nothing new under the sun, no matter how much you may protest otherwise... This is a self-fulfilling prophecy that reflects the intense conservatism of a certain part of the Internet establishment. I'm inclined to go for new services, new norms, and progress. But that's just my personal bias, not a law of nature. RB -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
Owen, your mother should have told you that you need to play nice if you want the other children to play with you. On 7/28/14, 12:02 PM, Owen DeLong wrote: On Jul 27, 2014, at 9:08 PM, Richard Bennett wrote: I don't think it's conflation, Joly, since the essence of NN is for the eyeballs to pay for the entire cost of the network and for edge providers to use it for free; isn't that what Netflix is asking the FCC to impose under the guise of "strong net neutrality?" Professor van Schewick is pretty clear about making the users pay for the edge providers in her tome on Internet architecture and innovation. This is as absurd as the people you shill^wpoopy-head (per your request) for. The users pay either way. Either the content provider(s) pay the carriers and then bill the users (at a mark up) or the users pay directly (hopefully without the markup). We are, after all, not talking about data that Netflix wants to inflict on the unsuspecting user. We are talking about data that the user REQUESTED from Netflix. Saying “Content providers should pay” sounds great, because it sounds like it gives the end-user a free ride, but the reality is a little different. Let’s have a look at the unintended consequences of such a policy: 1. End users get billed more by the content providers to cover this additional cost. 2. Content providers have to mark up what they are charged by the end-user’s ISPs, and they want to charge a uniform rate to all customers, so the most likely result is that they bill end users based on a marked up rate from the most expensive eyeball ISP they are forced to pay. 3. As a result of these additional charges, you create barriers to competition in the content space which begins to turn content into more of an oligopoly like access currently is. Its a giant step in the exact opposite direction of good. Frankly, I give Netflix a lot of credit for fighting this instead of taking the benefits it could provide and screwing over their customers and their competition. Competition is a wonderful thing where it can work, but it's not a panacea, especially for the poor and for high-cost, rural areas. Communication policy has pretty much always relied on some form of subsidy for these situations, that's the universal service fee we pay on our phone bills. How would you know… Let’s _TRY_ it and see what happens? Subsidy for those situations is probably necessary, but so far, subsidy has always been structured to subsidize monopolies and block competition (at the request(demand) of the very people you shill^wpoopy-head for). If we changed the subsidies a tiny bit so that all subsidized infrastructure was built in a manner open to multiple higher-level service providers (e.g. subsidized open fiber builds to serving wire centers with colocation capabilities) and made those facilities available to all service providers on an equal footing (same cost, same ToS, same SLA, same ticket priority, etc.) I bet you’d see a very different situation develop rather quickly. Susan Crawford explicitly complains that American ISPs "gouge the rich" by charging more than the OECD norm for high-speed (50 Mbps and above) service, but she fails to point out that they also charge less than the norm for low-speed (15 Mbps and below) service. Whatever… The bottom line is that overall, throughout the US, even in the most densely populated areas, we are far behind what you can get in places like NL, KR, SG, SE, etc. and paying generally more for it. I think it's easy to create unintended consequences if you don't look at how specific regulations affect real people, no matter how high-minded and principled they may appear at the surface. OK, so please tell me what are the horrible unintended consequences of making layer 1 an open platform available on an equal footing to all competing L2+ providers that want to compete? As you point out, most L1 has been built with taxpayer money and/or subsidy, so what’s the horrible downside to letting it actually work or the taxpayers instead of the oligopolistic law firms masquerading as communications companies? Owen RB On 7/27/14, 7:08 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: Conflating zero-rating with NN is not necessarily helpful. I somehow doubt that is ultimately what convinced all those groups to suddenly come out against NN at the last minute. The EFF did recently address the issue. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divide However, we worry about the downside risks of the zero rated services. Although it may seem like a humane strategy to offer users from developing countries crumbs from the Internet's table in the form of free access to walled-garden services, such service may thrive at the cost of stifling the development of low-cost, neutral I
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
It's hard to see a revolution when you're in the middle of it. As consumers transition from watching multicast TV on the networks' schedule past time-shifting and on to VoD, the traffic demands on the infrastructure will grow by 25 - 40 times. Similarly, the Internet will shift from a tool for reading web sites and watching occasional cat videos to a system whose main job (from the perspective of traffic) is video streaming. The magnitude of the change will necessarily cause a re-evaluation of the norms for interconnection, aggregation, content placement, and protocol design. I think it's a mistake to approach this transformation in a "nothing to see here, move along" manner. It's reality that packet networks are statistical, especially at the level of aggregation and middle-mile distribution. The Internet's traditional financial model is one in which infrastructure providers make the most serious investments and edge services extract the highest profits. This model may not be the most sustainable one, and it may not be consistent with supporting the upgrades the infrastructure needs for adaptation to this new application. Alternative models - such as Europe's open access regime - fare even worse in this regard than the vertical integration model that's the norm in North America and East Asia. I don't claim to have all the answers here, or even any of them, but I think it's important to keep an open mind and pay attention to what works. I'm also not enthusiastic about relying on government programs to upgrade infrastructure to fiber of some random spec, because the entry of government into this market suppresses investments by independent fiber contractors and doesn't necessarily lead to optimal placement of new fiber routes. The First Net experience is proving that to be the case, I believe. In other words, the Internet that we have today isn't the best of all possible networks, it's just the devil we know. RB On 7/28/14, 10:56 AM, William Herrin wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Richard Bennett wrote: "You've designed your network to handle the traffic demands of web browsing? That's cute, now rebuild it to handle 40 times more traffic while I sit back and call you a crook for not anticipating my innovation." Right, because how could anyone anticipate that more than a handful of folks might want to use 5 or 6 mbps of traffic on a 25mbps flat-rate product for hours at a time. How rude to suggest that an allegedly high speed network designed only to handle the traffic demands of web browsing is little different than that age old confidence scheme, the pig in a poke. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
In fact Netflix is asking to connect to eyeball networks for free: http://blog.netflix.com/2014/03/internet-tolls-and-case-for-strong-net.html " Strong net neutrality additionally prevents ISPs from charging a toll for interconnection to services like Netflix, YouTube, or Skype, or intermediaries such as Cogent, Akamai or Level 3, to deliver the services and data requested by ISP residential subscribers. Instead, they must provide sufficient access to their network without charge." This isn't the traditional understanding of net neutrality, but this is the beauty of murky notions: they can be redefined as the fashions change: "You've designed your network to handle the traffic demands of web browsing? That's cute, now rebuild it to handle 40 times more traffic while I sit back and call you a crook for not anticipating my innovation." Very wow. RB On 7/27/14, 9:49 PM, Matt Palmer wrote: On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 09:08:17PM -0700, Richard Bennett wrote: I don't think it's conflation, Joly, since the essence of NN is for the eyeballs to pay for the entire cost of the network and for edge providers to use it for free; isn't that what Netflix is asking the FCC to impose under the guise of "strong net neutrality?" In a word: no. Net neutrality is about everyone paying their own way to get their packets to where they want them to go. Netflix doesn't get to use the Internet "for free"; they pay a whole heck of a lot each month to L3 and Cogent. - Matt -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
I don't think it's conflation, Joly, since the essence of NN is for the eyeballs to pay for the entire cost of the network and for edge providers to use it for free; isn't that what Netflix is asking the FCC to impose under the guise of "strong net neutrality?" Professor van Schewick is pretty clear about making the users pay for the edge providers in her tome on Internet architecture and innovation. Competition is a wonderful thing where it can work, but it's not a panacea, especially for the poor and for high-cost, rural areas. Communication policy has pretty much always relied on some form of subsidy for these situations, that's the universal service fee we pay on our phone bills. Susan Crawford explicitly complains that American ISPs "gouge the rich" by charging more than the OECD norm for high-speed (50 Mbps and above) service, but she fails to point out that they also charge less than the norm for low-speed (15 Mbps and below) service. I think it's easy to create unintended consequences if you don't look at how specific regulations affect real people, no matter how high-minded and principled they may appear at the surface. RB On 7/27/14, 7:08 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: Conflating zero-rating with NN is not necessarily helpful. I somehow doubt that is ultimately what convinced all those groups to suddenly come out against NN at the last minute. The EFF did recently address the issue. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divide However, we worry about the downside risks of the zero rated services. Although it may seem like a humane strategy to offer users from developing countries crumbs from the Internet's table in the form of free access to walled-garden services, such service may thrive at the cost of stifling the development of low-cost, neutral Internet access in those countries for decades to come. Zero-rating also risks skewing the Internet experience of millions (or billions) of first-time Internet users. For those who don't have access to anything else, Facebook /is/ the Internet. On such an Internet, the task of filtering and censoring content suddenly becomes so much easier, and the potential for local entrepreneurs and hackers to roll out their own innovative online services using local languages and content is severely curtailed. Sure, zero rated services may seem like an easy band-aid fix to lessen the digital divide. But do you know whatmost <http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/more-competition-essential-for-future-of-mobile-innovation.htm>stakeholders <http://a4ai.org/policy-and-regulatory-best-practices/>agree <http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2013/27.aspx>is a better approach towards conquering the digital divide? Competition—which we can foster through rules that reduce the power of telecommunications monopolies and oligopolies to limit the content and applications that their subscribers can access and share. Where competition isn't enough, we can combine this with limited rules against clearly impermissible practices like website blocking. On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Richard Bennett <mailto:rich...@bennett.com>> wrote: So we're supposed to believe that NAACP and LULAC are phony organizations but pro-neutrality groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge that admit to collaborating with Netflix and Cogent are legit? Given their long history, I think this is a bit of a stretch. It's more plausible that NAACP and LULAC have correctly deduced that net neutrality is a de facto subsidy program that transfers money from the pockets of the poor and disadvantaged into the pockets of super-heavy Internet users and some of the richest and most profitable companies in America, the content resellers, on-line retailers, and advertising networks. Recall what happened to entry-level broadband plans in Chile when that nation's net neutrality law was just applied: the ISPs who provided free broadband starter plans that allowed access to Facebook and Wikipedia were required to charge the poor: "A surprising decision in Chile shows what happens when policies of neutrality are applied without nuance. This week, Santiago put an end to the practice, widespread in developing countries <http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/29/twitters-emerging-market-strategy-includes-its-own-version-of-a-facebook-zero-like-service-called-twitter-access/>, of big companies “zero-rating” access to their services. As Quartz has reported <http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-users-convince-them-the-internet-and-facebook-are-the-same/>, companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia strike up deals <http://qz.com/69163/the-one-reason-a-facebook-pho
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
Maybe it would help if you tried to address the issues in a serious way instead of just trying to be cute. Just a thought... RB On 7/27/14, 8:52 PM, Matt Palmer wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 08:16:36AM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: On 28-Jul-2014 8:06 am, "Matt Palmer" wrote: On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 05:28:08PM -0700, Richard Bennett wrote: It's more plausible that NAACP and LULAC have correctly deduced that net neutrality is a de facto subsidy program that transfers money from the pockets of the poor and disadvantaged into the pockets of super-heavy Internet users and some of the richest and most profitable companies in America, the content resellers, on-line retailers, and advertising networks. I've got to say, this is the first time I've heard Verizon and Comcast described as "poor and disadvantaged". Recall what happened to entry-level broadband plans in Chile when that nation's net neutrality law was just applied: the ISPs who provided free broadband starter plans that allowed access to Facebook and Wikipedia were required to charge the poor: [...] Internet Freedom? Not so much. I totally agree. You can't have Internet Freedom when some of the richest and most profitable companies in America, the content resellers, on-line retailers, and advertising networks, are paying to have eyeballs locked into their services. Far better that users be given an opportunity to browse the Internet free of restriction, by providing reasonable cost services through robust and healthy competition. Or is that perhaps not what you meant? I think he meant the actual poor people that broadband subsidies and free walled garden internet to access only fb and Wikipedia are supposed to benefit, but I could be wrong I've got a whopping great big privilege that's possibly obscuring my view, but I fail to see how only providing access to Facebook and Wikipedia is (a) actual *Internet* access, or (b) actually beneficial, in the long run, to anyone other than Facebook and Wikipedia. I suppose it could benefit the (no doubt incumbent) telco which is providing the service, since it makes it much more difficult for competition to flourish. I can't see any lasting benefit to the end user (or should I say "product"?). - Matt -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
I prefer the term "poopy head" because it's so much more sophisticated. RB On 7/27/14, 5:39 PM, goe...@anime.net wrote: On Sun, 27 Jul 2014, Richard Bennett wrote: This is one of the more clueless smears I've seen. The "astroturf" allegation is hilarious because it shows a lack of understanding of what the term means: individuals can't be "astroturf" by definition; it takes an organization. Individuals can be paid shills though. -Dan -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
So we're supposed to believe that NAACP and LULAC are phony organizations but pro-neutrality groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge that admit to collaborating with Netflix and Cogent are legit? Given their long history, I think this is a bit of a stretch. It's more plausible that NAACP and LULAC have correctly deduced that net neutrality is a de facto subsidy program that transfers money from the pockets of the poor and disadvantaged into the pockets of super-heavy Internet users and some of the richest and most profitable companies in America, the content resellers, on-line retailers, and advertising networks. Recall what happened to entry-level broadband plans in Chile when that nation's net neutrality law was just applied: the ISPs who provided free broadband starter plans that allowed access to Facebook and Wikipedia were required to charge the poor: "A surprising decision in Chile shows what happens when policies of neutrality are applied without nuance. This week, Santiago put an end to the practice, widespread in developing countries <http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/29/twitters-emerging-market-strategy-includes-its-own-version-of-a-facebook-zero-like-service-called-twitter-access/>, of big companies “zero-rating” access to their services. As Quartz has reported <http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-users-convince-them-the-internet-and-facebook-are-the-same/>, companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia strike up deals <http://qz.com/69163/the-one-reason-a-facebook-phone-would-make-sense/> with mobile operators around the world to offer a bare-bones version of their service without charging customers for the data. "It is not clear whether operators receive a fee <http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/29/twitters-emerging-market-strategy-includes-its-own-version-of-a-facebook-zero-like-service-called-twitter-access/> from big companies, but it is clear why these deals are widespread. Internet giants like it because it encourages use of their services in places where consumers shy away from hefty data charges. Carriers like it because Facebook or Twitter serve as a gateway to the wider internet, introducing users to the wonders of the web and encouraging them to explore further afield—and to pay for data. And it’s not just commercial services that use the practice: Wikipedia has been an enthusiastic adopter of zero-rating as a way to spread its free, non-profit encyclopedia." http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-access-to-wikipedia-and-facebook/ Internet Freedom? Not so much. RB On 7/27/14, 5:07 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: Now, this is astroturfing. http://www.thenation.com/blog/180781/leading-civil-rights-group-just-sold-out-net-neutrality On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 4:26 PM, Richard Bennett <mailto:rich...@bennett.com>> wrote: This is one of the more clueless smears I've seen. The "astroturf" allegation is hilarious because it shows a lack of understanding of what the term means: individuals can't be "astroturf" by definition; it takes an organization. Groups like Free Press are arguably astroturf because of their funding and collaboration with commercial interests, but even if you buy the blogger's claim that AEI is taking orders from Comcast (which it isn't), it doesn't pretend to be speaking for the grassroots. After 76 years in operation, people engaged in public policy have a very clear idea of the values that AEI stands for, and the organization goes to great lengths to firewall fundraising from scholarship. AEI's management grades itself in part on being fired by donors, in part; this is actually a goal. The thing I most like about AEI is that it doesn't take official positions and leaves scholars the freedom to make up their own minds and to disagree with each other. Although we do tend to be skeptical of Internet regulation, we're certainly not of one mind about what needs to be regulated and who should do it. AEI is a real think thank, not an advocacy organization pretending to be a think tank. The article is riddled with factual errors that I've asked Esquire to correct, but it has declined, just as it declined to make proper corrections to the blogger's previous story alleging the FCC had censored 500,000 signatures from a petition in support of Title II. See: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/comcast-astroturfing-net-neutrality?fb_comment_id=fbc_734581913271304_735710019825160_735710019825160#f35206a395cd434 The blogger came to my attention when he was criticized on Twitter by journalists who support net neutrality for that shoddy piece of sensationalism; see the dialog around this tweet: https://twitter.com/oneunderscore_
Re: Net Neutrality...
Minor nit: McDowell is a former two term commissioner, but was not a chairman. He is, however, a real standout in terms of understanding the Internet and has many of the most coherent comments of any commissioner since his appointment. He was a leader in the campaign to push back the attempts of the ITU to establish sovereignty over interconnection and to apply telecom tariffs to the Internet. It's worth noting that there was a time when Internet policy at the national level was not the ideological exercise that it has become. There was very little difference between Clinton's last FCC chairman (Kennard) and Bush 43's first chairman (Powell) on the general approach of the federal government to the Internet. Powell was, after all, the chairman who first articulated "Internet Freedom" goals in his famous "Four Freedoms" speech in Boulder in 2004; see: http://www.jthtl.org/content/articles/V3I1/JTHTLv3i1_Powell.PDF It's a shame that people can't discuss principles of network policy today without first signing a loyalty oath to one of the political parties. It seems to me that Kennard, Powell, Wheeler, McDowell, and current commissioner Pai have all articulated great ideas about Internet policy that stand on their own without regard to political affiliations. RB On 7/16/14, 7:50 AM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote: Relevant article by former FCC Chair http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/14/this-is-why-the-government-should-never-control-the-internet/ -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity
This is one of the more clueless smears I've seen. The "astroturf" allegation is hilarious because it shows a lack of understanding of what the term means: individuals can't be "astroturf" by definition; it takes an organization. Groups like Free Press are arguably astroturf because of their funding and collaboration with commercial interests, but even if you buy the blogger's claim that AEI is taking orders from Comcast (which it isn't), it doesn't pretend to be speaking for the grassroots. After 76 years in operation, people engaged in public policy have a very clear idea of the values that AEI stands for, and the organization goes to great lengths to firewall fundraising from scholarship. AEI's management grades itself in part on being fired by donors, in part; this is actually a goal. The thing I most like about AEI is that it doesn't take official positions and leaves scholars the freedom to make up their own minds and to disagree with each other. Although we do tend to be skeptical of Internet regulation, we're certainly not of one mind about what needs to be regulated and who should do it. AEI is a real think thank, not an advocacy organization pretending to be a think tank. The article is riddled with factual errors that I've asked Esquire to correct, but it has declined, just as it declined to make proper corrections to the blogger's previous story alleging the FCC had censored 500,000 signatures from a petition in support of Title II. See: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/comcast-astroturfing-net-neutrality?fb_comment_id=fbc_734581913271304_735710019825160_735710019825160#f35206a395cd434 The blogger came to my attention when he was criticized on Twitter by journalists who support net neutrality for that shoddy piece of sensationalism; see the dialog around this tweet: https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/489212137773215744 The net neutrality debate astonishes me because it rehashes arguments I first heard when writing the IEEE 802.3 1BASE5 standard (the one that replaced coaxial cable Ethernet with today's scalable hub and spoke system) in 1984. Even then some people argued that a passive bus was more "democratic" than an active hub/switch despite its evident drawbacks in terms of cable cost, reliability, manageability, scalability, and media independence. Others argued that all networking problems can be resolved by throwing bandwidth at them and that all QoS is evil, etc. These talking points really haven't changed. The demonization of Comcast is especially peculiar because it's the only ISP in the US still bound by the FCC's 2010 Open Internet order. It agreed to abide by those regulations even if they were struck down by the courts, which they were in January. What happens with the current Open Internet proceeding doesn't have any bearing on Comcast until its merger obligations expire, and its proposed merger with TWC would extend them to a wider footprint and reset the clock on their expiration. Anyhow, the blogger did spell my name right, to there's that. RB On 7/22/14, 9:07 AM, Paul WALL wrote: Provided without comment: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/comcast-astroturfing-net-neutrality Drive Slow, Paul Wall -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: Verizon Public Policy on Netflix
Actually, there are some examples of this, and I'm surprised Mr. Temkin didn't point them out. I've been told by rural telcos (RLECs) that there's a consolidated mini-exchange in Idaho that was originally built with some support from the state in order exchange phone calls within Idaho that would otherwise have to be sent to Denver or Seattle for interconnect. The RLECs subsequently used the facility for peering between their broadband networks, and at some point Netflix, at its own expense, installed some of its proprietary servers and paid for a circuit to Seattle. The part that excited the RLECs was Netflix footing the bill to move its traffic from Seattle to Idaho. The RLECs told me they're not overjoyed by the cost of moving all that traffic 50 miles on their own networks, but it beats moving it all the way from Seattle. I thought that was funny since Comcast moves Netflix traffic 100 miles from their nearest exchange point in San Jose to my home in the East SF Bay. Looking at the traceroute, it all passes through SF, but Netflix doesn't have facilities there. Richard On 7/11/14, 9:50 AM, Owen DeLong wrote: I’m always surprised that folks at smaller exchanges don’t form consortiums to build a mutually beneficial transit AS that connects to a larger remote exchange. For example, if your 19 peers in Denver formed a consortium to get a circuit into one (or more) of the larger exchanges in Dallas, Los Angeles, SF Bay Area, or Seattle with an ASN and a router at each end, the share cost of that link an infrastructure would actually be fairly low per peer. Owen -- Richard Bennett
Re: rich...@bennett.com has shared Cable companies astroturfing support against FCC Title II regulation | Electronista
I wanted the NANOG community to know that someone is impersonating me. I don't send off-topic links from dodgy blogs to email lists. I now have a pretty good idea as to who the impersonator is; it seems that Gilmore has too much time on his hands. RB On 6/6/14, 5:06 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: I believe I listed 3. And there are multiple times I have posted similar items in the past. Just curious about the "speculators" thing. But I think we're off-topic, so apologies to the audience for extra email in their inboxes. I've sent reply-to to my personal address to avoid this blowing up (although I don't know if mailman will respect that). -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: rich...@bennett.com has shared Cable companies astroturfing support against FCC Title II regulation | Electronista
Is there any reason you would? On 6/6/14, 4:39 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: Any particular reason you wouldn't send such a thing? It is interesting, operationally relevant, and timely. -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: rich...@bennett.com has shared Cable companies astroturfing support against FCC Title II regulation | Electronista
Dear NANOG, I didn't send this. Sorry to disappoint the speculators. Richard On 6/6/14, 10:29 AM, rich...@bennett.com wrote: Cable companies astroturfing support against FCC Title II regulation | Electronista http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/06/06/one.group.hired.known.false.grassroots.campaign.generator.to.sink.measure/#sUBFuKpvB3FAOPyL.03 --- rich...@bennett.com shared this using Po.st: http://www.po.st -- Richard Bennett Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy Editor, High Tech Forum
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
I think the motive for the traditional separation actually was completely different from the one for new separation. Silos had the effect of limiting competition for specific services, while the avowed goal of functional separation mandates is to increase competition. Opportunities for service competition between the telegraph and telephone networks were limited by technology in the first instance - you couldn't carry phone calls over the telegraph network anyway because it was a low bandwidth, steel wire system with telegraph office - to telegraph office topology - but you could carry telegrams over the phone network, but only if permitted by law. In a sense, ARPANET was telegraph network 2.0, and even used the same terminals initially. Paper tape-to-tape transfers became ftp, the telegram became email, and kids running paper messages around the office became routers switching packets. The layer 0 model has some merit, but has issues. In areas nobody wants to provide ISP services, and there is still a tendency toward market consolidation due to economies of scale in the service space. Facilities-based competition remains the most viable model in most places, as we're seeing in the UK where market structure resembles the US more than most want to admit: Their two biggest ISPs are BT and Virgin, the owners of the wire, and they have less fiber than we have in the US. Creating the conditions for network competition is a hard problem with no easy answers. RB On 3/25/2011 11:48 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: I take your point, the separation was of a different order. But a separation, nonetheless. The motive is not so much different. I think we can all accept that "traditional telephone regulation" is rapidly losing its grip as the beast morphs. Now that applications outnumber networks new problems require new solutions. I've heard Allied Fiber's Hunter Newby argue convincingly that really it's about separating Level 0 - the real estate, the wires and the head end premises - from everything else, and facilitating sufficient open access to guarantee healthy competition in services. And yes, where there's a monopoly there will have to some price regulation. At least that's traditional. As we've seen in the UK, while it's not so much a stretch to impose even higher level unbundling on the telcos, when it comes to the cable industry it's going to be a very painful pulling of teeth. [1]http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=46077&id=e938181 7-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10 j On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Richard Bennett <[2]rich...@bennett.com> wrote: The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a "technology silos" concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which describes both a network and an application, as we understand the terms today. Wu wants to make law out of the OSI model, a very different enterprise than traditional telecom regulation. On 3/25/2011 10:27 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: aka the "separation principle" ( Tim Wu - the Master Switch) What surprised me is that when I put his point to Richard R.John at the Columbia Big media event back in Nov <[3]http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1563> - John totally agreed with it, citing the precedent of the telegraph companies being locked out of the telephone business back in the day. j On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:52 PM, George Bonser<[4]gbon...@seven.com> wrote: It is only in very recent times that we have been able to overlay Internet on both cable and television, and to have television competition via satellite. In "the old days" the phone company didn't provide "content". You called someone and the people at each end provided the content or the data going over the network. The phone company simply provided the network. I still believe the biggest mistake we made was breaking up the Bell System. We should have let them be, regulated the crap out of them, and then said "no, you can't get into the business of providing content". They system should have been left as a regulated public utility. To that end, I think the US would be much better off with fiber to the home on a single distribution infrastructure. That could be owned and operated by the municipality (like the water system) or owned and operated
Re: The growth of municipal broadband networks
The principle that kept telegraph and telephone apart wasn't a functional layering concept, it was a "technology silos" concept under which all communication networks were assumed to be indistinguishable from their one and only one application. If you read the Communications Act of 1934, you'll see this idea embodied in the titles of the act, each of which describes both a network and an application, as we understand the terms today. Wu wants to make law out of the OSI model, a very different enterprise than traditional telecom regulation. On 3/25/2011 10:27 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: aka the "separation principle" ( Tim Wu - the Master Switch) What surprised me is that when I put his point to Richard R.John at the Columbia Big media event back in Nov <http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1563> - John totally agreed with it, citing the precedent of the telegraph companies being locked out of the telephone business back in the day. j On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:52 PM, George Bonser wrote: It is only in very recent times that we have been able to overlay Internet on both cable and television, and to have television competition via satellite. In "the old days" the phone company didn't provide "content". You called someone and the people at each end provided the content or the data going over the network. The phone company simply provided the network. I still believe the biggest mistake we made was breaking up the Bell System. We should have let them be, regulated the crap out of them, and then said "no, you can't get into the business of providing content". They system should have been left as a regulated public utility. To that end, I think the US would be much better off with fiber to the home on a single distribution infrastructure. That could be owned and operated by the municipality (like the water system) or owned and operated by a corporation granted an exclusive right to service an area (think telephone, at least pre CLEC). Yup, bring back "The Bell System". Where you immediately run into a snag is the next layer up. Should the government provide IP services, if the fiber is government owned? Should private companies be required to offer competitors access to provide IP services if the fiber is privately owned? I would say they provide network access only, not content. They would be kept out of providing content and kept in the business of reliably connecting content to consumer. That would be their focus. Having looked around the world I personally believe most communities would be best served if the government provided layer-1 distribution, possibly with some layer 2 switching, but then allowed any commercial entity to come in and offer layer 3 services. I don't. What happens when the "government" then decides what content is and is not allowed to go over their network? If one had a site that provided a view that the government didn't like, would they cut it off? I want the government very strictly limited in what they can and cannot do and I want them to have to go to an outside entity for things like lawful intercept because it is another check on their power. A private entity might insist that there is a proper warrant or subpoena while the government might simply decide to snoop first, get the paperwork later. Keeping the network at arm's length from the government helps to make sure there is another entity in the loop. For simplicity of argument I like people to envision the local government fiber agency (like your water authority) dropping off a 1 port fiber 4 port copper switch in your basement. Big difference. Water is not a good analogy. The "content" in that case is from a central source and everyone gets the same thing. With the network, you have people communicating back and forth and much of that communications is private or expected to be private (say, a phone call or a secure financial transaction). If a private entity screws up, it is much easier to fine them or fire the person responsible than it is to punish a government department or fire a government worker. Besides, we really don't need yet more people on the government payroll. Though I do agree that it is a natural monopoly. It should be managed by a regulated utility that is explicitly prohibited from providing the content, only provide access through the network. -- Richard Bennett
Re: FCC dealt major blow in net neutrality ruling favoring, Comcast
Thanks for pointing that out. RB On 4/12/2010 2:06 PM, Stonix Farstone wrote: On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Richard Bennett <[1]rich...@bennett.com> wrote: One of the things I like about e-mail lists is learning things about myself that I never knew before, especially regarding my occupation. For the last 9 months or so I've been working part-time with a Washington think tank in an analyst capacity, not as a lobbyist, and not on the Comcast payroll. My views about Internet regulation precede this job and haven't been altered by it. For purposes of the present discussion, I'd rather be known as the guy who wrote the first IEEE 802 standard for Ethernet over twisted pair, or designed the Wi-Fi MAC protocol, or the DRP for UWB, or something like that. You might want to ring up the IEEE and get them to fix their egregious omission of your name as the designer of the Wi-Fi MAC protocol. [2]http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11-2007.pdf Participants At the time the draft of this revision was sent to sponsor ballot, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group had the following officers: Stuart J. Kerry, Chair Al Petrick, Vice-Chair and Treasurer Harry R. Worstell, Vice-Chair Tim Godfrey, Secretary Nanci Vogtli, Publicity Standing Committee Teik-Kheong Tan, Chair, Wireless Next Generation Standing Committee Terry L. Cole and Simon Barber, Technical Editors Richard H. Paine, Chair, Task Group k Bruce P. Kraemer, Chair, Task Group n Sheung Li, Vice-Chair, Task Group n Lee Armstrong, Chair, Task Group p Clint Chaplin, Chair, Task Group r Donald E. Eastlake III, Chair, Task Group s Charles R. Wright, Chair, Task Group t Stephen McCann, Chair, Task Group u Pat R. Calhoun, Chair, Task Group v Jesse Walker, Chair, Task Group w Peter Ecclesine, Chair, Contention-Based Protocol Study Group When the IEEE 802.11 Working Group approved this revision, Task Group m had the following membership: Bernard D. Aboba Osama S. Aboul-Magd Santosh P. Abraham Tomoko Adachi Jonathan R. Agre Jon Adams Carlos H. Aldana Thomas Alexander Areg Alimian Keith Amann Veera Anantha Merwyn B. Andrade Carl F. Andren Scott Andrews David C. Andrus Hidenori Aoki Tsuguhide Aoki Michimasa Aramaki Takashi Aramaki Sirikiat Lek Ariyavisitakul Lee R. Armstrong Larry Arnett Yusuke Asai Arthur W. Astrin Malik Audeh Geert A. Awater David Bagby Michael Bahr Dennis J. Baker Robert O'Hara, Chair Terry L. Cole, Editor Ramanathan Balachander Simon Barber Richard N. Barnwell John R. Barr Kevin M. Barry Charles R. Bartel Burak H. Baysal John L. Benko Mathilde Benveniste Don Berry Nehru Bhandaru Yogesh B. Bhatt Bjorn A. Bjerke Simon Black Scott Blue Jan Boer Herve Bonneville William M. Brasier Alistair G. Buttar Pat R. Calhoun Nancy Cam-Winget Necati Canpolat Bill Carney Pat Carson Broady B. Cash RongFeng Chang Clint F. Chaplin Amalavoyal Chari James Chen Jeng-Hong Chen Shiuh Chen Ye Chen Yi-Ming Chen Alexander L. Cheng Hong Cheng Greg L. Chesson Aik Chindapol Sunghyun Choi Won-Joon Choi Liwen Chu Dong-Ming Chuang Ken Clements John T. Coffey W. Steven Conner Charles I. Cook Kenneth Cook Steven Crowley Marc de Courville Rolf J. De Vegt Sabine Demel Yoshiharu Doi Brett L. Douglas Baris B. Dundar Chris Durand Roger P. Durand Sebastien Dure Yaron Dycian Donald E. Eastlake Peter Ecclesine Copyright © 2007 IEEE. All rights reserved. vvi Copyright © 2007 IEEE. All rights reserved. Richard Eckard Jonathan P. Edney Bruce Edwards John Egan Stephen P. Emeott Marc Emmelmann Darwin Engwer Joseph Epstein Patrik Eriksson Mustafa Eroz Andrew X. Estrada Christoph Euscher Stefano M. Faccin John C. Fakatselis Lars P. Falk Steve W. Fantaske Michael Faulkner Paul H. Feinberg Alex Feldman Matthew J. Fischer Wayne K. Fisher Michael D. Foegelle Brian Ford Guido Frederiks Benoit Fremont Takashi Fukagawa Hiroshi Furukawa James Gardner Monisha Ghosh James P. K. Gilb Jeffrey M. Gilbert Tim Godfrey Sandesh Goel Wataru Gohda Sudheer Grandhi Gordon P. Gray Paul K. Gray Larry Green Daqing Gu Srikanth Gumamdi David Gurevich Fred Haisch Robert J. Hall Neil N. Hamady Seishi Hanaoka Christopher J. Hansen James J. Harford Daniel N. Harkins Brian D. Hart Chris Hartman Thomas Haslestad Amer A. Hassan Vann (William) Hasty James P. Hauser Yutaka Hayakawa Shigenori Hayase Kevin V. Hayes Haixiang He David J. Hedberg Robert F. Heile Gregory Scott Henderson Eleanor Hepworth Frans M. Hermodsson Karl F. Heubaum Odagiri Hideaki Guido R. Hiertz Garth D. Hillman Christopher S. Hinsz Michael M. Hoghooghi Allen Hollister Hooman Honary William D. Horne Henry Horng Yungping A. Hsu David Hunter Muhammad Z. Ikram Daichi Imamura Yasuhiko Inoue Kazuhito Ishida Takashi Ishidoshiro Takumi Ito Lakshmi
Re: FCC dealt major blow in net neutrality ruling favoring, Comcast
You're speculating that ITIF gets funding from Comcast, and therefore guessing I'm singing Comcast's song. But you don't know whether Comcast actually is an ITIF sponsor, just as you don't know whether Google, Intel, and Microsoft are ITIF sponsors. And then you're speculating again regarding the relationships between sponsors and fellows. Paul, it's obvious you don't know what you're talking about re: Internet regulation policy or the nature of DC think tanks, so why you you just STFU rather than embarrass yourself further? RB On 4/12/2010 12:08 PM, Paul WALL wrote: On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Richard Bennett [1] wrote: One of the things I like about e-mail lists is learning things about myself that I never knew before, especially regarding my occupation. For the last 9 months or so I've been working part-time with a Washington think tank in an analyst capacity, not as a lobbyist, and not on the Comcast payroll. You neglected to mention that the "think tank" (where I'm from in Houston, we call them lobbys) is funded by Comcast, among other big cable/telecom players. Drive Slow, Paul Wall -- References 1. mailto:rich...@bennett.com
Re: FCC dealt major blow in net neutrality ruling favoring, Comcast
One of the things I like about e-mail lists is learning things about myself that I never knew before, especially regarding my occupation. For the last 9 months or so I've been working part-time with a Washington think tank in an analyst capacity, not as a lobbyist, and not on the Comcast payroll. My views about Internet regulation precede this job and haven't been altered by it. For purposes of the present discussion, I'd rather be known as the guy who wrote the first IEEE 802 standard for Ethernet over twisted pair, or designed the Wi-Fi MAC protocol, or the DRP for UWB, or something like that. As Suresh notes, the idea that the FCC overstepped its bounds in the Comcast order is hardly controversial. It's not even a matter of opinion any more, as the decision written by the most liberal judge on the 3rd Circuit, David Tatel, means it's the law. The debate about how to regulate the Internet is now premised on the fact that the old rationale doesn't hold up to scrutiny, so deal with it. RB On 4/11/2010 11:23 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM, Paul WALL wrote: It should probably be noted, for purpose of establishing bias, that Richard is a Washington lobbyist, hired to represent Comcast on regulatory matters. What he views as overstepping legal bounds, others may view as protecting consumers... Hell, funnily enough Susan Crawford warned at the time that the FCC action wouldn't stand up in court the way it was done. http://www.circleid.com/posts/comcast_vs_the_fcc_a_reply_to_susan_crawfords_article/ --srs -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: FCC dealt major blow in net neutrality ruling favoring, Comcast
The FCC is structured in such a way that the chairman calls all the shots on policy matters. In this instance, the former chairman, Kevin Martin, was responsible for the Comcast order but the current chairman, Julius Genachowski, had to defend it in court. Some wags insist that the defense was a bit lackluster because Genachowski didn't much care for the legal basis of the Comcast order, which relied on a lot of smoke and mirrors to regulate aspects of edge network behavior that Congress never told the FCC to regulate. The defense relied on some legal theories that weren't used in the order itself, and that's a no-no in an appeal. The court took the rather extraordinary step of suggesting arguments that the FCC could have used in the appeal that it didn't use. The murky status of Internet regulation is actually quite enjoyable to network operators and to policy wonks alike because it allows maximum freedom of action. This will continue, of course, until Congress tells the FCC to go regulate the Internet according to some yet-to-be-defined framework. RB On 4/10/2010 1:36 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: On Apr 9, 2010, at 7:04 PM, Jared Mauch wrote: > I believe you are doing a disservice to the FCC by making these inflammatory statements. And here I thought I was defending them for being different& better than the last group. The point is, joe asked about the FCC that made a ruling. The staffers who work hard (and deserve lots of credit for working hard) do not make those rulings. The political appointees and their handlers in the administration make those rulings. Those appointees are very different than the last group. And I think this is a very good thing. For instance, could you in your wildest dreams have imagined the last group sending their top people to NANOG, and those people standing around asking people to talk to them? That was AWESOME, and very different than the "last FCC". And I don't think there is anything wrong with thinking of it that way. -- TTFN, patrick > There are plenty of GOOD people at the FCC, I'm guessing you may not have spent much time talking to them. (I met with the FCC about CALEA due to concerns about there being no mature 10G intercept platforms. There are vendors that are shipping devices that are not CALEA compliant, but may be compliant under other lawful intercept methods/statutes). > > You have to understand that there are political appointees (that must be confirmed) and the regular staffers that operate in this space. The federal register and comment process is abundant, allowing people to file comments on nearly anything the government is discussing. > > If you've not engaged in getting the daily notices from the Federal Register, and did not file form 445, you may want to take a look at it. Phone the FCC. Phone the DoJ and ask for the "CALEA Implementation Unit", the folks there are behind thehttp://askcalea.net website. > > As with many things, there is a lot of (mis-)information out there. > > (Gotta run kids are bleeding!). > -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: [NANOG] Roport on internet business
Maybe we need to pass some laws that ban copper wire outdoors. On 12/23/2009 4:22 PM, Jared Mauch wrote: On Dec 23, 2009, at 6:11 PM, Richard Bennett wrote: The authors are pretty well convinced that the demand for more wireless spectrum will be handled by spectral efficiency improvements and deployment of more towers, they stress the importance of replacing copper with fiber and microwave in the middle mile, and don't think the telcos are doing the right things. I know, watching my local incumbent they are not replacing damaged copper with fiber. I think they must have warehouses of it someplace. I can't imagine that it is good to replace buried copper w/copper during the wintertime. If you're out doing it, might as well *actually* install fiber in the conduit. (Unless it's about unions/job protection for the copper guys). - Jared (not saying unions are bad, but when you operate two assets and have a different union for each, it can limit your potential significantly).
Re: [NANOG] Roport on internet business
It's actually available for free on the World-Wide Internet at http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/Mobile_Internet_Report_Key_Themes_Final.pdf , but you can purchase a paper copy if you'd rather. It's pretty slow going as it's mostly power points, some with lots and lots of words, but some of the graphs and insights are intriguing, esp. as they related to the non-USA parts of the world. The authors are pretty well convinced that the demand for more wireless spectrum will be handled by spectral efficiency improvements and deployment of more towers, they stress the importance of replacing copper with fiber and microwave in the middle mile, and don't think the telcos are doing the right things. There's a lot of discussion about how the wireless networks will handle voice and best-efforts at the same time which many will find troublesome, I suppose, but overall I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. RB On 12/23/2009 3:01 PM, Scott Weeks wrote: --- taka...@cpqd.com.br wrote: From: "Takashi Tome" Morgan Stanley has released a very interesting report on internet business with some tips to net operators: http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/mobile_internet_report122009.html --- It must be purchased: -- The Mobile Internet Report To receive a printed copy of The Mobile Internet Report, please contact your Morgan Stanley Representative. To purchase a copy, please click here. -- scott
Re: news from Google
Microsoft just wants your cash, but Google wants your personal information so they can sell it over and over again. The entire Google business model is at odds with notions of personal privacy, so it's not even a question of the occasional excess on their part. Schmidt did what Michael Kinsey calls a gaffe: when a politician accidentally tells the truth. On 12/11/2009 12:36 PM, Seth Mattinen wrote: Scott Weeks wrote: --- m...@sizone.org wrote: From: Ken Chase topically related, it's actually news from Mozilla: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142106/Mozilla_exec_suggests_Firefox_users_move_to_Bing_cites_Google_privacy_stance?source=rss_news from the horse's mouth, as it were. So, how bout that DNS. Um, yeah. Them there micro$loth folks is W more privacy oriented than them google rascals. It's better than the "maybe you shouldn't be doing things you don't want people to know about" statement. That right there gives me some insight on where Google wants to go in the future with privacy. ~Seth -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: news from Google
Bruce Williams wrote: On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Paul S. R. Chisholm [1]wrote On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Ken Chase [2] wrote: We all know that google is leveraging cross-referenceable information from all of its services for its profit/advantage ... /kc -- Ken Chase - [3]...@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W. Ken, this was addressed in the announcement: [4]http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html We built Google Public DNS to make the web faster and to retain as little information about usage as we could, while still being able to detect and fix problems. Google Public DNS does not permanently store personally identifiable information. [5]http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#account [6]http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#shared [7]http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#info Is any of the information collected stored with my Google account? No. Does Google share the information it collects from the Google Public DNS service with anyone else? No. Is information about my queries to Google Public DNS shared with other Google properties, such as Search, Gmail, ads networks, etc.? No. Hope this helps. --PSRC And this will never change? Not even when you check the box for the latest update that says it changes some terms and here is the link,,, Bruce The Adsense tracking cookie was once an opt-in, but after Google acquired that company and crushed the competition it became an opt-out, unbeknownst to many consumers. This is the way these generally go. Google will be all sweetness and light until they've crushed OpenDNS, and when the competitor's out of the picture, they'll get down to the monetizing. -- Richard Bennett References 1. mailto:psrchish...@gmail.com 2. mailto:m...@sizone.org 3. mailto:k...@heavycomputing.ca 4. http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html 5. http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#account 6. http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#shared 7. http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#info
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
(pardon me if this message is not formatted correctly, T-bird doesn't
like this list)
I agree that this is not the proper venue for discussion of the politics
of Internet regulation; the post I wrote for GigaOm has comments
enabled, and many people with an anti-capitalist bone to pick have
already availed themselves of that forum to advocate for the people's
revolution. There are some technical issues that might be of more
interest and relevance to operators, however.
* One claim I made in my blog post is that traffic increases on the
Internet aren't measured by MINTS very well. MINTS uses data from
Meet-me switches, but IX's and colos are pulling x-connects like mad so
more and more traffic is passing directly through the x-connects and
therefore not being captured by MINTS. Rate of traffic increase is
important for regulators as it relates to the cost of running an ISP and
the need for traffic shaping. Seems to me that MINTS understates traffic
growth, and people are dealing with it by lighting more dark fiber,
pulling more fiber, and the x-connects are the tip of the iceberg that
says this is going on.
* A number of people said I have no basis for the claim that paid
peering is on the increase, and it's true that the empirical data is
slim due to the secretive nature of peering and transit agreements. This
claim is based on hearsay and on the observation that Comcast now has a
nationwide network and a very open policy regarding peering and paid
peering. So if paid peering is only increasing at Comcast, now a top 10
network, it's increasing overall.
* Some other people said I'm not entitled to have an opinion; so much
for democracy and free speech.
I'd be glad to hear from anyone who has data or informed opinions on
these subjects, on-list of off-. The reason you should share is that
people in Washington and Brussels listen to me, so it's in everybody's
interest for me to be well-informed; I don't really have an ax to grind
one way or another, but I do want law and regulation to be based on
fact, not speculation and ideology.
Thanks and have a nice day.
RB
Darren Bolding wrote:
Whether or not Mr Bennett has any idea what he is talking about- and I
have started to develop an opinion on that subject myself- I really
would rather not see Nanog become a forum for partisan political
discussion. There are _lots_ of places for that, which as a political
junkie I read regularly.
I like Nanog in part because it typically steers clear of this sort of
thing (and you know the mailing list charter sez) and in some way
serves as a refreshing change between reading Daily Kos and Powerline
blogs.
I will also say that while Mr Bennett's affiliation and paycheck have
some relevance to interpreting what he says, it isn't justification
for tossing everything he says out. If he seems to have no idea what
he is talking about, that is reason for tossing out what he says.
One final point- referring to conservadems is about as telling about
perspective as certain people referring to RINO's. Bennett hasn't
said anything blatantly partisan (perhaps he is to polished for that),
his critics certainly have. You diminish your argument by doing so.
I say all this even though some of the people getting engaged in this
are people I've known for a while and respect a great deal, and others
are ones I've read on Nanog for a number of years.
I'm actually intersted in the substantive content, but I'd rather
avoid the rest if you wouldn't mind.
Thanks for listening,
--D
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 7:13 AM, <mailto:valdis.kletni...@vt.edu>> wrote:
On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:32:02 PST, Richard Bennett said:
>ITIF is not opposed to network neutrality
> in principle, having released a paper on "A Third Way on Network
> Neutrality", http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=63.
All of four paragraphs, which don't in fact address what the
provider is or is
not providing to Joe Sixpack - point 1 says discriminatory plans
are OK as long
as the discriminatory are on display in the cellar of the ISP
office, with no
stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a
disused lavatory
with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.
And points 2 and 3 are saying that this should all be overseen by
the same
agencies that oversaw the previous decade's massive buildout of
fiber to the
home that was financed by massive multi-billion dollar incentives.
Oh wait, those billions got pocketed - if the massive fiber
buildout had
happened, we'd have so much bandwidth that neutrality wouldn't be
an issue...
But then, the Republicans keep saying they are not opposed to
health care
reform in principle either..
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Click through to the PDF, it's a 16 page paper. RB [1]valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:32:02 PST, Richard Bennett said: ITIF is not opposed to network neutrality in principle, having released a paper on "A Third Way on Network Neutrality", [2]http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=63. All of four paragraphs, which don't in fact address what the provider is or is not providing to Joe Sixpack - point 1 says discriminatory plans are OK as long as the discriminatory are on display in the cellar of the ISP office, with no stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard. And points 2 and 3 are saying that this should all be overseen by the same agencies that oversaw the previous decade's massive buildout of fiber to the home that was financed by massive multi-billion dollar incentives. Oh wait, those billions got pocketed - if the massive fiber buildout had happened, we'd have so much bandwidth that neutrality wouldn't be an issue... But then, the Republicans keep saying they are not opposed to health care reform in principle either... -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC References 1. mailto:valdis.kletni...@vt.edu 2. http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=63
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
I didn't bring this discussion over here, hippie. Randy Bush wrote: Would you care to elaborate on how the investigation of someones funding sources is operationally relevant to the rest of the list? please no we have a greedy troll. stop feeding it. procmail is your friend. randy -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Now you've descended from Steenbergen's hair-splitting between "on-net routes" (the mechanism) vs. "on-net access" (the actual product) into Simpson's straight-up lying. ITIF is not opposed to network neutrality in principle, having released a paper on "A Third Way on Network Neutrality", http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=63. There is not a single ultra-conservative on the ITIF board, they're all either moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans. I'm letting most of this childish venting slide, but I will point out the bald-faced lies. RB William Allen Simpson wrote: They're opposed to net neutrality, and (based on his comments and several of the papers) still think the Internet is some kind of bastard child that needs adult supervision in the middle -- by which they mean themselves /in loco parentis/. Looking at the board, it's populated by ultra-conservative wing-nut Republicans, and some Conservadems (as we call them in political circles, they call themselves "centrists") from the "New Democrat Caucus" for "bi-partisan" cover. And lots of lobbyists -- Federal lobbyists -- who seem to list their educational clients on their bio, but not whether they are also employed by a firm that represents other clients -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Thank you for your insights. Richard A Steenbergen wrote: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:00:52PM -0800, Richard Bennett wrote: I haven't found a good source who knows what's going on outside his own network. Mr. Bennett, You know when I first read your post, I assumed you were just ignorant and confused about the topic of peering on the Internet. Then I saw you actively refusing to listen to intelligent feedback by some of the most experienced network operators and peering managers in the industry, dismiss any idea that you didn't agree with as part of the "Google conspiracy", and further embarrass yourself with comments which proved you lacked understanding of even the most basic concepts of peering or inter-network traffic exchange. Normally I would just write you off as another Dean Anderson style nutjob, but I'm afraid that your ramblings are so wrong and your closed-mindedness is so severe that you are actually dangerous to anyone who might happen to read your comments and think that they are in any way correct. Therefore, I think it is important for all of us that you be refuted. I'll start with a few points from your post and comments. You said: I'm not sure that your 'on-net routes' is the same product as the Paid Peering that Norton is interpreting; the Arbor study found a large increase in the traffic that moves through these transit bypass paths, and that's the actual story. While this service may have been available for a while, its use is radically increasing. That's data, BTW, not anecdote, so if you have a problem with the Arbor data, you'll need some data of your own to refute it. For starters, if you aren't sure what "on-net routes" and "paid peering" even are, maybe you shouldn't be trying to comment on them. Second, the Arbor study said absolutely NOTHING about an increase in traffic that moves via peering vs transit, to say nothing of paid vs settlement free peering. Arbor is completely and totally unable to identify anything about money exchanged for bits in general, and from a technical perspective there is absolute no difference between a paid and non-paid peering. You seem to be convoluting the purported "increase in traffic between tier 2 networks" with a completely absurd belief that all traffic between tier 1's was transit and all traffic between tier 2's is peering. In reality, tier 2's routinely buy from and sell to each other, peer with some tier 1's, and sell paid peering between themselves when the business opportunities arise. You later go on to state: The Arbor study is evidence that traffic is shifting, and the carrier-neutral peering site managers I've spoken with tell me they're making something like 300 cross-connects a month. Do you think all those cross-connnects are implementing settlement-free peering or conventional transit agreements? I'm surmising that they aren't. You have absolutely no basis to make the determination about what percentage of the crossconnects are peering and what percentage are transit. This is what we tried to explain to you with the "you can't know this about any network but your own" answer, which you seemed completely incapable of understanding. The reality is that no one can know the answer for anything but themselves. For my network, I'd say much less than 20% of our crossconnects are peering, with the vast majority being customers, and a significant amount being intra-network capacity (intra-pop, metro, and long-haul circuits) and transit. The number may vary between networks, but again you have absolutely zero basis to make any kind of claim about peering let alone settlement-free vs paid based on the number of crossconnects in a colo. Most of the other arguments are either meaningless or fall apart once you remove some of the fundamental misunderstandings above, but there are still plenty of other things which are completely absurd. For example, you said: Paid peering is a better level of access to an ISP's customers for a fee, but the fee is less than the price of generic access to the ISP via a transit network. The practice of paid peering also reduces the load on the Internet core, so what's not to like? Paid peering agreements should be offered for sale on a non-discriminatory basis, but they certainly shouldn't be banned. Paid peering (or peering of any kind) is absolutely no guarantee of "better" access to any network, nor is it guaranteed (or even likely) to reduce costs. There is also no such thing as "load on the Internet core" to reduce, and this further illustrates a complete failure to understand how the Internet works in general. Paid peering is simply another form of transit, where two networks agree to exchange money for the service of delivering connectivity. The only difference is that you
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Of course, the FCC/FTC could always get involved and mandate full disclosure and peering neutrality. That might be fun. RB Richard Bennett wrote: Speculation about how the money flows is a worthwhile activity. Paul Wall wrote: On 11/25/09, Richard Bennett [1] wrote: It turns out you can say any damn thing you want about peering since nobody has any facts. Indeed you can. This is one of things where the people with the hard facts aren't talking due to NDA, regard for their pride, or both. In the absence of solid data, most journalists (and I use the term loosely) take the high road, writing on only what they know about and can back up with fact. It is unfortunate that you approach this differently, attempting to pass off Bill Norton's blog, itself very flawed and comprised of error upon error which he simply refuses to acknowledge or correct, as the new gospel. You write that "the shift of an enormous amount of Internet traffic from transit to paid peering is new, that's what the data in the Arbor Networks study shows". Nowhere in the Arbor study is there any analysis of where money is passing hands, or any settlement-based vs. settlement-free interconnection arrangement. The report is a scientific one based upon aggregated netflow/sflow data, which doesn't take layers 8 and above into account. Also suspiciously absent is any disclosure of employer affiliations and biases. You write that "[you're] opposed to the anti-discrimination rule that the FCC is considering". What you fail to mention is that you work for the ITIF, a Washington think-tank allegedly funded by big cable. Is it really any surprise that you want to preserve this revenue stream? Likewise, Norton neglects to mention that he works for NuMetra, a company going around to content and broadband operators trying to pitch a some black box which will enforce last-mile QoS and automatically pay the friendly local Internet monopoly/duopoly in "settlement" fees *on top* of your regular transit costs. Of course he wants Uncle Sam to back off; that's how his employer benefits. It is also important to consider Mr. Norton's role in Equinix, where he worked in MARKETING, far distanced from the establishment of actual peering agreements. The real co-founders were Jay Adelson and Al Avery. It is sad to see that Mr. Norton, once a valued member of the community, so blatantly favoring the green stuff over fact-checking and journalistic integrity. One can only hope Om Malik will carry out better due diligence in the future when hiring "industry experts" to write for him. Drive Slow, Paul Wall -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC References 1. mailto:rich...@bennett.com -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Speculation about how the money flows is a worthwhile activity. Paul Wall wrote: On 11/25/09, Richard Bennett [1] wrote: It turns out you can say any damn thing you want about peering since nobody has any facts. Indeed you can. This is one of things where the people with the hard facts aren't talking due to NDA, regard for their pride, or both. In the absence of solid data, most journalists (and I use the term loosely) take the high road, writing on only what they know about and can back up with fact. It is unfortunate that you approach this differently, attempting to pass off Bill Norton's blog, itself very flawed and comprised of error upon error which he simply refuses to acknowledge or correct, as the new gospel. You write that "the shift of an enormous amount of Internet traffic from transit to paid peering is new, that's what the data in the Arbor Networks study shows". Nowhere in the Arbor study is there any analysis of where money is passing hands, or any settlement-based vs. settlement-free interconnection arrangement. The report is a scientific one based upon aggregated netflow/sflow data, which doesn't take layers 8 and above into account. Also suspiciously absent is any disclosure of employer affiliations and biases. You write that "[you're] opposed to the anti-discrimination rule that the FCC is considering". What you fail to mention is that you work for the ITIF, a Washington think-tank allegedly funded by big cable. Is it really any surprise that you want to preserve this revenue stream? Likewise, Norton neglects to mention that he works for NuMetra, a company going around to content and broadband operators trying to pitch a some black box which will enforce last-mile QoS and automatically pay the friendly local Internet monopoly/duopoly in "settlement" fees *on top* of your regular transit costs. Of course he wants Uncle Sam to back off; that's how his employer benefits. It is also important to consider Mr. Norton's role in Equinix, where he worked in MARKETING, far distanced from the establishment of actual peering agreements. The real co-founders were Jay Adelson and Al Avery. It is sad to see that Mr. Norton, once a valued member of the community, so blatantly favoring the green stuff over fact-checking and journalistic integrity. One can only hope Om Malik will carry out better due diligence in the future when hiring "industry experts" to write for him. Drive Slow, Paul Wall -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC References 1. mailto:rich...@bennett.com
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
I haven't found a good source who knows what's going on outside his own network. Randy Bush wrote: It turns out you can say any damn thing you want about peering since nobody has any facts. not really. it's just that those with the facts have no reason to blab them and reasons not to do so. randy -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: fight club :) richard bennett vs various nanogers, on paid peering
Yes, it's a good old-fashioned Usenet-style flame-fest. Sort of. It turns out you can say any damn thing you want about peering since nobody has any facts. RB Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: http://gigaom.com/2009/11/22/how-video-is-changing-the-internet/ Does the FTC's question 106 hurt paid peering or not? 88 comments. Makes real interesting reading, I must say. srs -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: {SPAM?} Re: IPv6 Deployment for the LAN
It's not all that easy unless the dude has hacked the device driver. Owen DeLong wrote: And of course, a rogue RA station would _NEVER_ mess with that bit in what it transmits... Uh, yeah. Owen On Nov 7, 2009, at 2:41 AM, Richard Bennett wrote: The Wi-Fi MAC protocol has a pair of header bits that mean "from AP" and "to AP." In ad-hoc mode, a designated station acts as an AP, so that's nothing special. There are a couple of non-AP modes for direct link exchanges and peer-to-peer exchances that probably don't set "from AP" but I'm not sure about that. Adrian Chadd wrote: On Sat, Nov 07, 2009, Bernhard Schmidt wrote: As already said, wireless in infrastructure mode (with access points) always sends traffic between clients through the access point, so a decent AP can filter this. How does the client determine that the traffic came from the AP versus another client? Adrian -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: {SPAM?} Re: IPv6 Deployment for the LAN
The Wi-Fi MAC protocol has a pair of header bits that mean "from AP" and "to AP." In ad-hoc mode, a designated station acts as an AP, so that's nothing special. There are a couple of non-AP modes for direct link exchanges and peer-to-peer exchances that probably don't set "from AP" but I'm not sure about that. Adrian Chadd wrote: On Sat, Nov 07, 2009, Bernhard Schmidt wrote: As already said, wireless in infrastructure mode (with access points) always sends traffic between clients through the access point, so a decent AP can filter this. How does the client determine that the traffic came from the AP versus another client? Adrian -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: Congress may require ISPs to block fraud sites H.R.3817
IANAL, but I wouldn't set too much stock by that order - there are numerous errors of fact in the opinion, and much of it relates to the lack of due process in the maintenance of a secret blacklist. It was also a state law, not a federal one, so there was a large jurisdictional question (the Commerce Clause concern.) As people in Washington are saying around the net neutrality debate these days: "anything goes is not a serious argument." RB Steven Bellovin wrote: On Nov 5, 2009, at 7:44 PM, Richard Bennett wrote: I think the idea is for the government to create an official blacklist of the offending sites, and for ISPs to consult it before routing a packet to the fraud site. The common implementation would be an ACL on the ISPs border router. The Congress doesn't yet understand the distinction between ISPs and transit providers, of course, and typically says that proposed ISP regulations (including the net neutrality regulations) apply only to consumer-facing service providers. If this measure passes, you can expect expansion of blocking mandates for rogue sites of other kinds, such as kiddie porn and DMCA scofflaws. It's worth looking at hhttp://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/ -- a Federal court struck down a law requiring web site blocking because of child pornography. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: Congress may require ISPs to block fraud sites H.R.3817
I think the idea is for the government to create an official blacklist of the offending sites, and for ISPs to consult it before routing a packet to the fraud site. The common implementation would be an ACL on the ISPs border router. The Congress doesn't yet understand the distinction between ISPs and transit providers, of course, and typically says that proposed ISP regulations (including the net neutrality regulations) apply only to consumer-facing service providers. If this measure passes, you can expect expansion of blocking mandates for rogue sites of other kinds, such as kiddie porn and DMCA scofflaws. RB Steven Bellovin wrote: On Nov 5, 2009, at 5:56 PM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:40:09 CST, Bryan King said: Did I miss a thread on this? Has anyone looked at this yet? `(2) INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS- Any Internet service provider that, on or through a system or network controlled or operated by the Internet service provider, transmits, routes, provides connections for, or stores any material containing any misrepresentation of the kind prohibited in paragraph (1) shall be liable for any damages caused thereby, including damages suffered by SIPC, if the Internet service provider-- "routes" sounds the most dangerous part there. Does this mean that if we have a BGP peering session with somebody, we need to filter it? Also "transmits". (I'm impressed that someone in Congress knows the word "routes") Fortunately, there's the conditions: `(A) has actual knowledge that the material contains a misrepresentation of the kind prohibited in paragraph (1), or `(B) in the absence of actual knowledge, is aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation of the kind prohibited in paragraph (1), and upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, fails to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material. So the big players that just provide bandwidth to the smaller players are mostly off the hook - AS701 has no reason to be aware that some website in Tortuga is in violation (which raises an intresting point - what if the site *is* offshore?) And the immediate usptreams will fail to obtain knowledge or awareness of their customer's actions, the same way they always have. Note the word "circumstances"... Move along, nothing to see.. ;) Until, of course, some Assistant U.S. Attorney or some attorney in a civil lawsuit decides you were or should have been aware and takes you to court. You may win, but after spending O(\alph_0) zorkmids on lawyers defending yourself --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: ISP port blocking practice/Free Speech
The U. S. Congress is on the spot already, proposing "strict scrutiny tests" for filtering and forwarding decisions of all kinds. RB Randy Bush wrote: should we now look forward to deep technical opinons from law clerks -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: SA pigeon 'faster than broadband'
If this news had come out a little earlier, some pigeon breeding programs may have qualified for broadband stimulus grants. Edible, self-replicating IP carriers are pretty special anyhow. Scott Weeks wrote: --- n...@foobar.org wrote: So, good news all around. Let's hope that IP over carrier pigeon will soon become a thing of the past. - 4GB = 32Gb 32Gb in 2 hours is 4.45Mbps. That's a pretty good DSL upstream bandwidth. scott -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The background issue is whether satellite-based systems at around 200 Kb/s and high latency can be defined as "broadband." Since everyone in America - including the Alaskans - has access to satellite services, defining that level of service as broadband makes the rest of the exercise academic: everyone is "served." There's no economic argument for government subsidies to multiple firms in a market, of course. It's more interesting considering that DirecTV is about to launch a new satellite with a couple orders of magnitude more capacity than the existing ones offer. I seem to recall their claiming that the service would then improved to some respectable number of megabits/sec. Satellite ISPs locate their ground stations in IXP-friendly locations, so there aren't any worries about backhaul or fiber access costs. But to your actual question, "under-served" is of course quite subjective and cost is clearly part of it. RB Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote: As one of the workshops discussed, does the definition of "underserved" and "unserved" include the clause "for a reasonable price"? If the price is unreasonable, do you think its government money well-spent to subsidize bringing a competitor to a market that couldn't make it before? Or are there perhaps other ways to deal with that pricing issue? Frank -Original Message- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-na...@dirtside.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:46 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service since monopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar custom solutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
They have a saying in politics to the effect that "the perfect is the enemy of the good." This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: > If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband > implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter?
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The trouble with broadband in rural America is the twisted pair loop lengths that average around 20,000 feet. To use VDSL, the loop length needs to down around 3000, so they're stuck with ADSL unless the ILEC wants to install a lot of repeaters. And VDSL is the enabler of triple play over twisted pair. And apparently a number of rural cablecos, who have a suitable copper co-ax plant, haven't seen fit to offer what they call "data service." It's ironic, since cable TV was actually invented to help the rural user. Apparently the purpose of the definition is to ensure that the subsidies don't do down the rathole of supporting easy upgrades, but as others have mentioned, one definition for "broadband" isn't very useful unless it's something like "10 times faster than what I had yesterday." I like to say first gen broadband is 10 times faster than a modem or 500 Kb/s; second gen is 5 Mb/s, and third is 50 or faster. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Eric Brunner-Williams [mailto:brun...@nic-naa.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:00 AM To: Luke Marrott Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband In the applications I wrote earlier this month for BIP (Rural Utilities Services, USDA) and BTOP (NTIA, non-rural) infrastructure, for Maine's 2nd, I was keenly aware that broadband hasn't taken off as a pervasive, if not universal service in rural areas of the US. I don't think the speed metric is the metric that will make non-adoption in sparce clustered demographics distinguishable from adoption in denser demographics. I suspect that issues like symmetry of state signaling, latency, jitter, ... metrics that resemble what I looked for from MPI runs when benchmarking parallel systems, will characterize applications that may be distinguishable from the adoption, market penetration, renewal criteria from the applications that for reasons I can only conjecture, the standard "triple play" killer apps, which simply aren't driving broadband (whatever that is) adoption in rural areas. And no, I don't know what those better-than-triple-play-killer-apps-in-suburbia are. My meta-point is that I suspect there are two "broadbands", one where triple-play sells recurring subscriber drops, and one where it doesn't, and for the later a better definition would be more useful than a definition that reads (in fine print) "not available here". Eric Luke Marrott wrote: > I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( > http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056) > , in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the > definition of Broadband. > > What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be > going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for > a number of years to come. > > Thanks. > >
RE: AT&T. Layer 6-8 needed.
Corporate PR staffs don't generally work on Sunday, but when AT&T came into the office today they drafted this statement: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26970 "Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic. "Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers. "Here's more (http://budurl.com/DDoSVideo) on AT&T's efforts to prevent denial-of-service attacks." There's obviously a history of DOS attacks to and from 4chan and the membership over the years, some of it quite righteous. The "Anonymous" attacks against the Cult of Scientology, for example, were very sweet. But all you have to do is read the status page that moot posts on 4chan to realize that they've been the target of a counter-attack for past three weeks or so. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:se...@rollernet.us] Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 3:00 PM To: 'nanog - n. am. network ops group list' Subject: Re: AT&T. Layer 6-8 needed. Richard Bennett wrote: > > In the case of the ISPs and carriers who blocked access to 4chan for a > while Sunday, since that was done in accordance with DDOS mitigation, > there's not any issue as far as the FCC is concerned, but that hasn't > prevented the usual parties from complaining about censorship, etc. > If someone came out and said "Hey, DDOS mitigation, please hold!" that would be cool, too. Based on the content of 4chan, it's either DDOS or someone cried about the content. It looked like the latter. ~Seth
RE: AT&T. Layer 6-8 needed.
I'm not a lawyer either, but I know how ISPs are regulated in the US. The actual framework is the FCC's "Internet Policy Statement," to wit: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1.pdf . To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice. . To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement. . To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.13 . To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.14 All of this is subject to a "reasonable network management" exception. There is some disagreement about what consitututes "reasonable network management" at the fringes, but the FCC is on record that spam killing and DDOS attack mitigation are "reasonable." Some people want to add a fifth "non-discrimination" rule. In the case of the ISPs and carriers who blocked access to 4chan for a while Sunday, since that was done in accordance with DDOS mitigation, there's not any issue as far as the FCC is concerned, but that hasn't prevented the usual parties from complaining about censorship, etc. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 8:35 AM To: nanog - n. am. network ops group list Subject: Re: AT&T. Layer 6-8 needed. On Jul 27, 2009, at 11:22 AM, Hiers, David wrote: > I"m not a lawyer, but I think that the argument goes something like > this... > > The common carriers want to be indemnified from the content they > carry. In other words, the phone company doesn't want to be held > liable for the Evil Plot planned over their phone lines. The price > they pay for indemnification is that they must not care about ANY > content (including content that competes with content offered by a > non-carrier division of the common carrier). If they edit SOME > content, then they are acting in the role of a newspaper editor, and > have assumed the mantle of responsibility for ALL content. Famous two cases, Prodigy & Compuserve. Overturned many years ago. If you edit "some" content you are not automatically liable for all content. No ISP is a common carrier. That implies things like "you must provide service to everyone". Some common carriers get orders like "you must provide service in $MIDDLE_OF_NOWHERE". ISPs can, under certain circumstances, get a "mere conduit" style immunity. > Carriers can, however, do what they need to do to keep their networks > running, so they are permitted disrupt traffic that is damaging to the > network. > > The seedy side of all of this is that if a common carrier wants to > block a particular set of content from a site/network, all they need > to do is point out some technical badness that comes from the same > general direction. Since the background radiation of technical > badness is fairly high from every direction, it's not too hard to find > a good excuse when you want one. That, I believe, is much harder. But IANAL. Hell, I Am Not An ISP even. :) -- TTFN, patrick
