subject:"Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity"

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 12:33 AM, Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net wrote:
 However, I can say what global prevailing business practice
 is, since I’ve actually surveyed and quantified it:

 Each network [..] pays their own way to the IXP of their
 choice that the other party is present at, each network
 receiving a packet pays their own way from the IXP of
 their counterpart’s choice that they’re present at,
 independently in each direction.

Hi Bill,

I take issue with this claim because:

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 12:56 AM, Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net wrote:
 The survey was of interconnection norms, not of hugeness.

And, Of the total analyzed agreements, [...] 141,512 (99.51%) were
“handshake” agreements in which the parties agreed to informal or
commonly understood terms without creating a written document.

As a result, the data set suffers three flaws:

1. It is not representative of the actual traffic flows on the Internet.

2. The overwhelming majority of the agreements analyzed were handshake
agreements but no picture is available of the handshake agreements
those same parties rejected outright or, expecting rejection elected
not to pursue. That creates a data bias which could mask any number of
factors, leaving you no way to determine that the claimed norm bears
any resemblance to the results one might expect when proposing peering
with a neighbor.

3. The data supports no affirmative statement about the the peering
case most relevant to network neutrality: that of a small network
seeking to peer with a large one. More to the point, what agreements
occur or fail to occur when one network is in a position to strong-arm
the other and does this diverge from the general case?

That having been said, kudos for the excellent research. As far as
objective numbers go, yours are more thorough than any others I've
seen.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/
Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Bill Woodcock


On Jul 28, 2014, at 9:28 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote:
 The data set suffers three flaws:

Depending on your point of view, a lot more than three, undoubtedly.

 1. It is not representative of the actual traffic flows on the Internet.

There are an infinite number of things it’s not representative of, but it also 
doesn’t claim to be representative of them.  Traffic flows on the Internet is a 
different survey of a different thing, but if someone can figure out how to do 
it well, I would be very supportive of their effort.  It's a _much_ more 
difficult survey to do, since it requires getting people to pony up their 
unanonymized netflow data, which they’re a lot less likely to do, en masse, 
than their peering data.  We’ve been trying to figure out a way to do it on a 
large and representative enough scale to matter for twenty years, without too 
much headway.  The larger the Internet gets, the more difficult it is to survey 
well, so the problem gets harder with time, rather than easier.

 That having been said, kudos for the excellent research. As far as
 objective numbers go, yours are more thorough than any others I've
 seen.

Thank you.  We look forward to your participation in the next one!  :-)

-Bill






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Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Jay Ashworth

- Original Message -
 From: Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net

 On Jul 28, 2014, at 9:28 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote:
  The data set suffers three flaws:
 
 Depending on your point of view, a lot more than three, undoubtedly.
 
  1. It is not representative of the actual traffic flows on the
  Internet.
 
 There are an infinite number of things it’s not representative of, but
 it also doesn’t claim to be representative of them. Traffic flows on
 the Internet is a different survey of a different thing, but if
 someone can figure out how to do it well, I would be very supportive
 of their effort. It's a _much_ more difficult survey to do, since it
 requires getting people to pony up their unanonymized netflow data,
 which they’re a lot less likely to do, en masse, than their peering
 data. We’ve been trying to figure out a way to do it on a large and
 representative enough scale to matter for twenty years, without too
 much headway. The larger the Internet gets, the more difficult it is
 to survey well, so the problem gets harder with time, rather than
 easier.

I think you're over-specifizing Bill's assertion, Woody.

He didn't mean TCP Flows, I don't think; he was simply -- as I 
understood him -- talking about the 40,000ft view of connections between
pieces of the Internet.

I don't expect your dataset to have flow-level data, and I don't think
he did either; it isn't really germane to the conversation we're having.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth  Baylink   j...@baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think   RFC 2100
Ashworth  Associates   http://www.bcp38.info  2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA  BCP38: Ask For It By Name!   +1 727 647 1274

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Bill Woodcock


On Jul 28, 2014, at 9:52 AM, Jay Ashworth j...@baylink.com wrote:
 It is not representative of the actual traffic flows on the Internet.
 
 Traffic flows on the Internet is a different survey of a different thing.
 
 He didn't mean TCP Flows, I don't think; he was simply -- as I 
 understood him -- talking about the 40,000ft view of connections between
 pieces of the Internet. I don't expect your dataset to have flow-level data, 
 and I don't think
 he did either.

How else do you get a representative measurement of “actual traffic flows on 
the Internet?”

We’ve got adjacency information.  Telegeography has hand-waving 40,000 ft. flow 
estimates in the form of different widths of arrows on a map.  But if you want 
to know how large actual flows of data are between two regions of the Internet, 
and you can’t actually instrument the whole Internet, you need two things: (1) 
a broad and representative sampling of flow data, and (2) a complete 
measurement of a few portions of the network that are represented in the 
sampled set.  That gives you a horizontal and a vertical view, from which you 
can extrapolate to a whole, or any other part, with some minor assurance of 
reasonability.

If someone has an easier methodology to suggest, that still produces usable 
results, I’m all ears.

 it isn't really germane to the conversation we're having.

I thought I’d made that point?

-Bill






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Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Dorian Kim

On Jul 28, 2014, at 12:36 PM, Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net wrote:

 
 On Jul 28, 2014, at 9:28 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote:
 The data set suffers three flaws:
 
 Depending on your point of view, a lot more than three, undoubtedly.
 
 1. It is not representative of the actual traffic flows on the Internet.
 
 There are an infinite number of things it’s not representative of, but it 
 also doesn’t claim to be representative of them.  Traffic flows on the 
 Internet is a different survey of a different thing, but if someone can 
 figure out how to do it well, I would be very supportive of their effort.  
 It's a _much_ more difficult survey to do, since it requires getting people 
 to pony up their unanonymized netflow data, which they’re a lot less likely 
 to do, en masse, than their peering data.  We’ve been trying to figure out a 
 way to do it on a large and representative enough scale to matter for twenty 
 years, without too much headway.  The larger the Internet gets, the more 
 difficult it is to survey well, so the problem gets harder with time, rather 
 than easier.

This most likely won’t happen unless it becomes some sort of an international 
treaty obligation and even then it would end up in courts for a long time. 
Leaving aside data privacy requirements many carriers have, most companies 
guard their traffic information rather zealously for some reason.

-dorian

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Matthew Petach

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Dorian Kim dor...@blackrose.org wrote:



 This most likely won’t happen unless it becomes some sort of an
 international treaty obligation and even then it would end up in courts for
 a long time. Leaving aside data privacy requirements many carriers have,
 most companies guard their traffic information rather zealously for some
 reason.

 -dorian


We'll allow you to keep these connections
in place as a legacy favour, but as far as the
rest of the world is concerned, they don't
exist; we don't pass routes from it along
to others, and neither will you.  They get
used for internal traffic only.

Those types of situations are why traffic
flow data tends to be kept very, very secret.
Every network has its dark corners, its dirty
little secrets that shouldn't see the light of
day.  It's easy to make sure those aren't
drawn on the maps released to the public.
It's a lot harder to make sure the presence
of those edges doesn't become visible if
you export actual flow data.

Matt

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:
 In fact Netflix is asking to connect to eyeball networks for free:

Yeah, because when I pay UPS on my corporate account to pick up a
package in California and deliver it to me in Virginia, the guy at the
pickup in California is asking UPS to deliver it for free.

Your claim is twisted man. Twisted. I pay Verizon to connect me to
Netflix and the rest of the Internet at substantial speed. Netflix
demands only that Verizon give me what I paid for.

 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:

There is no traditional understanding of net neutrality. The term
was co-opted to mean many different things the moment it entered
political awareness, before any tradition could develop.


 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



-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/
Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Richard Bennett

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 rich...@bennett.com 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

2014-07-28 Thread Owen DeLong

Astroturfing doesn’t require a fake organization, just fraudulent use of an
organization claiming to be grass roots.

I guarantee you that the majority of the communities represented by those
organizations probably don’t even understand the issue. Of those that do, I
suspect that if you polled them, you’d find most of the not backing the
position contained in the document.

Somehow, the anti-internet-freedom collection of monopoly/oligopoly interests
managed to coopt the leadership of those organizations into this astroturf.

Owen

On Jul 27, 2014, at 5:28 PM, Richard Bennett 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-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/

Actually, I don’t see this ruling as such a bad thing.

Internet Freedom? Not so much.

We can agree to disagree. I don’t think leveraging one semi-captive audience to
build a captive audience for other companies is a good thing. It reduces the
potential for new entrants to compete on an even footing. (Not that there
aren’t already plenty of barriers to competing with Facebook and/or Google, but
adding cross-subsidies from TPC shouldn’t be an additional one.

Owen

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Owen DeLong


On Jul 27, 2014, at 9:08 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com 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
  
 
 quote
 
 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

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Daniel Corbe


I don't have much to add to this discussion, but...

Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com writes:

 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.

People will eventually come to rely on the Internet as a critical piece
of infrastructure.  And many already do.  Provisioning service and
routing packets needs to be separated from provisioning physical access
in any form.  If the governments need to step in to do the latter, I'm
happy for them to do so as long as it falls under some lattice of
framework similar to the public utilities commission.  So that the
localities responsible for maintaining the infrastructure are compelled
to act responsibly. 

Or if you *really* want to be in the business of owning infrastructure
on a commercial basis, your business should be wavelengths, not packets.

 
 In other words, the Internet that we have today isn't the best of all
 possible networks, it's just the devil we know.


-Daniel

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Owen DeLong


On Jul 27, 2014, at 10:53 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:

 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.”

Which is as it should be… There’s no reason $EYEBALL_ISP should get to 
double-bill both their customer and Netflix et. al. for the same traffic.

There are a few possible cases…

USEREYEBALL_ISPCONTENT_PROVIDER

In this case, USER is paying Eyeball ISP and the costs are minimized.

USEREYEBALL_ISPPUBLIC_EXCHANGECONTENT_PROVIDER

In this case, USER pays Eyeball ISP and EYEBALL_ISP and CONTENT_PROVIDER pay 
PUBLIC_EXCHANGE (minimal fee usually) and
costs are still relatively small.

USEREYEBALL_ISPTRANSIT_ISPCONTENT_PROVIDER

In this case, USER pays Eyeball ISP and CONTENT_PROVIDER pays TRANSIT_ISP. 
Since both ISPs have been paid by their respective customers, there shouldn’t 
be any need for money to change hands between TRANSIT_ISP and EYEBALL_ISP.

This is the most expensive case for CONTENT_PROVIDER and possibly USER.

In all of the above scenarios, EYEBALL_ISPs costs are very similar. There’s 
really no valid reason for EYEBALL_ISP to attempt to extort money from 
CONTENT_PROVIDER in order to deliver packets requested by USER who already pays 
them.

No matter how much you spin this or how many times you try to contort it to 
argue that CONTENT_PROVIDER should be forced to subsidize USER’s service from 
EYEBALL_ISP, the argument just doesn’t hold water if you actually analyze it.

 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.”

It seems pretty close to the traditional understanding of net neutrality to me. 
A neutral network requires that Network A doesn’t try to jack Network B for 
payment to deliver packets requested by users paying Network A.

However, I realize that these facts interfere with your role as a 
shill^wpoopy-head, so obviously you can’t accept them as in any way legitimate.

Owen

 
 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

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:
 It's hard to see a revolution when you're in the middle of it. [...], 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.

Richard,

Before Netflix it was Bittorrent. Before Bittorrent it was Usenet.
Before the Internet, history records no shortage of companies willing
to falsely advertise a product that did less than was claimed. Nor is
fraudulent double-billing a recent invention.

There is nothing new under the sun, no matter how much you may protest
otherwise, and every one of these eyeball networks sold products
which, on paper, were consistent with the use of Netflix. Without
requiring additional payment beyond the customers' subscriber fee.

And continued selling the product as described, long beyond any
reasonable doubt their customers expected it to work with Netflix.
Right through this very minute and beyond.

Regards,
Bill Herrin




-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/
Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Michael Thomas



On 7/28/14, 12:39 PM, William Herrin wrote:

And continued selling the product as described, long beyond any
reasonable doubt their customers expected it to work with Netflix.
Right through this very minute and beyond.



It would be amusing to see Netflix just call their bluff. And maybe 
donate some
lawyers for the inevitable class action lawsuit for false advertising 
against the eyeball
networks. I imagine other self-interested 900lb gorillas might join the 
fun too.


Mike

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Richard Bennett

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 rich...@bennett.com 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

quote

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

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Richard Bennett


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

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 4:47 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:
 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.

Second verse, same as the first. A little bit louder and a little bit worse.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/
Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Jim Richardson

I pay for (x) bits/sec up/down. From/to any eyecandysource.  If said
eyecandy origination can't handle the traffic, then I see a slowdown,
that's life.  But if $IP_PROVIDER throttles it specifically, rather
than throttling me to (x),I consider that fraud.

I didn't pay for (x) bits/sec from some whitelist of sources only.

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Matt Palmer

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 01:38:03PM -0700, Michael Thomas wrote:
 On 7/28/14, 12:39 PM, William Herrin wrote:
 And continued selling the product as described, long beyond any
 reasonable doubt their customers expected it to work with Netflix.  Right
 through this very minute and beyond.
 
 It would be amusing to see Netflix just call their bluff. And maybe donate
 some lawyers for the inevitable class action lawsuit for false advertising
 against the eyeball networks.  I imagine other self-interested 900lb
 gorillas might join the fun too.

I think we've seen the first shots of this battle fired already -- Netflix
was putting up notices saying your video is crap because $ISP is congested
for a little while.  I expect that wasn't the last we'll see of that kind of
tactic.

- Matt

-- 
You know you have a distributed system when the crash of a computer you’ve
never heard of stops you from getting any work done.
-- Leslie Lamport Security Engineering: A Guide to Building
   Dependable Distributed Systems

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-28 Thread Matthew Petach

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Jim Richardson weaselkee...@gmail.com
wrote:

 I pay for (x) bits/sec up/down. From/to any eyecandysource.  If said
 eyecandy origination can't handle the traffic, then I see a slowdown,
 that's life.  But if $IP_PROVIDER throttles it specifically, rather
 than throttling me to (x),I consider that fraud.

 I didn't pay for (x) bits/sec from some whitelist of sources only.


Hey, just wait until the eyeball networks decide
they can charge different amounts depending
upon their view of the morality of the content
being sent...

#engage_fly_on_wall_of_boardroom_mode

OK, let's see...Netflix traffic, they get charged
$2/mb extra, because they show adult situations
and brief nudity.  Pornhub show explicit material,
but it's mostly boobs and butts, so we'll look the
other way, and only charge them $4/mb to get
past the choke point (because there's no such
thing as a fast lane with QoS, there's only normal
and be glad we didn't throw it *all* on the floor).
Oh my...doublefistingdudes.com...we don't like
the idea of naked dudes getting it on over our
wires...for them, it's $100/mb if they want their
bits to make it to our users.  Guess they'll have
to jack the price of their content *waaay* up.
*sound of high fives all around* 

#end_fly_mode

Hey, if they don't have to be neutral about it,
why not enforce their morality through differential
pricing, while they're at it?

We could even have differential pricing based
on days of the week.

Oh, you want to send your movies to our users
on the holy day, when they should be praying?
For that privilege, it will cost you 10x what it
does on any other day, for you are luring our
users into vice and depravity.

That whitelist must be sounding pretty darn
tempting to some executives right about now.
Forget about censoring content on the internet
that they don't like...they can just bill arbitrarily
high rates to let it get through.  Price it high
enough, and nobody will watch it anymore, and
they can go to bed happy.

Matt
getting ready to start a mail-order DVD service
that doesn't charge extra based on what you want
to watch...

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.

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: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread Joly MacFie

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 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__/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





-- 
---
Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
 http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
 VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org
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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 rich...@bennett.com 
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__/status/489212137773215744

The net neutrality debate astonishes me because it rehashes
arguments I first heard when

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread goemon


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

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

2014-07-27 Thread Joly MacFie

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

quote

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 what most
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.

/quote

On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Richard Bennett 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.

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.

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

--
---
Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY -

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

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?

- Matt

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian

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
 On 28-Jul-2014 8:06 am, Matt Palmer mpal...@hezmatt.org 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?

 - Matt

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 08:16:36AM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
  On 28-Jul-2014 8:06 am, Matt Palmer mpal...@hezmatt.org 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

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 mpal...@hezmatt.org 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 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 



quote

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.htmstakeholders 
http://a4ai.org/policy-and-regulatory-best-practices/agree 
http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2013/27.aspxis 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.


/quote





On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com 
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-phone-would-make-sense/
with mobile operators around the world to offer a bare-bones
version of their service

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread Bill Woodcock


On Jul 27, 2014, at 9:08 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:
 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?

I won’t presume to speak for Netflix, and I won’t presume to provide a 
canonical definition of “network neutrality.”  However, I can say what global 
prevailing business practice is, since I’ve actually surveyed and quantified it:

Each network (regardless of whether they term themselves “eyeball,” “content,” 
“edge,” or whatever) delivering a packet pays their own way to the IXP of their 
choice that the other party is present at, each network receiving a packet pays 
their own way from the IXP of their counterpart’s choice that they’re present 
at, independently in each direction.  Thus, where content networks interconnect 
with eyeball networks, when they follow the best practice engaged in by 99.73% 
of all network-pairs, the eyeball network’s customers pay them to deliver 
traffic to an IXP of their choice and from an IXP of the content network’s 
choice, while the content network’s customers pay them to deliver traffic to an 
IXP of their choice and from an IXP of the eyeball network's choice, long in, 
short out.  No money changes hands between the two networks, because no value 
is exchanged between the two networks.  Each network pays their own way, and is 
in turn paid by their customer. Because they’re each providing value to their 
customers, not to each other.

In 0.27% of cases, the parties aren’t able to see their way to following best 
practices, and some fraction of those are disputes between content and eyeball 
networks of the sort that you’re describing.  

-Bill






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Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread Miles Fidelman


Bill Woodcock wrote:

On Jul 27, 2014, at 9:08 PM, Richard Bennett rich...@bennett.com wrote:

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?

I won’t presume to speak for Netflix, and I won’t presume to provide a 
canonical definition of “network neutrality.”  However, I can say what global 
prevailing business practice is, since I’ve actually surveyed and quantified it:

Each network (regardless of whether they term themselves “eyeball,” “content,” 
“edge,” or whatever) delivering a packet pays their own way to the IXP of their 
choice that the other party is present at, each network receiving a packet pays 
their own way from the IXP of their counterpart’s choice that they’re present 
at, independently in each direction.  Thus, where content networks interconnect 
with eyeball networks, when they follow the best practice engaged in by 99.73% 
of all network-pairs, the eyeball network’s customers pay them to deliver 
traffic to an IXP of their choice and from an IXP of the content network’s 
choice, while the content network’s customers pay them to deliver traffic to an 
IXP of their choice and from an IXP of the eyeball network's choice, long in, 
short out.  No money changes hands between the two networks, because no value 
is exchanged between the two networks.  Each network pays their own way, and is 
in turn paid by their customer. Because they’re each providing value to their 
customers, not to each other.

In 0.27% of cases, the parties aren’t able to see their way to following best 
practices, and some fraction of those are disputes between content and eyeball 
networks of the sort that you’re describing.

 -Bill


Bill,

Can you say more about what you've done to survey and quantify 
prevailing practices?


And... given that Netflix is reportedly about 1/3 of Internet traffic 
these days, and Verizon is huge - how does that come out to .27% of 
cases (leaving aside other recent disputes like L3-Cogent, and 
Netflix-Comcast)?


Miles Fidelman



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 08:59:14PM -0700, Richard Bennett wrote:
 Maybe it would help if you tried to address the issues in a serious
 way instead of just trying to be cute.

I will when you will, poopy head.

- Matt

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

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

Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

2014-07-27 Thread Bill Woodcock


On Jul 27, 2014, at 9:39 PM, Miles Fidelman mfidel...@meetinghouse.net wrote:
 Can you say more about what you've done to survey and quantify prevailing 
 practices?

https://www.pch.net/resources/papers//peering-survey/PCH-Peering-Survey-2011.pdf

We’ll do another one in the run-up to the next OECD carrier interconnection 
paper.

 Given that Netflix is reportedly about 1/3 of Internet traffic these days, 
 and Verizon is huge - how does that come out to .27% of cases?

Netflix/Verizon would be 0.0007% of cases, if it’s represented in the dataset.  
The survey was of interconnection norms, not of hugeness.

-Bill






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Re: Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity