The current scandal is not about peering, it is last mile ISP double dipping. Nick On Apr 27, 2014 2:05 AM, "Rick Astley" <jna...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Without the actual proposal being published for review its hard to know the > specifics but it appears that it prohibits blocking and last mile tinkering > of traffic (#1). What this means to me is ISP's can't block access to a > specific website like alibaba and demand ransom from subscribers to access > it again. I do not know if this provision would also include prohibiting > intentionally throttling traffic on a home by home basis (#2) and holding > services to the same kind of random is also prohibited but I think this too > would be a far practice to prohibit. Bits are bits. > > From the routers article ( > > http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/us-usa-fcc-internet-idUSBREA3M1H020140423 > ) > and elsewhere it seems what the proposal does not outlaw is paid > peering > and perhaps use of QoS on networks. > > #3 On paid peering: > I think this is where people start to disagree but I don't see what should > be criminal about paid peering agreements. More specifically, I see serious > problems once you outlaw paid peering and then look at the potential > repercussions that would have. Clearly it would not be fair to for only the > largest content providers to be legally mandated as settlement free peers > because that would leave smaller competitors out in the cold. The only fair > way to outlaw paid peering would be to do it across the board for all > companies big and small. This would be everyone from major content > providers to my uncle to sells hand runs a website to sell hand crafted > chairs. This would have major sweeping repercussions for the Internet as we > know it over night. > > I think it makes sense to allow companies to work it out as long as the > prices charged aren't unreasonably high based on market prices for data. > This means if 2 ISP's with similar networks want to be settlement free they > can. If ISP's want to charge for transit they can, and if ISP's want to > charge CDN's to deliver data they can. Typically the company with the > disproportional amount of costs of carrying the traffic would charge the > other company but really it should be up to the companies involved to > decide. Based on the post by Tom Wheeler from the FCC ( > http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules) > it sounds like if this pricing is "commercially unreasonable" (ie > extortion) they will step in. Again I think this is fair. > > > #4 On QoS (ie fast lane?): > In some of the articles I skimmed there was a lot of talk about fast lane > traffic but what this sounds like today would be known as QoS and > classification marking that would really only become a factor under > instances of congestion. The tech bloggers and journalists all seems to be > unanimously opposed to this but I admit I am sort of scratching my head at > the outrage over something that has been in prevalent use on many major > networks for several years. I don't see this as the end of the Internet as > we know it that now seems to essentially be popular opinion on the issue. > Numerous businesses are using QoS to protect things like voice traffic and > business critical or emergency traffic from being impacted in a failure > scenario. In modern day hyper converged networks where pretty soon even > mobile voice traffic could be VoIP over a data network prohibiting the use > of all QoS seems irresponsible. > > The larger question is, is it fair for ISP's to charge people to be in a > priority other than "best effort"? To answer a question with a question, > if an ISP is using a priority other than "best effort" for some of its own > traffic is it fair if a peer with a competing service is only best effort > delivery? This is sort of akin to Comcast not counting its own video > service against the ~250G/month cap of subscribers but counting off network > traffic against it. In theory if some of an ISP's own services are able to > use higher than best effort priority the same should be available to the > business they are selling service to. If they go completely out of their > way to intentionally congest the network to force people into needing a > higher than best effort classification I would think it should fall into > what the FCC calls "commercially unreasonable" and thus be considered a > violation. So again, I think this is fair. > > I have numbered the items I mentioned from 1-4 being > #1. Blocking > #2. per household (last mile) rate limiting of a service (though rate > limiting at all anywhere should probably be up for discussion so #2.5) > #3. The legality of paid peering > #4. The legality of QoS (unless fast lane is something else I don't > understand). > > Feel free to augment the list. >