Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] [LibreQoS] net neutrality back in the news
So, let me start wit a big caveat: I am just an internet end-user and have no insight into the ISP side of things. Nor am I a lawyer and hence might moss some of the subtleties of the regulation and their translation into law in each member state. > On Sep 30, 2023, at 14:42, Vint Cerf wrote: > > the phrase "treat equally" can (maybe should?) be interpreted as offering the > same options for traffic handling to all parties on the same terms and > conditions. [SM] Let me start with noting that, clearly selling internet access links with different maximum capacity is established practice in the EU (as in most/all other markets), and has been before and after the regulation was published and converted to national law in the member states*. The EU regulation contains some rules about how ISPs are allowed to market these speed/capacity numbers and which remedies end customers have when the ISP under-delivers (as well as making the national regulator responsible to create methods to actually assess achievable capacity). So on the consumer side this is pretty clear (and the regulations encompasses all parties buying access service as end-customers, so a content provider buying internet access will covered just as a privat hoisehold. *) There are however unicorn ISPs like Switzerland's Init7 that offered 1Gbps, 10 Gbps or 25 Gbps symmetric internet access links for the same monthly price (they recently seemed to have dropped the 1 Gbps tier, but 10 or 25 still cost the same relative low CHF 64.75/month); the main difference is the initial cost differs (probably to cover the cost of the more expensive optics at the optical switch in the CO). But again that is clearly NOT the norm ;) and as much as would wish otherwise Switzerland is not a member of the EU... Here is the first clause of the preamble (see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015R2120 ): (1) This Regulation aims to establish common rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access services and related end-users’ rights. It aims to protect end-users and simultaneously to guarantee the continued functioning of the internet ecosystem as an engine of innovation. Reforms in the field of roaming should give end-users the confidence to stay connected when they travel within the Union, and should, over time, become a driver of convergent pricing and other conditions in the Union. making it clear that this mainly focusses on internet access (and mobile roaming, but that seems less relevant for this thread). > If there is only one class of service, then equally is the only option. This would likely be other/non-internet accesss or specialized services in the parlance of the regulation: (16) There is demand on the part of providers of content, applications and services to be able to provide electronic communication services other than internet access services, for which specific levels of quality, that are not assured by internet access services, are necessary. Such specific levels of quality are, for instance, required by some services responding to a public interest or by some new machine-to-machine communications services. Providers of electronic communications to the public, including providers of internet access services, and providers of content, applications and services should therefore be free to offer services which are not internet access services and which are optimised for specific content, applications or services, or a combination thereof, where the optimisation is necessary in order to meet the requirements of the content, applications or services for a specific level of quality. National regulatory authorities should verify whether and to what extent such optimisation is objectively necessary to ensure one or more specific and key features of the content, applications or services and to enable a corresponding quality assurance to be given to end-users, rather than simply granting general priority over comparable content, applications or services available via the internet access service and thereby circumventing the provisions regarding traffic management measures applicable to the internet access services. (17) In order to avoid the provision of such other services having a negative impact on the availability or general quality of internet access services for end-users, sufficient capacity needs to be ensured. Providers of electronic communications to the public, including providers of internet access services, should, therefore, offer such other services, or conclude corresponding agreements with providers of content, applications or services facilitating such other services, only if the network capacity is sufficient for their provision in addition to any internet access services provided. The provisions of this Regulation on the safeguarding of open internet access should not be
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] [LibreQoS] net neutrality back in the news
the phrase "treat equally" can (maybe should?) be interpreted as offering the same options for traffic handling to all parties on the same terms and conditions. If there is only one class of service, then equally is the only option. If there are multiple classes of service, then these could (should?) be available to all customers indiscriminately. For example, there might be several distinct services with different maximum bit rates; the higher rates possibly available for a higher charge. If there is discrimination, it should be on the basis of customer choice and not dictated by the provider. Is that consistent with the European interpretation? v On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 1:19 PM Sebastian Moeller via Starlink < starl...@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote: > Hi Frantisek, > > > On Sep 30, 2023, at 14:00, Frantisek Borsik via Rpm < > r...@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote: > > > > Back then in 2015, when NN was enacted by Wheeler & CO, there was a > great body of work (IMHO) done on this subject by Martin Geddes: > > https://www.martingeddes.com/1261-2/ > > > > But let's pick one report written by his colleagues and published by > Ofcom (UK telecoms regulator): > > > > • You cannot conflate ‘equality of [packet] treatment’ with > delivering equality of [user application] outcomes. Only the latter > matters, as ordinary users don’t care what happened to the packets in > transit. Yet the relevant academic literature fixates on the local > operation of the mechanisms (including Traffic Management), not their > global aggregate effect. > > [SM] The EU laid out pretty clear why they mandated the NN > regulations in eu regulation 2015/2120: > > [...] > (8) > When providing internet access services, providers of those services > should treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or > interference, independently of its sender or receiver, content, application > or service, or terminal equipment. According to general principles of Union > law and settled case-law, comparable situations should not be treated > differently and different situations should not be treated in the same way > unless such treatment is objectively justified. > (9) > The objective of reasonable traffic management is to contribute to an > efficient use of network resources and to an optimisation of overall > transmission quality responding to the objectively different technical > quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic, and thus > of the content, applications and services transmitted. Reasonable traffic > management measures applied by providers of internet access services should > be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and should not be > based on commercial considerations. The requirement for traffic management > measures to be non-discriminatory does not preclude providers of internet > access services from implementing, in order to optimise the overall > transmission quality, traffic management measures which differentiate > between objectively different categories of traffic. Any such > differentiation should, in order to optimise overall quality and user > experience, be permitted only on the basis of objectively different > technical quality of service requirements (for example, in terms of > latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth) of the specific categories of > traffic, and not on the basis of commercial considerations. Such > differentiating measures should be proportionate in relation to the purpose > of overall quality optimisation and should treat equivalent traffic > equally. Such measures should not be maintained for longer than necessary. > (10) > Reasonable traffic management does not require techniques which monitor > the specific content of data traffic transmitted via the internet access > service. > (11) > Any traffic management practices which go beyond such reasonable traffic > management measures, by blocking, slowing down, altering, restricting, > interfering with, degrading or discriminating between specific content, > applications or services, or specific categories of content, applications > or services, should be prohibited, subject to the justified and defined > exceptions laid down in this Regulation. Those exceptions should be subject > to strict interpretation and to proportionality requirements. Specific > content, applications and services, as well as specific categories thereof, > should be protected because of the negative impact on end-user choice and > innovation of blocking, or of other restrictive measures not falling within > the justified exceptions. Rules against altering content, applications or > services refer to a modification of the content of the communication, but > do not ban non-discriminatory data compression techniques which reduce the > size of a data file without any modification of the content. Such > compression enables a more efficient use of scarce resources and serves the > end-users’ interests by reducing data
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] [LibreQoS] net neutrality back in the news
Hi Gert, > On Sep 29, 2023, at 08:31, Gert Doering wrote: > > Hi, > > On Fri, Sep 29, 2023 at 08:24:13AM +0200, Sebastian Moeller via Starlink > wrote: >> [SM] In the EU we have this as a continuous lobbying effort by big >> incumbent ISPs (a move to have the large content providers (CAPs) shoulder >> their "fair" share of the cost of modernizing the networks*), why this flys >> with at least some EU politicians is that the intended payees of this scheme >> are all located outside the EU and hence will have little support by the EU >> citizenry... (The latter is IMHO not fully undeserved either, the days of >> "do no evil" are long behind us and big tech often forgets that we are all >> in this together, but I digress). In the EU one of these days such an effort >> might actually succeed, as much as I dislike this. > > And then the local incumbent uses that line of argument to arm-twist > all the smaller ISPs to pay them for traffic into their network... > (and calling up fees well above normal market rates for "transit"). Indeed, but that only flies because the regulators so far only feel responsible for the end-customer to internet access provider links, and explicitly exempt AS interconnect from their regulatory efforts. Given how complicated this can become I have some sympathy for their position, the national incumbent however plays a somewhat dangerous game, if he makes things too obvious it will likely result in regulatory interventions. This is also why the product sold is not "access to our eye-balls" but access "to the whole internet, including our eye-balls" yet at a cost that nobody is likely to use to access anything but that ISPs eye-balls. As much as it pains me that is behavior not untypical for large corporations these days... Regards Sebastian > > Gert Doering >-- NetMaster > -- > have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? > > SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard, Michael Emmer > Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann > D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) > Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279 ___ Bloat mailing list Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
