[AusNOG] Fwd: [Internet Australia - members] Net neutrality

[Tony Miles]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2015 at 4:43 PM, Mark Smith <markzzzsmith at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 24 Nov 2015 8:49 AM, "Skeeve Stevens" <skeeve+ausnog at theispguy.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > So,
> >
> > Ziggy wants to have a discussion about Net Neutrality.  Well, he should
> join Ausnog where everyone is and have that discussion.
> >
>
> Define network neutrality. Is it
>
> (a) applying QoS, so that latency sensitive apps get priority over bulk
> throughout apps?
>
> (b) artificially creating congestion so that then you can force content
> providers to pay you to make their content uncongested? ("Fastlanes")
>
> (c) providing some content providers advantages over others, that is also
> to your benefit, such that their content is more attractive to customers,
> disadvantaging their competitors? (e.g., zero metering one but not all VoD
> content providers traffic)
>
> (d) blocking a content provider's website, then ransoming access to your
> customers' eyeballs?
>
> I'm comfortable with (a), but not with the rest. So am I for or against
> "network neutrality"?
>

I would tend to agree with what you're comfortable with.


>From my experience there are three ways to deal with congestion:
1. Add more bandwidth so that there is no longer congestion points
2. Apply QoS so that more important things get use of the limited bandwidth
3. Ignore it - it's a totally best effort type of service

Right now option #2 isn't viable, there is no end to end QoS mechanism in
place and it's unlikely there will be. How do you make QoS work in a house
where you have 2 users on a voice/video call (over IP to random/different
OTT providers) as well as a couple of OTT video streams at the same time
and then maybe some torrents hammering in the background ?

Which leaves the remaining options (#1 & 3). Ignoring it is always an
option, but seems likely that users are going to keep whining about drops
in voip/video/streaming during peaks times. As an RSP, ignore it too much
and your users will start to look elsewhere, which might solve the
congestion issue, but probably isn't a viable long term business plan.

So the single viable option to congestion is to increase the available
bandwidth so that there is more headroom. If it's the last mile that is
congested, the option is fairly simple, user needs to upgrade to a higher
access speed plan (if available !). If no higher speed plans, then user is
SOOL and needs to manage their own usage a bit better (throttle those
torrents!). If the congestion is elsewhere in the network then the crux of
the problem is - who pays ?

User doesn't want to pay more because they pay $x/mon for a tail of some
speed + some volume of GB per month. If they aren't exceeding their quota
then user asks "why should I pay more to get the same amount of stuff" ? We
all know users (in general) don't understand CVC/backhaul contention and
peak usage times, etc, they just want their streaming voip/video to work.
RSP doesn't want to pay for upgrades, because they aren't getting any
associated increase in revenue from users so any increase in costs means
less profit for RSP (and we can all agree that is bad !) RSP might try to
lower costs on existing bandwidth (renegotiate contracts) to fund bandwidth
upgrades, but with NBN there is little/no scope for this to happen. RSP
can't charge users more, doesn't want to lower profit ratios, so points
finger at only remaining possibility - content provider. Content provider
doesn't want to pay any more to fund RSP upgrades because it isn't their
network/problem.

I don't know what the answer is, but with CVC charges at a per mbps price,
the problem isn't going to go away due to the disparity in pricing
structures between buying and selling bandwidth. If NBN lower their CVC
charges the problem might go away for some period of time until congestion
builds up again, but it will return. Perhaps we will see a return of the
peak/off-peak type plans (where peak is fairly narrow between perhaps
1800-2300) to indicate to users that there is a premium for bandwidth at
certain times of the day and so that increases to their "peak" quota
actually fund a better experience at that time of day ? Maybe the whole
thing is just an issue of scale and as more places are brought on to NBN
the scale of CVC/POI ratios will increase to a stage where peak congestion
isn't an issue ?


regards,
Tony.

(sorry no real answers, just putting some of my thoughts down)
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