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

[Mark Cheeseman]

Thanks Jared,

Agreed on that paper. The introduction put me off when it made the 
assertion that equal = fair and failed to justify that assertion later 
in the paper. And the paper comes to no conclusion that I can see.

I do have to question why the head of NBNCo, providing as it does layer 
2 services, is calling for a discussion about things that aren't (or 
should not) be his concern.

Holly's post yesterday summed up the discussion quite well: "First - 
network neutrality is one of those terms whose meaning is in the eye of 
the beholder (mixed metaphor, sorry)"

Fair treatment of traffic doesn't equate to equality in just passing 
packets. Why wouldn't an ISP (or company) prioritise voice traffic over 
video, over file transfers? The ISP is delivering services to the 
customer. Why not deliver what they the customer wants; what they think 
is important? That defines fair treatment of traffic!

I've been watching this thread with interest and have avoided responding 
until now, mostly because I have been on the road and reading the 
conversation on a phone. There is a lot that needs to be thrashed out in 
this discussion and the most important bit just now is what "Net 
Neutrality" actually means.

Good to see the conversation on this list; my main concern is that the 
concept of Net Neutrality is ill-defined and if we don't take a stance 
on defining it, it will be defined either by the media, or by prior art 
(ie, the USA).

-Mark

On 25/11/2015 9:26 AM, ausftth at mail.com wrote:
> Vijay Sivaraman wrote:
>> I would like to weigh in (as an academic) on the net neutrality discussion - we have recently authored a position paper that surveys perspectives from around the world.
>> This is to appear in the ACM Computer Communications Review (CCR) journal in Jan 2016, and is freely available at:
>> http://www2.ee.unsw.edu.au/~vijay/pubs/jrnl/16ccr.pdf
>> I am most welcome to any comments on our article, including pertinent things that we may have omitted, and your views on what we (the research community) can do
>> do shape the net neutrality debate in Australia.
> What a terrible, sloppy paper. It states that CDNs are a form of prioritization and conflates CDNs with network neutrality violations. It also confuses congestion with quality and implies that peering is a form of prioritization.
>
> The paper also presents value judgements without any corraborating research and takes an explicit non-network neutrality stance.
>
> I do admire the level of out of touchedness with reality that leads the authors to surmise that the only reason consumers are against paid prioritization is due to the deals being stuck in backrooms.
>
> The paper also posits a tragedy of commons by underinvestment in broadband networks unless network neutrality is abolished. This is an outlandish position to take given that it has been shown in the US that network neutrality legislation has had no effect on profitability or investment. The main observable effect has been that any lingering peering issues have been cleared up, which is a clear win.
>
> The proposal in chapter 4 is beyond silly. The proposal only benefits the ISP by introducing a billing point for rent seeking. It's a losing proposition for the CSP and an unnecessary headache for the consumer. It's very much not a win-win-win, but a win-lose-lose proposition.
>
> Furthermore there is no feasible way to implement the proposal in current access networks and the proposal assumes an ISP network without oversubscription, congestion or chokepoints. Any such network would immediately make the proposal redundant.
>
> Also, do we really need to contribute to link rot and source obfuscation by using URL shorteners in academic papers?
>
> I can only assume the writers have no real world network or industry experience. I do wonder where they get their funding from, tho.
>
> In closing, this is not a research paper, it is an opinion piece. I can only recommend retracting the paper.
>
> Jared
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