EU urged to ignore net neutrality delusions, choose science instead There are real issue of power, fairness, justice and market transparency in today’s internet. There are real uncertainties over which market structures maximise social and economic benefits. There are real questions about the practicality of different traffic management and charging mechanisms. But Europe's misguided "Save The …
QoS - how prioritise services given the ISP's bandwidth. Nobody would say it's so important that e-mail/HTTP browsing gets through at that precise moment that it affects a VoIP phone call/video call.
Not having net neutrality - the ISP can charge the customer extra to flick the switch so they can have that priority. If the customer don't pay extra to their ISP every month, their VoIP phone calls/video calls won't get priority over e-mail/HTTP with annoying consequences.
There is no need for a technical solution because it's not a technical problem. NN (or rather not having NN) is a billing problem.
Amazing how many articles are published on El Reg which manage to mix up QoS and NN.
100 times yes.
QoS is perfectly fine on any network. Separating out priority traffic from low priority traffic is part and parcel of what network management does.
Net neutrality means you can't charge itunes more than netflix for the same bandwidth on the same network channel. Or make Google's emails arrive faster than Hotmail. It's all about removing barriers to entry from new competitors, and the one thing all the internet giants want is to stifle any potential competition.
Unfortunately, your definition of "Net Neutrality" does not match the definition that the lawmakers are using.
That really seems to be the biggest problem with Net Neutrality discussions on this site - everyone has a different definition because the term isn't a technical term to which we have an established definition. In fact, that was one of the points of this article.
While your definition is a good ideal, the government definition is less so. In their definitions, no traffic may be discriminated against based on origin, destination, or content. Similar, but VERY different. Because with their definition there is no such thing as priority traffic. Everything is equal. Yes, that means that your itunes traffic and your netflix traffic are equal, but so is your VoIP traffic and the spam email and the guy next door seeding torrents.
From misguided concepts to irrelevance in one article.
The key is that the ISP (or perhaps more precisely, the network) doesn't provide services, it is a carrier. What we are trying to avoid is the ISP becoming the gatekeeper. We don't want it moving from courier-on-retainer working for the data consumer to road toll collector charging the data supplier.
If data providers want to pay for colo caches, that's fine, but they should not be able to pay for network priority. The difference is not in the effect (data reaches consumers faster) but in the corruptibility of the system. The downloader pays (that's why we have transit fees) but they should not be able to pay for a differentiated (by speed) service based on a particular data provider or proxy for data provider. i.e. you can't pay for faster access to Apple, or for better facetime access. You may be able to (for free) ask for qos to prioritise facetime over http for your link.
It would be nice to say - use QoS for all time sensitive apps, but then you really need to stick to well known services - RTP for example. You could add skype and facetime, but then you discourage new start-ups who can't get their protocols onto the ISP's priority lists. Again, being on a priority list is not something anyone should be able to pay for, it is the way the ISP provides better customer service - the customer being the broadband subscriber.
Net Neutrality is about preventing business corruption and encouraging a level playing field for new-comers. It isn't about building faster or smarter networks.
Too late, that horse ran out of the barn long ago, and frankly is probably dead of natural causes.
What I know about Ol' Blighty comes mostly from reading this website. Based on that I gather your ISPs are already also your gatekeepers.
On this side of the pond they pretty much always were.* On the East Coast the two major providers are Verizon and Comcast. Both provide both content and carrier services. Both preferentially treat at least part of that content delivery (cable services) because it is sold as a separate component and under old legal theory ought to be separate from their carrier services (phone and internet). I understand in other parts of the US the names change, but that's about it.
*Yes there was a brief time before the megacorps took over where you could purchase just straight up carriers, but truth be told, back then the carriers were too expensive to really be thought of as consumer commodities.
QoS needs the originating party to be trusted - or needs to have a separate "fast-lane" bucket per every end-user at every congestion point. The former one contradicts "net neutrality". The latter one is probably too expensive for large ISPs.
Otherwise people will abuse fast lanes by making their ordinary traffic indistinguishable from others' "priority traffic", such as by developing "VPN over SIP" solutions.
Kit, I've been doing that since DOS 6.1 (and Microsoft was doing it as well.)
Also, (quoting https://andrewjprokop.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/calculating-bandwidth-for-sip-trunks/ ):
"90 Kbps for G.711 and 32 Kpbs for G.729a"
Means that they won't be using much bandwidth at priority QoS levels because the provider will drop their sip call into a queue that rate limits them to 32 or 90Kbps, effectively 'killing their download'....tough shit.
Rate limiting all SIP traffic to the client to 90 Kbps will destroy video conferencing. And, as far as I can see it, prioritizing first 90Kbps to the fast-lane and the rest to the best-effort cannot be done just at the client's endpoint, but needs to be repeated at the ISP's congestion points as well - for each and every client.
Talked like a real corporate shill. Gotta love how he blurs the lines between QoS and what net neutrality stands for.
Hey ElReg, could you please disclose who this guy is what he does for a living more visibly (as opposed to not at all) at the start of the article?
His website:
http://www.martingeddes.com/
LinkedIn Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgeddes
"I co-founded a new industry association promoting the commercial adoption of value-added voice services by Web, telecoms and enterprise software organisations."
Gee, now I know who to thank for this crap. Thanks dude! Thanks so very much.
..does not automatically invalidate any points they make.
And any argument that says 'if you dont like the experience you get, spend (more) money with somneone else' is a valid point of view.
I pay 2-3 times the 'consumer' rate for my broadband, but I get the QOS and the lack of contention and the speed of e.g. skype/voip transmissions that I want.
You're quite right. But when that someone with an interest writes a deliberately misleading article to put the point of view that will favour him financially, *without* presenting the opposing view at least as well, it's a shill piece.
All I want to see is a rule that prevents network providers from rate-limiting legitimate content. If I pay for a 40Mbps line, I should be able to pull data down that line at that speed.
It does invalidate his points when he starts the discussion from false information. Like somehow preventing ISPs from dicking customers over like this:
* mobile operators blocking SIP because they want people to use their own voice service
* traditional ISPs degrading the quality of something like Netflix because they just happen to run a streaming service themselves and well, competition is bad for their pockets.
would be a bad thing and oh how we need some "scien-fucking-tifical" approach to what is a simple matter of not allowing ISP dickery.
I've heard it all before from the industry shills from over the pond when they were talking about net neutrality. Spare me the bullshit please.
What the ISP thinks is "good enough" may not be what I think is "good enough"
Be clear what that does to the ISP.
They are no longer a common carrier like a voice telco.
They are checking you're packets and deciding what you are allowed to send, and when.
What you're allowed to receive, and when.
In fact AFAIK UK broadband ISP's guarantee no minimum standard of service.
Not even that you will always be connected.
Mister Giddes entire argument against net neutrality is based on the faux premise that it would prevent reasonable network management. That has never been the goal of net neutrality.
What net neutrality regulations support is a flow of information that is not artificially restrained in order to gain an advantage over a competitor. With specialized services available for sale (basically fast lanes), ISPs will be incentivized to not upgrade their networks in order to sell priority delivery. The higher the price, the more easy it is for company's like Google and Netflix and Amazon to set barriers to market entry that price potential competitors out of the market.
How can you publish this garbage and still call yourself a tech publication? How much did the telecom industry pay you?
I googled for a definition of net neutrality and got this from wikipedia:
'Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.'
http://www.savetheinternet.com have essentially the same definition and the next highest ranked search result and are pro-net neutrality.
They seems to match excatly what the article is talking about and would clealry prevent sensible network management. There are a series of comments criticising the author for alleged inaccuracy and bias yet he seems accurate in his defintion of what net neutrality is. His criticism that this is naive impractical and utopian seems to flow naturally from the defintion. If you define net neutrality as allowing differential handling of traffic based on the nature of the application then clearly the criticism does nto apply but it you should be agreeing with the author as this is what he is arguing for.
First, on network management, while the GOAL isn't to prevent reasonable network management, in many cases it is an unattended side effect - stripping QOS so that SIP and HTTP traffic run at the same priority across peering points.
Lets look at your statement "ISPs will be incentivized to not upgrade their networks in order to sell priority delivery" and compare that to past actions.
Without "Net Neutrality" laws ISP's had the ability, and did, sell "fast lanes". Thus, if your argument held true, ISPs never upgraded their networks and we are all still on dialup. or ISDN, or 256K DSL, or... well, the point is that ISP networks are in a constant state of upgrade, and they did it even with fast lanes in existence. In fact, the extra money from those "fast lanes" may have actually helped drive those capital improvements.
Now, lets look at the second half of your argument, "The higher the price, the more easy it is for company's like Google and Netflix and Amazon to set barriers to market entry that price potential competitors out of the market".
Amazon and Google already paid high prices for entry - what you are suggesting is that others should not have to pay because Amazon and Google already have. Nonetheless, lets take that part at face value and look at the rest -- if there is that much money to be made selling "fast lanes", then additional companies (ie, ISPs) will be formed to take that money, increasing competition and driving down consumer costs.
Giddes may or may not be a shill - I don't know - but his arguments are just as valid, if not more so, than yours - and he at least signs his name to them.
I thought the point of Net Neutrality was that my Sky broadband wouldn't throttle access to BBC, or Virgin wouldn't throttle access to Netflix?
In the US there is more of a free speech argument where the giant corporations are more likely to block/throttle political points they don't agree with.
I have also heard arguments that NN would ban companies like Netflix placing servers on ISP sites to speed up access as that breaks the neutrality part of NN, but I have no idea if this is just spin from one side.
It's not you, this is exactly the point.
The argument that "all packets must be treated equally" is a nice one in some kind of infinite bandwidth utopia, and one I'm sure some people have made, but it's not really the important one.
The argument is about treading the knife edge where an ISP is required to appropriately QoS packets that they get where they're going in a timely fashion when required, VS charging to do so in order to disadvantage potential competitors.
In other words, It's fine to prioritise Skype traffic over email traffic because that has to be delivered on time to maintain a video stream, the email can get there when it gets there. That's not breaching net neutrality, that's just doing their job.
It's NOT fine to prioritise Skype traffic over Facetime traffic* because Microsoft have paid you to and Apple haven't. This is a violation of net neutrality because it's an abuse of the ISP's position in the market.
*Arbitrary example - I'm not suggesting that either Apple or Microsoft do this, although for all I know they might.
I have no use for skype so why should my email be slowed down because some one is using skype?
But do you not use Netflix, or iPlayer? The same argument applies. Some types of traffic need timely delivery (on the scale of milliseconds or even microseconds) whereas others could be delayed by seconds or even longer. Some kind of QoS-based delivery goals would be good. But how should that be policed so that customers & networks don't cheat?
As an example, I have a femtocell gateway to provide mobile phone coverage in the house (we live in a hole). It sends the mobile data over the Internet to our mobile provider in an IPSec tunnel. I did think about using my firewall to mark outgoing packets of that stream with an appropriate QoS category, but talking to my previous ISP they said they took no notice of such markings. I ran some tests to other endpoints on other ISPs and the markings often got set back to 'best effort' anyway.
As others have said, the system should be allowed to classify traffic with different flow characteristics and treat them appropriately but not to differentially favour traffic in the same flow classes for competitive advantage.
Set the rules properly and the engineers can come up with effective solutions.
But as noted, there will always be people who cheat and shape their traffic to mimic a high-priority kind. P2P programs do this now to get around these kinds of traffic profilers. Combine this with encryption to block packet fingerprinting and you have a problem. If everything looks like an encrypted priority packet, how do you know which is the real encrypted priority packet?
...that all net-neutrality regulation has a technical protection clause which can be employed at any time for any reason. Most lobbying positions (as expressed by the author) get quite rabid about avoiding any dilution or oversight of these clauses. Thus BT stuffs my broadband speed in the evening in order to protect it's tv multicast service which I do not consume. This directly affects its competition (Netflix/amazon/BBC etc) which I do consume. There is nothing stochastic about that. This is a commercial prioritisation involving a conflict of interest.
Net neutrality is about separating those interests, and treating traffic according to the customer's desires. Given the EuroPol's are involved, I suspect we won't get that, though I live in hope.
I want my internet provider to deliver all data that I request and that I pay for without discrimination. If there is congestion due to services like Netflix, then I want my internet provider to upgrade their network quickly so that the data I request will be delivered at the speeds I pay for.
What I don't want is for my internet provider to charge the sender and receiver the privilege of using their network. Imagine if FedEx charged a fee to deliver a package and before they dropped it off there was a fee to receive the package. A fee has already been paid! Such a practice is unacceptable; you should not be able to charge both ends. Now replace FedEx with ISP and package with data. Those that argue against net neutrality are essentially saying it is acceptable in businesses to charge everyone for the privilege of going through their network.
“...Such a practice is unacceptable; you should not be able to charge both ends..."
Ever sent/received a wire transfer?
Regarding the article, it appears to be a line of straw men while conveniently avoiding ever mentioning the possibility that ISPs could act directly against the interests of their customers.
Yes, it's always the sender who pays. Now, the receiver may be subject to currency conversion fees, but that's true with practically any currency conversion. It's how they maintain operations.
As for the receiver paying for shipping, isn't that why S&H is added to most bills when placing an order, so the receiver pays for the package due, just before it even gets sent out? Plus I think COD is still possible in certain situations.
In some countries cell phone minutes are assessed sending OR receiving, and if the other end's a cell phone that applies to him/her, too, because each user is employing the network: direction doesn't make a difference.
So why can't the Internet be charged both ways. Both ends are using the Internet are they not, which means making use of physical infrastructure that means someone else can't use it?
So why can't the Internet be charged both ways.
It already is.
When I download an article from ElReg, they have paid an ISP to handle the packet coming out of their server, and I have paid an ISP to deliver that same packet to my client. Inbetween those two ends, the ISPs sort out their own cross-charging as they see fit.
Vic.
I was going to write "Well if there is a single sentence in here that says why it's ok to give better performance to company X than company Y because they pay you more/are a subsidiary then I don't see it.", but I got further through the article and came to think "why do you hate straw men so much" might be more pertinent.
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