a wise word from a long time network person -- Merccurynews report on Stanford hearing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Brett Glass [brett () lariat net]
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 10:06 PM
To: David Farber; ip
Subject: Re: [IP] a wise word from a long time network person -- Merccurynews report on Stanford hearing

At 11:24 AM 4/18/2008, Tony Lauck wrote:

> Comcast's technical problems are not with the Internet, they are with
> their DOCSIS 2.0 cable modems, which have limited shared upstream
> bandwidth and an ineffective multiple access protocol. Presumably these
> problems will go away when Comcast finally upgrades to DOCSIS 3.0. Other
> last mile network technologies such as DSL and fiber do not have these
> problems.

This is incorrect. The congestion problems that affect DOCSIS over
the neighborhood shared cable affect DSL at the DSLAM. And
experience in Japan has demonstrated that adding more bandwidth --
at least up to 100 Mbps per user -- does nothing to satisfy P2P's
appetite for bandwidth. In fact, if there is a limit to that
appetite, no one can say what it is... because it has never been observed.

Also, the problem of cost shifting via P2P is not dependent upon
the last mile technology at all. It affects all ISPs in proportion
to their upstream bandwidth costs, as I demonstrated during the hearing.

I wish I'd had more time to speak. Professor Lessig's talk was
disappointing in that it was short on facts and very long on
rhetoric. Many of the assertions were unsupported, and there were
some ad hominem arguments against Internet providers. (At one
point, he likened them to bloodthirsty tigers.) His slides had no
graphs, charts, figures, or data from credible sources -- just a
few quotes (Gerald Faulhaber was quoted) and words from his talk.
In short, I would rate it as a good sermon... but a poor argument.
You've heard the old lawyers' saying: "When the law is against you,
pound on the facts. When the facts are against you, pound on the
law. When both are against you, pound on the table."

With all due respect to Larry, whom I admire and who is a truly
brilliant lawyer, this particular talk pounded just about entirely
on the table.

I was potentially a viable opponent, and could have provided a
counterargument to every one of Dr. Lessig's points. But the
structure of the forum prevented this. Larry rambled for 50
minutes, putting the meeting behind schedule. I spoke as fast as I
could for eight very rushed ones. Given the cost of flying from
Wyoming, I estimate that I paid at least $100 per minute to speak
before the Commissioners -- not counting the two and a half days of
work I lost by coming to speak. Larry, on the other hand, was being
paid. (As a Stanford professor, he makes more than I do as a rural
wireless broadband provider.)

Was it worth it? I'm not sure, but when I received the last minute
call I realized that I had no choice. I drove to the Denver airport
that afternoon through a whiteout snowstorm and flew to California
to speak. The text of my prepared remarks, which I wrote on the
plane and of which I was able to deliver about half, is at

http://www.brettglass.com/FCC

on my Web site.

As Commissioner Robert McDowell pointed out during the hearing, I
was the sole representative of my entire industry who came to speak
at the hearing. No one would, or could, speak for me. And my
livelihood -- and my 15 years' mission to bring competitive
broadband where it never would be available otherwise -- was on the line.

If Larry had yielded me merely 5 minutes of the time consumed by
hhis speech -- which was full of long, dramatic pauses I couldn't
afford to make -- it would have been sufficient for me to make more
than a dozen additional points that I did not have the chance to
address at the hearing.

I would welcome the opportunity to engage Larry in a real,
substantive, unhurried debate on this issue.

--Brett Glass, Founder and Owner, LARIAT


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