IP: re: Cisco offering cable+content cartel discriminatory routers!

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: Joe McGuckin <joe () via net>
> Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 13:39:00 -0700 (PDT)
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Subject: Re: IP: Cisco offering cable+content cartel discriminatory routers!
> X-Mailer: Ishmail 1.3.1-970608-bsdi <http://www.ishmail.com>
>
> > This isn't paranoic rants without substance.  It is hard evidence of
> > PLANNING and INTENT to discriminate against unfavored (competing?) content
> > providers and users by cable+content cartels such as AOL-TimeWarner and
> > AT&T-MediaOne.
>
> I disagree with Jim Warren's previous message. I think that that James 
> Love & Co.
> are wrongly attributing sinister intent to QOS (quality of service) 
> features that will be appearing
> in nearly all router products in the near future.
>
> The topic of usage or QOS based pricing as applied to internet services is 
> not a new or
> even controversial topic of discussion in the internet networking 
> community. As inexpensive
> high speed internet connections to the home become widely available, some 
> traffic engineering
> mechanism will be needed to apply reasonable limits to different types of 
> network traffic
> to ensure that the network doesn't become oversaturated and suffer 
> complete failure when
> a minority of users attempt to monopolize the available bandwidth. A 
> relevent example would be
> todays MP3 downloading frenzy caused by the emminent shutdown of Napster.
>
> While backbone networks will eventually utilize QOS capabilities, the low 
> cost broadband
> companies (DSL and cable modem for example) require those features now. 
> The economics of offering
> low cost broadband services dictate that the bandwidth has to be oversold 
> - you can't offer 10Mbits/sec
> for $29/month and make a profit if the customer is actually using 
> 10Mbits/sec continually.
> The service is meant to give an 'average' user fast response to services 
> like ftp, www,
> telnet and email. The consequence of too many end-users using  the full 
> bandwidth of
> their connection for protracted periods of time is the total failure of 
> the network. So, some
> sort of controls have to be in place. Until now, the tools network 
> operators had at their
> disposal to control bandwidth usage of end-users were rather crude. 
> Turning down everyone's
> DSL speed 15% or using CAR to limit aggregate real-media flows to some 
> fixed value are typical
> examples. The QOS features mentioned in Jim Warren's previous message 
> would provide network
> operators with fine grained controls that can be applied to each type of 
> traffic or even individual
> end-users.
>
>
> It's a very long-winded way of saying: QOS features are not a plot by guys 
> in black helicopters -
> they are designed to allow PacBell, @Home, Time-Warner, etc to offer 
> internet services with
> predictable levels of quality even during times of severe network overload.
>
> Could they be used by a network operator to discriminate against a 
> competitor? Sure, but, so can the
> current filtering and bandwidth limiting features that are present in 
> Cisco equipment. There's nothing
> new about this.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joe McGuckin
>
> ViaNet Communications
> 994 San Antonio Road
> Palo Alto, CA  94303
>
> Phone: 650-969-2203
> Cell:  650-207-0372
> Fax:   650-969-2124