Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: January 28, 2009 4:27:59 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System

No need to be anonymous on my part.  I have testified on this matter,  
and will again.  Here there are two MAJOR problems.

Under the current architecture of the Internet, Cox would indeed have  
to inspect the contents of user traffic to make an accurate  
determination of the type of Internet traffic at the level of detail  
described in their document.

If Cox would provide clear technical documentation of how they  
determine what type of traffic is being emitted this could be  
clarified.  I cannot think how they would do what they claim to do  
without deep inspection of user data.  Perhaps a Cox engineer would  
provide this to your list, Dave.

For example, if one has an IP voice client sending RTP/UDP/IP packets  
to a peer node, following the VoIP standards, it is quite difficult  
without looking inside the IP datagram to determine that is such a  
thing.  (there are special cases that can be determined for certain IP  
voice gateways onto the PSTN, but IP telephone to IP telephone  
connections that have been introduced by SIP session initiators cannot  
even be identified by having reserved port numbers on either end).

The standard way to do this is to use the IP header TOS field, which  
was designed to indicate "time sensitivity".  However, that field does  
not tell you what type of traffic is carried in the way that Cox  
explains it.

The other problem worth considering here is that Cox doesn't  
contemplate new, yet-to-be-invented protocols for new applications,  
which can be in either category.
If Cox truly provides "Internet" service, it must understand that  
those yet-to-be-invented applications are a core part of the  
Internet's value - the Internet grew by being inventive, not by  
negotiating with Cox for permission to run new types of traffic over  
the connections subscribers have paid for as *Internet* service, not  
Cox-brand service.



David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *
> *Date: *January 28, 2009 8:45:29 AM EST
> *To: *Dave Farber <dave () farber net <mailto:dave () farber net>>
> *Subject: **!!Anonymize!!: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management  
> System*
>
> *_PLEASE ANONYMIZE!!!!
> _*
> See http://www.cox.com/policy/congestionmanagement/
>
> The concerns I see with this are that this would have to use DPI,  
> very likely installed in-line, in order to function.  Former FCC  
> Chairman Martin referred to this as opening customer’s mail to look  
> at what sort of letter is inside.   In addition to that, it is hard  
> to imagine that ISPs would want to be in the middle of making  
> decisions for users about relative priorities of different  
> applications. One user may really want VoIP treated best, while for  
> another it is P2P or gaming.  These choices may be better left to  
> users themselves to sort out.
>
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