Re: Dave Farber Warns AgainstNetNeutrality (Washington Post)I

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tony Aiuto <aiuto () google com>
Date: September 29, 2009 9:33:05 PM EDT
To: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
Cc: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>, Vint Cerf <vint () google com>,  
Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>, nnsquad () nnsquad org
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Dave Farber Warns AgainstNetNeutrality  
(Washington Post)I


On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>  
wrote:
Nobody wants a best-efforts network. People want a network that  
delivers their bits within whatever bounds of latency and price are  
pertinent to the application that generates and consumes the bits.  
People don't care about bits, they care about the information that's  
encoded in the bits.

Richard:

You are almost correct.   I want the application on my end of the  
connection to specify the bounds of latency and price.   What I don't  
want is the network operator to guess what is more important to me.    
When the network can't deliver the latency I want, I expect it to do  
it's best to deliver what it can, at an appropriate reduction in price.


Similarly, nobody cares about a content-indifferent network, they care  
about a network that allows them to perform the content transactions  
they care about, again within boundaries of latency and price. NN  
advocates tend to conflate the interactions people want with the  
network with the technical means by which these transactions are  
carried out. It's more useful to take a layered approach to these  
things than to mash unrelated issues together.

Again, almost right.  People don' care about what we *call* the  
network. but they do care about the effect.    A content-indifferent  
network IS one where the applications can determine the relative worth  
of packets.  Content indifference is the tool that allows the user to  
perform the transactions they care about.  If the network tries to  
undermine my valuation, it acts as an interfering market maker.    
Centuries ago, commerce realized that market brokers should not charge  
different commissions for different transactions of the same class.   
Networks should not change policy based on their assumption of  
relative valuations.   All bits are just bits, until the user's  
machine assigns a value to them.

We would not tolerate a world where a broker could charge a lower  
commission for stocks that they underwrite.   Why would we tolerate a  
world where basic infrastructure could do that?



Bob Frankston wrote:
> How do you create the illusion of a best-efforts content-indifferent  
> network other than by doing it?
>
>
> From: Richard Bennett [mailto:richard () bennett com]
> Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 23:08
> To: Bob Frankston
> Cc: 'Vint Cerf'; 'Lauren Weinstein'; nnsquad () nnsquad org; Dave Farber
> Subject: Re: [ NNSquad ] Re: Dave Farber Warns Against Net  
> Neutrality (Washington Post)I
>
>
> Application developers want to be able to act as if the network were  
> perfectly transparent, neutral, and reliable. The goal of a good  
> network architecture is to create that illusion for them. That's not  
> to say that the means by which this illusion is created demand a  
> passive network or a passive network operator. You can have a  
> network that looks to you like it's a fat dumb pipe or you can have  
> one that really is, but you can't have both.  Why does anyone care,  
> anyhow?
>
> RB
>
> Bob Frankston wrote:
>
> The only difference between internetworking and networking is  
> whether we have a flat address space or a two-tier address space.  
> Otherwise it’s a network. Sure, I’d prefer ambient connectivity (http://rmf.vc/?n=IAC 
> ) but if we’re not willing to take the next step then it’s a just a  
> network and whatever applied to the Inter-network applies to the  
> network. And that includes being indifferent to the content of the  
> packets.
>
>
> So I’m confused. If the success of the Internet as a concept is do  
> being agnostic about traffic then why would we want to declare the  
> end of a very successful experiment and revert to the old days when  
> the network operator shaped the network to favor certain services.  
> The majority may to do the same-old in lock-step but the future lies  
> with those who are ahead of or maybe just away from the crowd. Who  
> knows which will be the new same-old?
>
>
> Ideally there would be no need for regulation and we would instead  
> apply antitrust to remove the conflict of interest in inherent in  
> funding the network by selling services. Service-funding is the  
> telephony model. And as long as we’re stuck in telephony then  
> insisting that bits are bits (as I explain in http://frankston.com/?N=IPM3 
> ) the FCC is honoring the experiment by trying to assure it  
> continues. I do believe that it’s awkward to do so by adding more  
> rules but it’s better the giving up entirely on the successful  
> experiment.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com () nnsquad org  
> [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com () nnsquad org] On  
> Behalf Of Richard Bennett
> Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 04:59
> To: Vint Cerf
> Cc: Lauren Weinstein; nnsquad () nnsquad org
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Re: Dave Farber Warns Against Net Neutrality  
> (Washington Post)I
>
>
> The problem with turning the Internet over to the regulators at this
>
> point is two-fold, as I see it. In the first place, the Internet
>
> community hasn't done an adequate job of explaining the design  
> rationale
>
> for the system as it exists today. You can see from my paper that  
> basic
>
> concepts like end-to-end have been justified according to a  
> multitude of
>
> different reasons. When we see this in tech specs, it's a clue that  
> the
>
> principle in question is more a side-effect than a true principle. The
>
> "stupid network," end-point-heavy formulations are misleading. People
>
> treat the Internet like a network, because that's what they need. The
>
> architecture of an Internet is simply agnostic about questions of
>
> network reliability, traffic shaping, active queue management, and  
> tiers
>
> of service simply because they're out of scope; they're network issues
>
> rather than Internetwork issues. An Internet isn't neutral or
>
> non-neutral; if anything, it's neutral about neutrality. The real
>
> rationale for the datagram network architecture was to create a space
>
> for experimentation; that's why everybody embraced it as soon as it  
> was
>
> formulated. This internetting thing was actually a flop; we actually
>
> have one big network made of self-similar parts, not a bunch of
>
> different ones. Interconnection works best if everybody runs all the
>
> same protocols, so we do.
>
>
> So when you ask the FCC and similar bodies in other countries to
>
> regulate the Internet, they will happily take the task, but they're
>
> simply going to fall back on their telephony models because lawyers  
> are
>
> addicted to precedent and nobody has given them a better frame of
>
> reference. And once the regulators start making rules, you're going to
>
> lose the little bit of dynamism that's still in the Internet; how much
>
> technical progress has there been in the phone network since the
>
> Carterfone rules went down? Not a hell of a lot. I don't want the one
>
> big network frozen like a fly in amber just yet.
>
>
> Vint Cerf wrote:
>
> > Dave,
>
> >
>
> > I think some very serious effort is underway at FCC to be much more
>
> > precise about what is meant and measurable about the notion of
>
> > transparent and non-discriminatory service. I agree that clarity is
>
> > important here.  I think it is possible to achieve clarity and  
> that it
>
> > is important that we attempt this because to ignore the problem  
> space
>
> > is to leave the users very much at risk.
>
> >
>
> > vint
>
> >
>
> > On Sep 26, 2009, at 4:42 PM, David Farber wrote:
>
> >
>
> >> Vint,  believe you misinterpret what I said in writing and
>
> >> interviews. I have never said that regulation is not good. What I
>
> >> have said is that hazy  and ambiguous terms that have been used on
>
> >> dangerous to innovation.  Suppose you were about to build a new
>
> >> building and the regulations said it should be "reasonable",  
> "open",
>
> >> "fair". An architect attempting to design such a building would  
> face
>
> >> a very confused task. You may have the building  mostly built  and
>
> >> then find that your assumptions about what these terms mean were
>
> >> wrong. You may face lawsuits by your neighbors over what these  
> terms
>
> >> mean as well as facing the need to sue the city etc.
>
> >>
>
> >> The bane of many such regulations is that all it does is to slow  
> down
>
> >> innovation and create jobs for lawyers.
>
> >>
>
> >> I'd be happy to join a SMALL group which attempted to create a  
> set of
>
> >> principles and a framework for regulation which avoided these  
> pitfalls.
>
> >>
>
> >> Dave
>
> >>
>
> >> I have said often that leaving the future of the Internet to the
>
> >> Congress is even more dangerous. Witness the 96 act and what it did
>
> >> to the CLECs.
>
> >> On Sep 26, 2009, at 7:51 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
>
> >>
>
> >> I think Dave's position, which is largely unchanged, is that
>
> >> regulation is never right. Plainly, I disagree here and believe  
> that
>
> >> it is entirely possible to establish a fair framework in which it  
> is
>
> >> not necessary for broadband service providers to do anything more
>
> >> than manage congestion and allocation of capacity in a fashion
>
> >> commensurate with the service level to which the users have  
> subscribed.
>
> >>
>
> >> vint
>
> >>
>
> >> On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:43 PM, Lauren Weinstein an architect
>
> >>>
>
> >>> Dave Farber Warns Against Net Neutrality (Washington Post)
>
> >>>
>
> >>> http://bit.ly/uAC2i  (Washington Post)
>
> >>>
>
> >>> --Lauren--
>
> >>> NNSquad Moderator
>
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >>
>
> >
>
>
> --
>
> Richard Bennett
>
> Research Fellow
>
> Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
>
> Washington, DC
>
>
>
>
> --
> Richard Bennett
> Research Fellow
> Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
> Washington, DC

--
Richard Bennett
Research Fellow
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Washington, DC



--
http://go/bat




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