FCC to Introduce New Internet Regulations

[newnameman]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will unveil in a speech on Monday new proposals that would force Internet providers to treat the flow of content equally, sources familiar with the speech said on Friday.

The concept, referred to as net neutrality, pits open Internet companies like Google Inc against broadband service providers like AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, and Comcast Corp, which oppose new rules governing network management.

Advocates of net neutrality say Internet service providers must be barred from blocking or slowing traffic based on content.

Providers say the increasing volume of bandwidth-hogging services like video sharing requires active management of their networks and some argue that net neutrality could stifle innovation.

"He is going to announce rulemaking," said one source familiar with his speech about broadband, to be delivered at the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank. "The commission will have to codify into new regulations the principle of nondiscrimination."

The FCC could formally propose the rules aimed at applying to wireless and landline platforms at an open meeting in October.

http://www.reuters.com/article.../idUSTRE58H59A20090918

I can't say I'm a fan of this move; I can't imagine anything good coming out of the federal goverment telling ISPs how to manage their networks.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Unless you want your ISP mucking with the internet you get, you should be a fan of this.

 

[Sedition]

To be honest, I am having an incredible amount of trouble digging through all the bullshit on all sides of the "net neutrality" argument. Every side seems to be less concerned with making sure the internet remains free and focusing all their attention on making sure they can make as much money as possible.

 

[bamacre]

It's basically Congress' way of getting their foot in the internet door. This can only create more and more lobbying efforts, and most likely already has.

 

[ElFenix]

what do network engineers think is the best way to run a network?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
what do network engineers think is the best way to run a network?

One that allows quality of service to provide voice, video and data. To do that you have to give certain preference to different kinds of traffic. I'm not talking about strict policing of traffic or priority queueing. Just reasonable network management to provide the best service and move the Internet forward. That requires quality of service and indeed treating different traffic...differently.

Ask ANY person who designs networks for a living and they'll say the same thing, and they generally do not support net neutrality because it moves us backwards to nothing but best effort delivery.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
what do network engineers think is the best way to run a network?

'The best way to run a network' is only one of many considerations. Having the most efficient possible network isn't actually the primary goal of legislation governing the internet, it is having the most useful tool possible for society and here are many times where those two goals do not perfectly align.

 

[Cuda1447]

I don't want the governments hand anywhere near regulating the internet. More government for the lose. Open up competition and the customers will go towards who provides the most open/free/fast net experience. Thats a win/win for everyone.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Cuda1447
I don't want the governments hand anywhere near regulating the internet. More government for the lose. Open up competition and the customers will go towards who provides the most open/free/fast net experience. Thats a win/win for everyone.

The current 4 guidelines the FCC already has that they are considering fully adopting is reasonable. Believe it or not the FCC has been VERY reasonable on this issue. Anti-competitive provider network management practices have been struck down by them with swiftness.

It's the net neutrality supporters the scream "you can't treat my traffic differently!" that has me concerned. They don't understand how networks work and what is needed to provide quality of service to different applications because different applications do require different characteristics to be successful.

 

[Double Trouble]

If there was truly competition and I had a choice of any number of ISP's, I'd be fine with letting the market sort it out. However, since for many people there is essentially no real choice in terms of ISP, I don't see a problem with forcing the ISP to simply provide the pipe. Don't muck with deciding who's content I should be viewing, just provide the pipe -- just like a phone company.

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: ElFenix
what do network engineers think is the best way to run a network?

One that allows quality of service to provide voice, video and data. To do that you have to give certain preference to different kinds of traffic. I'm not talking about strict policing of traffic or priority queueing. Just reasonable network management to provide the best service and move the Internet forward. That requires quality of service and indeed treating different traffic...differently.

Ask ANY person who designs networks for a living and they'll say the same thing, and they generally do not support net neutrality because it moves us backwards to nothing but best effort delivery.

i haven't seen anything proposed yet that would prevent ISP's from managing their traffic.... but that's not what companies like AT&T want to do.

There are two very different kinds of "management". There's management with regards to optimization of throughput / hw / resource usage, and then there's "management" where the company prioritizes traffic based on commercial agreements. The second one is what the ISP's want to be able to do, it's a huge potential revenue stream. They want to be able to make deals with companies to give their traffic priorities while slowing down other companies traffic. For example, make a deal with MS to make Bing traffic quick, while making Google traffic slower. That kind of "traffic management" is not helpful to the consumer and has nothing to do with managing the network. It has everything to do with an ISP control grab for content and additional revenue streams.

If net neutrality is limited to simply mandating that ISP's can not prioritize traffic based on who's traffic it is, it's a good thing for the consumer.

 

[spidey07]

Double Trouble - from a technical perspective it's extremely difficult to mark/set QoS parameters from networks outside of yours. You get into QoS trust boundary issues where your peers traffic is riding your network, so you can't really trust the QoS markings. You CAN trust markings of nodes inside your own network because you have control over them.

And the "make deals with content providers to give priority/slow down" the FCC simply will not let happen. Their definition of transport is very clear. It's the fear tactic brought up by net neutrality proponents but the FCC has already stricken down ANYTHING resembling this. It's not going to happen, THAT is anti-competitive behavior. The idea of "prioritizing" traffic is extremely old school technology but a fear people have. That's the whole idea behind "reasonable network management/quality of service" - if you're doing it to provide good service to all and differing applications as a transport provider the FCC says that's perfectly fine (and the way it should be).

The other fear is "well they just want to push their own packetized voice/video services!" Well from a technical perspective as I outlined in my first paragraph is just a technical reality - you can trust the quality of service markins on traffic you originate, you can't once it is outside of your administrative control (otherwise everybody would just mark their traffic as EF, expedited forwarding). And if all the traffic has the same marking - forward right NOW before anything else - then then there is no longer any quality of service as all traffic is marked/treated the same. That results in best effort behavior, defeating the entire goal of QoS.

This is why politicians need to stay out of the whole net neutrality discussion and decisions. Along with people who don't understand the issue which is a huge percentage of people that support the idea. It's a very complex technical issue with very far reaching consequences. Even within private networks the idea of quality of service eventually gets political. Billy feels wronged, discriminated, etc - "But why does sally's application get better QoS than billy's!!!" It's because the way sally's application works needs it, billy's doesn't. For example the difference between video conferencing (sally) and E-mail (billy).

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Double Trouble
If there was truly competition and I had a choice of any number of ISP's, I'd be fine with letting the market sort it out.

It's hard to disagree with this. I don't trust government to provide an answer, but with a lack of competition in too many areas, the market can't function properly.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Double Trouble - from a technical perspective it's extremely difficult to mark/set QoS parameters from networks outside of yours.

BULLSHIT

You sound like the fucking idiot President of Bellsouth in Louisiana that told me it was technically impossible to provide DSL service without voice.

 

[manowar821]

Not sure where I stand, really. When you step back and realize that the US government is the biggest bitch corporation of all, it seems a little counter-productive to let them have control over any aspect of it whatsoever.

 

[piasabird]

If net neutrality lets all the spam and all the viruses through what good is that?

If the ISP's dont like service providers they should not be able to advertise "as much as 50 times the speed of dialup".

ISP's should just charge someone at the commercial rate if they are basically operating a server.

No guts, No glory.

Maybe the government can start charging bloggers with running a hate website and shut them down. Then they only thing left will be CNN and NBC. CNBC is one of the best outfits out there. I can understand money. I like the way Kudlow just yells at everyone.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: ElFenix
what do network engineers think is the best way to run a network?

One that allows quality of service to provide voice, video and data. To do that you have to give certain preference to different kinds of traffic. I'm not talking about strict policing of traffic or priority queueing. Just reasonable network management to provide the best service and move the Internet forward. That requires quality of service and indeed treating different traffic...differently.

Ask ANY person who designs networks for a living and they'll say the same thing, and they generally do not support net neutrality because it moves us backwards to nothing but best effort delivery.

This. With most (if not all) backbone providers and edge carriers converted to MPLS, QoS isnt really a big deal anymore. That said, it IS necessary to maintain integrity of higher priority traffic. Whether you like it or not, some traffic IS higher priority, and must remain so.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Double Trouble - from a technical perspective it's extremely difficult to mark/set QoS parameters from networks outside of yours. You get into QoS trust boundary issues where your peers traffic is riding your network, so you can't really trust the QoS markings. You CAN trust markings of nodes inside your own network because you have control over them.

And the "make deals with content providers to give priority/slow down" the FCC simply will not let happen. Their definition of transport is very clear. It's the fear tactic brought up by net neutrality proponents but the FCC has already stricken down ANYTHING resembling this. It's not going to happen, THAT is anti-competitive behavior. The idea of "prioritizing" traffic is extremely old school technology but a fear people have. That's the whole idea behind "reasonable network management/quality of service" - if you're doing it to provide good service to all and differing applications as a transport provider the FCC says that's perfectly fine (and the way it should be).

The other fear is "well they just want to push their own packetized voice/video services!" Well from a technical perspective as I outlined in my first paragraph is just a technical reality - you can trust the quality of service markins on traffic you originate, you can't once it is outside of your administrative control (otherwise everybody would just mark their traffic as EF, expedited forwarding). And if all the traffic has the same marking - forward right NOW before anything else - then then there is no longer any quality of service as all traffic is marked/treated the same. That results in best effort behavior, defeating the entire goal of QoS.

This is why politicians need to stay out of the whole net neutrality discussion and decisions. Along with people who don't understand the issue which is a huge percentage of people that support the idea. It's a very complex technical issue with very far reaching consequences. Even within private networks the idea of quality of service eventually gets political. Billy feels wronged, discriminated, etc - "But why does sally's application get better QoS than billy's!!!" It's because the way sally's application works needs it, billy's doesn't. For example the difference between video conferencing (sally) and E-mail (billy).

This again. I came into the thread late but it appears spidey has it covered.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: spidey07
Double Trouble - from a technical perspective it's extremely difficult to mark/set QoS parameters from networks outside of yours.

BULLSHIT

You sound like the fucking idiot President of Bellsouth in Louisiana that told me it was technically impossible to provide DSL service without voice.

You have no idea how BGP and AS's work do you. That was a statement.

 

[dawp]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: spidey07
Double Trouble - from a technical perspective it's extremely difficult to mark/set QoS parameters from networks outside of yours.

BULLSHIT

You sound like the fucking idiot President of Bellsouth in Louisiana that told me it was technically impossible to provide DSL service without voice.

You have no idea how BGP and AS's work do you. That was a statement.

you can get DSL without having to get phone service, if at&t can do it, so can others.

 

[sandorski]

The issue has mostly been about ISPs taking Fees to give certain Websites preferential treatment. For eg: Newegg Paying extra for a fast connection with Customers, while a competitor gets a crappy connection that frustrates Customers, thus pushing Customers to Newegg. If that kind of thing could be regulated against, then I could see letting ISPs manage based on Media types.

 

[jackace]

I don't think most people are against applications that need higher priority getting higher priority. What people don't like is ISPs giving preference to traffic to or from certain places, or dropping certain traffic (torrent) all together because it causes too much traffic on their network.

I also agree with the free market problems when it comes to ISPs. In most areas there are 2 maybe 3 providers MAX and in many there is only 1. You can't have a truly competitive market with so few or no competitors.

 

[Modelworks]

The problem as I see it is that everyone pays the same monthly rate for a service. If an ISP lowers my download rate so that someone else VOIP connection can go through faster that would not be fair because you are impacting my service for something I am not using or benefiting from while charging me the same fee. How would people feel if they went to make a phone call but instead got, "all circuits are busy " because the neighbours are using the phone yet they both pay the same monthly fee ? I am all for ISP implementing QOS on their end if they are upfront that it doesn't impact other users. I do not support throttling speed on any type of connection. If the ISP has enough bandwidth then they shouldn't need to lower download speeds.

The ISP have nobody but themselves to blame. They squandered billions in taxpayer dollars and lied to the public rather than building the infrastructure like they promised. Go to any ISP site and what do you see ? Promises of on-line video, gaming and music. ISP advertise all this stuff then complain if you want to use it .

If they want to sell service per GB downloaded I am okay with that too, but they better make sure that any time I want that GB at the quoted speed that I get it without lag or lack of capacity just like any other utility that is metered.

We need what Japan has got where there are 15-20 ISP that each customer can pick from. South Korea customers have as many as 45 providers to pick from. The difference is there the infrastructure is owned by the government and ISP pay a fee to use that system. If new hardware needs to be added an ISP can choose to pay for the upgrade cost and get that deducted from their yearly fees. The only thing they cannot do is degrade service of other ISP that also use that network. Here in the US each ISP owns the cities in exclusive agreements that bar competition. That needs to change.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
The problem as I see it is that everyone pays the same monthly rate for a service. If an ISP lowers my download rate so that someone else VOIP connection can go through faster that would not be fair because you are impacting my service for something I am not using or benefiting from while charging me the same fee. How would people feel if they went to make a phone call but instead got, "all circuits are busy " because the neighbours are using the phone yet they both pay the same monthly fee ? I am all for ISP implementing QOS on their end if they are upfront that it doesn't impact other users. I do not support throttling speed on any type of connection. If the ISP has enough bandwidth then they shouldn't need to lower download speeds.

The ISP have nobody but themselves to blame. They squandered billions in taxpayer dollars and lied to the public rather than building the infrastructure like they promised. Go to any ISP site and what do you see ? Promises of on-line video, gaming and music. ISP advertise all this stuff then complain if you want to use it .

If they want to sell service per GB downloaded I am okay with that too, but they better make sure that any time I want that GB at the quoted speed that I get it without lag or lack of capacity just like any other utility that is metered.

We need what Japan has got where there are 15-20 ISP that each customer can pick from. South Korea customers have as many as 45 providers to pick from. The difference is there the infrastructure is owned by the government and ISP pay a fee to use that system. If new hardware needs to be added an ISP can choose to pay for the upgrade cost and get that deducted from their yearly fees. The only thing they cannot do is degrade service of other ISP that also use that network. Here in the US each ISP owns the cities in exclusive agreements that bar competition. That needs to change.

Another happy Charter Communications customer ?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo


Another happy Charter Communications customer ?

heh, I have had their service in the past . I can't complain though because when I did have it , it worked as advertised. It was their customer service that made me change to DSL.