[IP] Re: Comments on LARIAT and Comcast not same problem

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Tony Lauck [tlauck@madriver.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 2:22 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Comments on  LARIAT and Comcast not same problem

It is a slight exaggeration to say that P2P relentlessly attempts to
consume every shred of available bandwidth. This is not the case with
properly set up bit torrent clients.

In my case, I have configured my bit torrent client so that it uploads
no more than 1.5x the volume of data that I choose to download, and it
does so using no more than 50% of my peak DSL upload bandwidth. There is
nothing relentless about this. If I download at high speed for an hour,
then my computer will upload at a reduced rate for perhaps ten times
that period of time. If the network is overloaded then it will download
at a lower rate for a longer period of time.

Proper network management, in my book, means building and managing a
network so that cooperating users get good service, and so that non
cooperating users can get better service by becoming more cooperative.
Some network operators seem to be better than others at achieving
effective cooperation. Perhaps this is due to superior technology, more
favorable business conditions, or superior management philosophy.

I hope that the successful networks are succeeding due to their
superior technology, because I have more faith in progress in the
technical dimension than in the management dimension -- not to mention
the political dimension, where progress seems to be retrograde more
often than not.

Tony Lauck




David Farber wrote:
> ________________________________________
> From: Brett Glass [brett@lariat.net]
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 9:41 AM
> To: David Farber; ip
> Subject: Re: [IP] LARIAT and Comcast not same problem
>
> Dave:
>
> For IP, if you will; some responses to a few comments which folks have made on the list regarding LARIAT and network management.
>
> Dave Burstein writes:
>
>> Brett's comments are perfectly appropriate for a small U.S. rural wireless carrier, and totally off base for a large DSL or cable provider like Comcast or Verizon.
>
> Actually, they're equally true for both. In fact, in many ways the big providers are hit much harder than I by P2P. They have larger upstream pipes at the head end, and larger downstream pipes through which to receive requests for content. This multiplies the impact of P2P, which relentlessly attempts to consume every shred of available bandwidth. When we send a recalcitrant P2Per to the cable company for service (and, yes, we do this if they're within the cable company's territory), we joke that it will hurt them much more than it hurts us to lose the customer.
>
> Several folks on the list have mistakenly asserted that wireless networks face constraints that wired ones don't. This is only true, however, if the networks are badly designed. We design our networks to have FEWER constraints than the cable plant, which has issues due to protocols such as DOCSIS. Expansion is easier for us, because we don't need to string new cable or fiber (though I do need to spend an afternoon dangling from a tower or building). And our network is symmetrical; DOCSIS isn't.
>
>> Protecting rural service is a battle worth fighting (possibly directly excluding small carriers from some regs, unbundling rural fiber backhaul, or efficiently using the $300M in the current) but it shouldn't be used to make bad policy for everyone.
>
> It certainly would be useful to get some regulatory relief and/or some compensation for our hard work. But allowing providers to fight network abuse is good policy for all providers, large and small.
>
>> Since so many of the FCC filings got the facts wrong I'd like to point out a few things I believe proven. These do not force a pro or con on the subject.
>>
>> It is possible to run a large broadband network without traffic shaping like Comcast, because Verizon, AT&T, and Free.fr do it.
>
> Actually, according to the comments filed with the FCC by AT&T and Verizon, they both do it also. See their comments, which are excellent reading (and required reading, IMHO, for anyone commenting on the subject:
>
> Verizon
> http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6519841190
>
> AT&T
> http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6519841106
>
>> Internet growth rates per subscriber are little changed for the last five years at 35-45%, not increasing or a crisis brought on by video. Source: Odlyzko's excellent MINTS page and Comcast's filing with the 40% number for 2007
>>
>> Over that same period, the costs of delivering that bandwidth have gone down at a Moore's Law pace of 25-40% (switches, routers, etc.)
>
> Unfortunately, the cost of backbone bandwidth has not gone down -- due, primarily, to extreme consolidation in the industry (the SBC/AT&T merger, Level3's acquisition of Wiltel and Broadwing, etc.). The quotes we're getting this year are higher than we got in 2005.
>
>> My conclusion, which allows one to be in favor or opposed to NN, is that neutral networks aren't free, but are practical at a definable price.
>
> If you define "netural" as "zero traffic management," this could not come at a price that's acceptable to consumers. We estimate that our prices would have to start at $60 per month for just a moderately fast residential connection throttled only by total bandwidth (rather than being shaped). And users would still complain that their VoIP wasn't working when a P2P application was running.
>
> It is amazing to me that so many folks who have zero actual experience operating an ISP or managing a busy network believe that they can pontificate about our costs and tell us how to run our business.
>
> Andrew Burnette writes:
>
>> Today?s average residential broadband user consumes about 2 gigbytes of
>> data per month, Kafka estimated, which costs the service provider about
>> $1.
>
> Unfortunately, this estimate is provably extremely low. 2 gigabytes is about the volume of updates which Microsoft and Symantec, together, make to their products in a month. Thus, automatic updates ALONE cause any user with a single, off-the-shelf PC to consume that much per month.
>
> As I mentioned in my filing with the FCC, our margins are razor-thin: about $5 per residential customer per month. One tech support call can lose us that entire margin, which encourages us to make our network ultra-reliable. And we seem to be succeeding, despite the handicap imposed upon us by the forced use of "wild West" Part 15 spectrum. We average one tech support call PER DAY, usually about a problem that is in the user's computer rather than in our network.
>
> --Brett Glass, LARIAT.NET
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
>

--
"Difficulties can never be greater than your capacity to solve them."
    - P. R. Sarkar

Anthony G. Lauck
PO Box 59
Warren, VT 05674
Southface 5 (for UPS and FedEX)
81 Park Ave
Warren, VT 05674
(802) 583-4405 (802) 329-2006 (FAX)

-------------------------------------------