[IP] Re: Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tony Lauck <tlauck@madriver.com>
Date: January 28, 2009 12:46:15 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] Cox to Trial New Congestion Management System

It is reasonable for bulk traffic to be given less preference than  
interactive traffic. The questions are:

  (1) which traffic is which?
  (2) who decides?

In my previous posts I have pointed out that it isn't necessary to  
inspect any part of the packets other than the IP address fields to  
eliminate fairness problems between customers.  However, a finer  
degree of packet inspection may be desirable for customers who have a  
mixture of users (e.g. teenage file sharers plus adult web surfers)  
behind a NAT box or who run a mixture of services (e.g. VOIP and bulk  
file transfers).

I recently got a new ADSL modem that comes with a built-in router. It  
has the ability to prioritize traffic by port, MAC address, etc. So if  
I run into congestion that I generate myself I can take care of it by  
making the appropriate settings in my router. I can do my own "deep"  
packet inspection and set my own policies.

Unfortunately, most of Cox's customers won't have the knowledge,  
skills, or time to do this configuration, even if they have  
appropriate equipment. So it may make sense for Cox to implement  
default policies in their network that require "shallow" packet  
inspection. I would have no problem with this, provided that it can be  
opted out on a per customer basis.

Tony Lauck
https://www.aglauck.com
"Stop deep packet inspection by encryption, not legislation!"


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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