Subject: [p2pi] For those who think "User Fairness/Cost Fairness" is unacceptable...

From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 01:00:13 -0700

The following is a bunch of semi-random thoughts, mostly addressed at  
the notion that user fairness enforced in the network is an  
unacceptable solution, and that traffic management should not  
discriminate based on protocol.

For those who think "User Fairness"/"Cost Fairness" is unacceptable:   
Which would you rather have

a)  Usage based pricing/usage caps
b)  App manipulation/prioritization/blocking [1]
c)  User-based fairness

It has got to be one of the three as long as 5% of the users use >50%  
of the bandwidth, and as long as you have effectively misbehaving  
users and applications centered around flow-fairness, because there is  
no economic model which justifies adding more bandwidth when the  
5%-10% users benefit but the 90% don't see a benefit when the pricing  
is flat rate.

Its only if you no longer have the heavy tail that adding more  
bandwidth makes sense in flat pricing. [2]

And if instead of statistical multiplexing, you want committed or at  
least semi-committed bandwidth (the "They sold me a 16 Mbps link, so  
where is my 16 Mbps?" argument), there is a reason it is vastly more  
expensive.  Talk to a commercial ISP about a 1.5 Mbps T1 with a  
service level agreement, and compare that to the cost of your "16  
Mbps" cable-modem.

Additionally, there is a reason why I believe the example given by Mr  
Topolski of fairness disrupting a VoIP 911 call "ridiculous".

This argument seems to rests on the assumption that limiting a heavy  
user to some non-zero fair fraction of a total pipe would disrupt a  
VoIP 911 that is concurrent with a user's other activity [3], but at  
the same time, insist that the ISP should not take action to limit  
other users who disrupt the pipe (which is the current situation where  
some users are opening up 1/2 a dozen torrents simultaneously) which  
has been shown in practice to disrupt VoIP calls?

I will also argue there is a compelling case for protocol  
discrimination by the ISPs.  For example, users would benefit if the  
ISP shaped their flows just enough to keep the send buffers on the  
cable/DSL modems reasonably empty using delay-based heuristics, even  
when there is NOT congestion in the overall network, just the upload  
limit for the access device.

Instead, the current model means you can't make a VoIP call if someone  
in your household is doing too much BitTorrent (see, http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/57/Default.aspx 
  ), which is obviously an unacceptable situation.  Such "remote queue  
management" shaping would improve everybody's quality of service.

And when the ISP determines that a user is using too much bandwidth  
for any reason, be it user fairness, congestion, queue occupancy, or  
the capricious whims, should the ISP be completely blind about  
dropping packets?

Or should the ISP, when it can reasonably infer user intent but in the  
absence of explicit guidance, prioritize traffic based on inferred  
usage? [4]

Finally, I think there is a misunderstanding in the implications of  
how Comcast is proposing to implement fairness:  All they need to do  
is ensure that the usage of the "default priority" users is  
significantly less than the total channel capacity, and that whenever  
"default priority" traffic grows above that fraction, the heaviest  
default priority users are shifted into the low priority category.

As a result, the default priority (the low-bandwidth users) see no  
congestion and are happily statistically multiplexed, see low latency,  
and all the good they would expect.  As these are the bulk of the  
users, the ISP is therefore mostly happy.

And the "low priority" users will still have bandwidth, and they will  
still enjoy the current best-effort free-for-all: so if they could  
make their VoIP 911 call before, they probably still can (assuming the  
competing traffic is at least SOMEWHAT congestion responsive).  And if  
they couldn't before, its not like the situation was made worse. [5]   
Its just their best effort free-for-all can no longer step on the low  
volume users.

Yes, it would be a much better world if cable and DSL devices weren't  
overbuffered, if end-hosts would correctly mark prioritization of  
packets, if bulk-data P2P used congestion control that was friendly to  
standard TCP, if ISPs actually provisioned more bandwidth per user, if  
there were no worms, viruses, spam, spit, etc...   But we are living  
in a grossly impure and imperfect world, and we may have to accept  
grossly impure and imperfect solutions.

[1] And I suspect there is a LOT more of the app-based/usage based  
manipulation  going on than anyone is willing to admit.

EG, even relatively benign policies (eg, limit seeding to 2 peers when  
there is no other activity, blocking leeches in normal mode on  
BitTorrent.  This is a policy which actually helps most/all of the  
ISP's users at the expense of the rest of the swarm) can get really  
hostile responses.

Such manipulation would be REALLY hard to detect when done using  
inline shapers rather than out-of-path devices, or even with out-of- 
path devices which use ACL blocking instead of RST injection.

[2] The other way to get much more bandwidth is to either have large  
government subsidies (which again, would only really help the 5%-10%  
heavy users, eg the Japanese experience) or to have a situation like  
Verizon's FiOS, where they are pulling fiber to develop a CableTV  
competitor.  That it gives good Internet performance is in many ways a  
happy side effect of pulling modern physical media.

[3] The further example of it being an image upload is also not well  
chosen.  A single TCP flow will easily adapt and not really interfere  
with the (no congestion control) VoIP call, even on a relatively  
narrowly throttled pipe.  It is the problem when you have dozens of  
TCP flows (BitTorrent as used by some individuals), or large non- 
responsive UDP flows (Joost), or device send buffers which are overly  
large (which could get filled to frightening-jitter capacities on  
upload-limited flows).

[4] Traffic analysis, rather than DPI, is sufficient.  Bulk data P2P  
is just that: bulk data and P2P.  Streaming downloads from Youtube  
don't look like VoIP calls.  Very simple heuristics can distinguish  
these classes of traffic, and because of their inherent properties,  
you can't make bulk data P2P look like VoIP.

Although some DPI could help:  EG, YouTube and other flash-based  
streaming sources tends to operate in two modes: underbuffered (where  
the play rate is less then the bandwidth, and the user has to wait) or  
overbuffered (where the flash app downloads the video much faster than  
it is able to be watched, and the user may often download most of the  
video while watching only a little.).

Since YouTube does have the ability to seek, it would be of benefit to  
the user, if shaping needs to occur, if the shaping on a YouTube video  
was just enough to minimize the amount of overbuffering, as that would  
match the user's data rate with the consumption rate.

The only user penalty would be a greater delay when skipping forward,  
but the savings would be substantial if streaming video flash apps are  
unwilling to calibrate their buffering better.

[5] This may be a weakness of Comcast's proposal: its not fair ENOUGH.

Because it really only allocates into two categories rather than per  
user ceilings, you might have a case where, eg, a user is doing a  
single heavy TCP flow, enough to get bumped into the "Low priority"  
category where it gets stomped on by people doing many-flow  
transfers.  Thus it can preserve behavior for the lighter users, it  
doesn't necessarily help the heavy users who are using a few  
connections vs the many connection heavy users.  Thus its only a  
partial fairness rather than per-user fairness.

In fact, depending on parameters, you might have thrashing situations  
where a user with one heavy TCP flow is swapped back and forth between  
categories as the bandwidth usage goes way down when that one TCP flow  
has to compete among many flow usage.

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---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 10:22:52 -0500

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> of the bandwidth

Since you hold that position, then why do you overlook these?

d) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth by fewer customers so that 5% of
the users use >50% of the bandwidth
e) increasing the shared pool of bandwidth so that 5% of the users use >50%
of the bandwidth
f) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth into smaller allocations so that 5%
of the users use >50% of the bandwidth
g) pricing admission into the shared pool of bandwidth so that the price of
the largest allocations encourages users to behave economically

> has been shown in practice to disrupt VoIP calls?

Perhaps the user has the concurrency problem solved.  Let's assume that
they've used their VOIP device and and performed background file-transfers
at the same time (because some people have, or else these same people
wouldn't depend on VOIP).  If properly managed, shouldn't the network in the
middle allow it to work?

I can't write an application to do VOIP with an expectation as vague as
"non-zero fair fraction." When looking for investment money, Venture
Capitalists walk away when the unknown factors are high and an Internet
where the largest Cable-Internet provider in the nation uses terms like
"non-zero fair fraction" to describe their network environment makes their
hair stand on end.

Occasional congestion, the growing pains of the Internet, they might
accept.  They will not invest, however, if they feel that access providers
have *carte blanche* to depart from Internet Standards and perform attacks
on the customers most likely to adopt a new bandwidth-using technology.

> users, the ISP is therefore mostly happy.

I can see the ads for it now, "...the *bulk *of our users are *mostly *happy
(...but don't ask what the rest of our users say about us.)"

Why is the definition of fair that "the *bulk *of our users are
*mostly *happy?"
These companies provide Internet to *all *of us.

Nick, in our current environment, either the incumbant cable or telelephone
company is the only real broadband choice.  Lucky residents have the ability
to choose between them.  In such an environment, it's
*everyone's*Broadband.   The Internet Access provided by these
companies cannot attack
one fraction of users in service of the remainder.

It's different on dial-up, where choice among competitors remains robust.
Several of these offer flat-rate, several offer metered, several offer a mix
(a flat base amount and metered thereafter).  Healthy competition means that
some ISPs can *specialize *in things like filtering without disturbing the
health of the market.

All:  I become increasingly frustrated by being the negative guy -- I'm an
optimist.  I do believe that Comcast made strides toward more transparency.
But simply advertising that they interfere with some users does not excuse
it (see RFC 1087).  When so plainly asked to take a position, the IETF as an
engineering body answer Comcast and reject non-Standards conforming
behaviors.

-- 
Robb Topolski ([email-masked])
Hillsboro, Oregon USA
http://www.funchords.com/
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---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 10:25:40 -0500

((fix grammar error -- added CANNOT three times below))

d) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth by fewer customers so that 5% of
the users CANNOT use >50% of the bandwidth
e) increasing the shared pool of bandwidth so that 5% of the users CANNOT
use >50% of the bandwidth
f) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth into smaller allocations so that 5%
of the users CANNOT use >50% of the bandwidth
g) pricing admission into the shared pool of bandwidth so that the price of
the largest allocations encourages users to behave economically

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:16:49 -0400

I think the problem of the discussion is that several factors are  
getting conflated. First, there are two very different perspectives,  
namely that of optimizing the overall public good and the financial  
health of the ISP.

We're not operating in a normal 'intro-to-econ' competitive  
environment, given that most residential users have essentially no  
choice in their broadband provider. At the very least, it's a duopoly,  
switching costs between providers are very high and we have asymmetric  
information. (The provider knows a lot, customers, being non-technical  
and not having access to network performance data, are at a  
disadvantage.) Thus, providers can extract monopoly rents that are  
only limited by the cost of substitution goods (NetFlix, say) and the  
ability of customers to pay. This is easily observable in the prices  
for non-basic cable TV services which have outpaced inflation.

Self-interference is a separate problem; I won't discuss it here, as  
there are relatively easy solutions for that.

Also, we tend to conflate two kinds of congestion: temporary "busy  
hour" congestion, and general capacity limits. Currently, we mostly  
operate in the former, i.e., the network is only busy during certain  
hours of the day. In that case, shifting demand to the less-busy hours  
makes economic sense for everyone. This is similar to load shifting in  
power generation. Just as in power generation, access network cost is  
largely driven by peak demand.

However, it is likely that peer-to-peer video downloads will fill in  
the night valley of traffic as well. In that case, congestion control  
really just means denying service. In other words, I can't get the  
bits I want. My perception is that average and peak utilization are  
only about 30-40% apart, i.e., maybe a year or two worth of traffic  
growth, at best.

We tend to treat congestion control as being about fairness. But the  
bandwidth throttled doesn't just magically go away; unless it is just  
time-shifted, it means that a user can't get the data they wanted to  
get or provide.

A third, completely separate, problem is that wide area bandwidth is  
currently a commodity, priced by volume and independent of time of  
day. Residential ISPs generally will have to pay for that commodity,  
unless they are also tier-1 providers.

 From an optimize-the-public-good perspective, there is an unmet need  
to bandwidth that costs somewhat more than low-volume Internet and  
less than a fully dedicated line. (The installation costs of a  
dedicated fiber to the home would be prohibitive for most consumers.  
T1 is not a reasonable alternative.) Volume charging (probably above a  
threshold) offers this compromise, making both customers and providers  
better off compared to the plausible alternatives.

Given the absence of effective competition in many geographic areas  
and the natural monopoly aspect of providing last-mile services, I  
suspect that we'll need different regulatory models than pretending  
that we're in a fully-competitive environment, but that's a different  
discussion.

Henning

---

From: Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 09:17:05 -0700

Assuming for the following that, if you eliminated the 5% heavy users,  
the 95% aren't seening significant congestion...

As such.

On Jun 8, 2008, at 8:25 AM, Robb Topolski wrote:
> d) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth by fewer customers so that  
> 5% of the users CANNOT use >50% of the bandwidth

This is overprovisioning which benefits the 5% without benefiting the  
95%, which does not have an economic rationalle (see Brisco's writing  
on the topic for example) in flat-rate pricing.

> e) increasing the shared pool of bandwidth so that 5% of the users  
> CANNOT use >50% of the bandwidth

How is E different from D?

And E is harder if congestion is in the last mile physical media.

And E seems impossible based on the Japanese experience.

> f) dividing the shared pool of bandwidth into smaller allocations so  
> that 5% of the users CANNOT use >50% of the bandwidth

This seems to be "abandoninng statistical multiplexing" mixed with  
"overprovisioning".  For the bulk of the users, statistical  
multiplexing works, and I'd be loath to give it up.

> g) pricing admission into the shared pool of bandwidth so that the  
> price of the largest allocations encourages users to behave  
> economically

Usage based pricing, billed by committed capacity rather than usage.   
(Of course, the ideal is charge for congestion, but that may be hard  
to bill and harder to explain)

Note, that in usage based pricing, ISP's attitude about P2P do a  
complete 180: its a huge profit center: because a user's app can keep  
sucking down and up bandwidth, all through the night (where the cost  
is less but you charge the same), and with the localization, not suck  
up access link bandwidth.

IT, however, kills the P2P companies business model, as they are now  
at least 2x, if not 4x, more expensive to users than conventional HTTP- 
based streaming.

> Perhaps the user has the concurrency problem solved.  Let's assume  
> that they've used their VOIP device and and performed background  
> file-transfers at the same time (because some people have, or else  
> these same people wouldn't depend on VOIP).  If properly managed,  
> shouldn't the network in the middle allow it to work?
>

How is isolating the 5% to fight amongst themselves not doing that?

If you are managing your background transfers RIGHT (eg, capping your  
BitTorrent to a reasonably small fraction, and participating in only  
one or maby two swarms at a time) you aren't part of the problem  
anyway, and probably wouldn't even get to play in the 5%ers "best  
effort" playground if the window of fairness is set to some reasonably  
low time scale (eg, 5-10 minutes).  [1]

> I can see the ads for it now, "...the bulk of our users are mostly  
> happy (...but don't ask what the rest of our users say about us.)"
>
> Why is the definition of fair that "the bulk of our users are mostly  
> happy?" These companies provide Internet to all of us.

Why should the model be "The bulk of the users are unhappy (except for  
the few heavy users...)"?

Why should the 95% of the light users, however, have to pay the  
congestion penalty from the 5% of the users who AREN'T PAYING ANY MORE!

This is a classic externality, and externalities in the network MUST  
be managed if you want a viable, stable network fabric.

Remember, Comcast does NOT claim to do shaping based on protocol  
beyond the protocol-interference of Sandvine.  Yet, strangely enough,  
the complaints of "Comcast Breaking Vonage" really did go away once  
they started blocking seeds and leeches (and ONLY seeds and leeches)

Because it really takes only one or two idiots with their BitTorrent  
cranked to full and running on many torrents to ruin your day on a  
network.  We have seen it.

> Nick, in our current environment, either the incumbant cable or  
> telelephone company is the only real broadband choice.  Lucky  
> residents have the ability to choose between them.  In such an  
> environment, it's everyone's Broadband.   The Internet Access  
> provided by these companies cannot attack one fraction of users in  
> service of the remainder.

At the same time, how can it allow a small fraction of users to attack  
the rest?!?

TCP is flow fair [2], it is NOT user fair.  UDP based crap like Joost  
isn't even flow-fair.

This is, frankly speaking, "Internet Air Pollution Control":  If a  
user uses many flows rather than one, or large non-flow fair  
protocols, should the user NOT be shaped to have the same congestion- 
control behavior as users who are using only one or two TCP flows?

I want user fairness specifically BECAUSE it is "everybody's  
broadband":  I don't want my light flows to be stepped on because some  
neighbor's kid has a dozen Torrents open, because said neighbor's  
traffic will vastly outcompete my traffic, yet he's not paying a penny  
more.

And this might actually be the ideal definition of fairness:  "Methods  
to ENFORCE the network such that every user's congestion response is  
equivalent to that of aggregating all their traffic into, at most,  
four TCP streams under a reasonable queuing discipline".

Would you accept this definition?

Rather, the service you describe, and the service you desire, the  
fully committed rate, without shaping and without bias, is perfectly  
available.  It is marketed to businesses and costs real money.

For the rest of us, statistical multiplexing buys a huge amount.  But  
if you have statistical multiplexing, you must have a way to resolve  
congestion, enforced in the network.

And end-hosts, through the use of recent protocols, have proven they  
are not sufficient.  BitTorrent, as commonly misused, is hostile to  
the user's OWN network, let alone everyone else.  So how does this not  
require enforcement by the network?

> All:  I become increasingly frustrated by being the negative guy --  
> I'm an optimist.  I do believe that Comcast made strides toward more  
> transparency.  But simply advertising that they interfere with some  
> users does not excuse it (see RFC 1087).  When so plainly asked to  
> take a position, the IETF as an engineering body answer Comcast and  
> reject non-Standards conforming behaviors.

[1] You are a great demonstration of why the current model, of app- 
based disruption, shows huge issues and is really evil.  But since you  
are actually tuning your BitTorrent correctly, it wouldn't suprise me  
if in a fairness-based doctrine you'd actually benefit.  Especially  
under the "TCP flow equivelent" definition.

[2] ANd its not even that if you consider the effect of different RTT  
times.

---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 16:29:57 -0500

Henning, now THAT was excellent.  Great summation!

I'm with you up to this point:

> less than a fully dedicated line.
>
>
And on that point, I only can say "I'm not sure."  There certainly is an
unmet demand, but I'm not sure if it rises to the status of unmet need.  And
perhaps these are Economics 101 terms that I do not fully understand.

When I was gigging, I could spend every weekend doing birthday and
anniversary parties for free. We weren't that good, but we decided to charge
a small fee.  When the price of getting four performers tuxedoed across town
for an hour became $50-$100, things quickly struck a happy balance.  In that
case, it wasn't that there was an unmet need for barbershop quartet singers,
it was more true that "free" was a very good price.

In your opinion, or perhaps in the Econ. vernacular, is that an "unmet need"
or something less?   And is it important IETF business either way?

---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 16:48:38 -0500

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Nicholas Weaver <[email-masked]>
wrote:

>
> Assuming for the following that, if you eliminated the 5% heavy users, the
> 95% aren't seening significant congestion...
>

Nick, you obviously are investing a lot of time in writing responses to me.
To be honest, I'm only skimming the first few lines at this point.

The only way to win "The Lifeboat
Game<http://www.google.com/search?q=lifeboat+game>"
is to assume that your particular values are better than anyone elses
values.  And, odds are, you're right.  However, you are also probably in the
minority of lifeboat passengers who hold that opinion.

So while you're busy deciding who its okay to throw overboard, know that *I'm
stubbornly going to remain convinced that a person who has paid their bill,
who has not hacked their modem, who is using applications who have not
behaved nefariously, and who is acting within the law has every right to the
next bit of bandwidth as I do.  *I also believe that truly abusive users
should not be handled through probability guesses enabled by packet
inspection and throttling, but with evidence, due process, and the entire
termination of their service.

I deeply respect this body and will not continue repeating myself.  I want
to contribute technically, and this has become less than a technical
conversation.

--Robb

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 18:34:41 -0400

This is straying somewhat outside the technical, but, as I've said  
before, this is largely an economics problem.

For simplicity, let's assume for a moment that Internet access was a  
regulated monopoly as opposed to an unregulated monopoly, as it is  
now, or a classical competitive market. A fictitious public utility  
commission or competitive business now has three choices, given the  
mix of users of today (95% "light", 5% "heavy"):

(1) Light users and heavy users pay the same, but light users pay more  
than they would without the heavy users, since the network capacity  
has to be much larger.

(2) Heavy users are kicked off the network. They now have a choice:  
run their own fiber or only get service below what they are interested  
in. They are lost as customers to the provider and the cost of the own  
fiber is prohibitive, so nobody earns any extra money (but the  
provider and 95% of the customers save some money; the division of the  
spoils between the two is a matter of market power or choices made by  
the regulator).

(3) Heavy users are charged more, but significantly less than it would  
cost to lay a separate fiber. Assuming that heavy users value the  
service sufficiently to pay the extra charge, everybody gains: the  
provider gets additional revenue with modest additional infrastructure  
investment, the light user doesn't subsidize the heavy user and the  
heavy user gets extra bandwidth.

There is one core economics assumption here: The heavy user actually  
values bandwidth more than the incremental charge. (This is the  
classical problem in discussions of pirating: Many users would forego  
the movie rather than pay full fare. It could well be that heavy users  
don't value the extra bandwidth they use at what it costs to provide  
it, but that's just a version of "there is no free lunch".)

This is under the assumption that separating or charging heavy users  
is feasible and worthwhile. At an "all you can eat" buffet, finite  
stomach capacity and the prohibition against doggy-bagging make  
counting trips to the salad bar not worth the hassle. With high-speed  
Internet access, the consumption ratio between light and heavy users  
is much larger than for other "flat-rate" services. Measuring isn't  
much of an issue, but the fear of $1000 bill surprises might be.

In an unregulated monopoly, the calculations are different since the  
provider can potentially practice perfect market segmentation and  
capture all the surplus. That's a discussion for a different day.

Henning

On Jun 8, 2008, at 5:29 PM, Robb Topolski wrote:
>
> And on that point, I only can say "I'm not sure."  There certainly  
> is an unmet demand, but I'm not sure if it rises to the status of  
> unmet need.  And perhaps these are Economics 101 terms that I do not  
> fully understand.
>
> anniversary parties for free. We weren't that good, but we decided  
> to charge a small fee.  When the price of getting four performers  
> tuxedoed across town for an hour became $50-$100, things quickly  
> struck a happy balance.  In that case, it wasn't that there was an  
> unmet need for barbershop quartet singers, it was more true that  
> "free" was a very good price.
>
> In your opinion, or perhaps in the Econ. vernacular, is that an  
> "unmet need" or something less?   And is it important IETF business  
> either way?
>
> --

---

From: "Stanislav Shalunov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 02:35:36 -0700

Henning,

The topic, is, indeed, not related to engineering, and your analysis
is quite right.

One small point while we're on the subject:

      ISPs charge flat rates not by coincidence or charity, but
because they expect to make the most money this way.

Uneven consumption within flat plans existed before P2P.  Light and
heavy users existed since mail systems were first built in your
favorite ancient empire.  (I once wrote a script to find and quantify
this in dialup days and found what I didn't expect to find: the modem
pool spent most of its time negotiating the speed, and so disabling
the most high-speed option shortened the negotiation and removed the
congestion before I had to decide what to do with the heavy users.)

Users are prepared to pay a premium for consistent month-to-month
pricing.  ISPs are happy to take this premium.  If usage mix changes,
they can change the pricing plans, but consumers will continue to be
prepared to pay a premium for consistent month-to-month spending, and
many ISPs will likely choose to continue to take this premium,
offering different plans to different types of users.

-- Stas

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov
http://shlang.com/

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 09:03:27 -0400

> offering different plans to different types of users.

In general, this is indeed an empirically well-founded observation.  
The problem is that this holds only if the penalty for predictability  
is reasonably small.

The old model of differentiating by access speed no longer works and  
is counter-productive (just makes uploading my photos a royal pain),  
so I'm unclear what you mean by "different plans" except volume-based  
tiering.

Just to take the cell phone example: We have both, quite successfully,  
all-you-can-talk plans at around $80 to $100/month, but also, at the  
other end, low-volume prepay plans that work out to roughly $10/month  
for minimal usage. (Less in Europe and Asia for reasons not worth  
discussing here.) It is very unlikely that those on the prepay plan  
would want to switch to the Sprint $99 all-inclusive plan just for  
predictability, or vice versa.

I suspect that there will always be all-you-can-send plans for data,  
but they'll be more akin to the $99 cell phone plans than your average  
family $29.95 cell phone plan. (Monthly ARPU in the US for cell is  
around $50.) The "bucket-of-minutes model" with roll over seems likely  
a reasonable model. You don't worry about every byte, but you get  
segmentation.

Henning

---

From: "Stanislav Shalunov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 12:00:41 -0700

> It is very unlikely that those on the prepay plan would want to switch to the
> Sprint $99 all-inclusive plan just for predictability, or vice versa.

Well, duh.

We send this for consideration for the usage section of the slang
dictionary, entry "violent agreement", right?

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:49:40 -0400

One question inline below.
-Jason

________________________________

	From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Robb Topolski

	The only way to win "The Lifeboat Game
<http://www.google.com/search?q=lifeboat+game> " is to assume that your
particular values are better than anyone elses values.  And, odds are,
you're right.  However, you are also probably in the minority of
lifeboat passengers who hold that opinion.  
	
	So while you're busy deciding who its okay to throw overboard,
know that I'm stubbornly going to remain convinced that a person who has
paid their bill, who has not hacked their modem, who is using
applications who have not behaved nefariously, and who is acting within
the law has every right to the next bit of bandwidth as I do.  I also
believe that truly abusive users should not be handled through
probability guesses enabled by packet inspection and throttling, but
with evidence, due process, and the entire termination of their service.

	So here's a technical operations question for you then.  What do
you do with the users of a network who may have "hacked their modem"
(using your terms) or who is using apps that are behaving "nefariously,"
and who may not be "acting within the law?"  It sounds like you are
suggesting that these are some specific and reasonable corner cases when
applying reasonable network management may well be appropriate, provided
a due and open process for determining and communicating this.  And that
in some extreme cases (perhaps the "acting within the law" parameter you
suggested), that this may result in termination of service.  To follow
this logic you have suggested, it would not  be reasonable to apply such
policies unless a user essentially knew such limits or whatever
beforehand (transparency needed in advance).

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:02:10 -0400

Replies inline below.  Sorry I am still catching up on all this email
from the weekend.
 
Jason

	All:  I become increasingly frustrated by being the negative guy
-- I'm an optimist.  I do believe that Comcast made strides toward more
transparency.  But simply advertising that they interfere with some
users does not excuse it (see RFC 1087).  When so plainly asked to take
a position, the IETF as an engineering body answer Comcast and reject
non-Standards conforming behaviors.  
	 
	I was a bit thrown off by your RFC 1087 reference, "Ethics and
the Internet" from 1989.  Perhaps that RFC is somewhat geared towards a
non-commercial past, when as it says, the Internet is a "national
facility" used mostly by researchers.  Can you advise your specific
technical areas of concern, as it relates to this RFC (see below)?
	 
	Network Working Group                          Internet
Activities Board
	Request for Comments: 1087
January 1989

	                        Ethics and the Internet
	
	Status of this Memo
	
	   This memo is a statement of policy by the Internet Activities
Board
	   (IAB) concerning the proper use of the resources of the
Internet.
	   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
	
	Introduction
	
	   At great human and economic cost, resources drawn from the
U.S.
	   Government, industry and the academic community have been
assembled
	   into a collection of interconnected networks called the
Internet.
	   Begun as a vehicle for experimental network research in the
mid-
	   1970's, the Internet has become an important national
infrastructure
	   supporting an increasingly widespread, multi-disciplinary
community
	   of researchers ranging, inter alia, from computer scientists
and
	   electrical engineers to mathematicians, physicists, medical
	   researchers, chemists, astronomers and space scientists.
	
	   As is true of other common infrastructures (e.g., roads,
water
	   reservoirs and delivery systems, and the power generation and
	   distribution network), there is widespread dependence on the
Internet
	   by its users for the support of day-to-day research
activities.
	
	   The reliable operation of the Internet and the responsible
use of its
	   resources is of common interest and concern for its users,
operators
	   and sponsors.  Recent events involving the hosts on the
Internet and
	   in similar network infrastructures underscore the need to
reiterate
	   the professional responsibility every Internet user bears to
	   colleagues and to the sponsors of the system.  Many of the
Internet
	   resources are provided by the U.S. Government.  Abuse of the
system
	   thus becomes a Federal matter above and beyond simple
professional
	   ethics.
	
	IAB Statement of Policy
	
	   The Internet is a national facility whose utility is largely
a
	   consequence of its wide availability and accessibility.
	   Irresponsible use of this critical resource poses an enormous
threat
	   to its continued availability to the technical community.
	
	   The U.S. Government sponsors of this system have a fiduciary
	   responsibility to the public to allocate government resources
wisely

	Internet Activities Board
[Page 1]
	<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1087#page-2> 
	RFC 1087 <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1087>
Ethics and the Internet             January 1989

	   and effectively.  Justification for the support of this
system
	   suffers when highly disruptive abuses occur.  Access to and
use of
	   the Internet is a privilege and should be treated as such by
all
	   users of this system.
	
	   The IAB strongly endorses the view of the Division Advisory
Panel of
	   the National Science Foundation Division of Network,
Communications
	   Research and Infrastructure which, in paraphrase,
characterized as
	   unethical and unacceptable any activity which purposely:
	
	      (a) seeks to gain unauthorized access to the resources of
the
	          Internet,
	
	      (b) disrupts the intended use of the Internet,
	
	      (c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through
such
	          actions,
	
	      (d) destroys the integrity of computer-based information,
	
	   and/or
	
	      (e) compromises the privacy of users.
	
	   The Internet exists in the general research milieu.  Portions
of it
	   continue to be used to support research and experimentation
on
	   networking.  Because experimentation on the Internet has the
	   potential to affect all of its components and users,
researchers have
	   the responsibility to exercise great caution in the conduct
of their
	   work.  Negligence in the conduct of Internet-wide experiments
is both
	   irresponsible and unacceptable.
	
	   The IAB plans to take whatever actions it can, in concert
with
	   Federal agencies and other interested parties, to identify
and to set
	   up technical and procedural mechanisms to make the Internet
more
	   resistant to disruption.  Such security, however, may be
extremely
	   expensive and may be counterproductive if it inhibits the
free flow
	   of information which makes the Internet so valuable.  In the
final
	   analysis, the health and well-being of the Internet is the
	   responsibility of its users who must, uniformly, guard
against abuses
	   which disrupt the system and threaten its long-term
viability.

	

	
	Internet Activities Board
[Page 2]

---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:32:57 -0700

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Livingood, Jason <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>  ------------------------------
> *From:* [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] *On Behalf Of
> *Robb Topolski
>
> The only way to win "The Lifeboat Game<http://www.google.com/search?q=lifeboat+game>"
> So here's a technical operations question for you then.  What do you do
> with the users of a network who may have "hacked their modem" (using your
> terms) or who is using apps that are behaving "nefariously," and who may *
> not* be "acting within the law?"  It sounds like you are suggesting that
> these are some specific and reasonable corner cases when applying reasonable
> network management may well be appropriate, provided a due and open process
> for determining and communicating this.  And that in some extreme cases
> (perhaps the "acting within the law" parameter you suggested), that this may
> result in termination of service.  To follow this logic you have suggested,
> it would *not*  be reasonable to apply such policies *unless *a user
> essentially knew such limits or whatever *beforehand* (transparency needed
> in advance).
>
> I was talking about network abuse and the commission of acts that ought not
require policies prohibiting them.  I was also talking about the wedge
tactic that pits one user against another in an effort to create "sides" in
a debate.

As to how Comcast should respond to a user innocently exceeding clearly
communicated service limits in an agreement is another subject.

---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:39:10 -0700

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Livingood, Jason <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> I was a bit thrown off by your RFC 1087 reference, "Ethics and the
> Internet" from 1989.  Perhaps that RFC is somewhat geared towards a
> non-commercial past, when as it says, the Internet is a "national facility"
> used mostly by researchers.
>
> The reference is historical, relating to "*Recent events involving the
hosts on the Internet and
   in similar network infrastructures underscore the need to reiterate
   the professional responsibility every Internet user bears to
   colleagues ..."*

> Can you advise your specific technical areas of concern, as it relates to
> this RFC (see below)?
>
>
They are these acts, which Comcast's current RST method and proposed
"Protocol Agnostic" method violate.

*      (b) disrupts the intended use of the Internet,*

*      (c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through such*
*          actions,*

*      (d) destroys the integrity of computer-based information,*

*      (e) compromises the privacy of users.*

---

From: "Robb Topolski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 17:04:24 -0700

(Adding to my own message)

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Robb Topolski <[email-masked]> wrote:

> hosts on the Internet andin similar network infrastructures underscore the
> need to reiterate the professional responsibility every Internet user bears
> to colleagues ..."
> *
>
All, please be clear that WRT to RFC 1087 I'm using it as an example and
expressing my criticisms at the methods being employed, not the persons and
companies themselves.  The effects of using Protocol discrimination or
Consumption discrimination are these four effects above.

Comcast is here participating -- not here acting "unethically."
Unfortunately, the title of RFC 1087 is something like "Ethics and the
Internet."  Please do not interpret this fact as a criticism of Comcast or
its participation here.  Please do interpret my message as a criticism of
both the old and their new proposed method.

Thank you to the individual who sent me a corrective message in private.  It
did look like a shot, and that wasn't what I was going for.

---

From: Richard Bennett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:26:46 -0700

This isn't a court of law, and it's not our mandate to determine who the 
good guys (or good practices) are and who's being bad. It's certainly 
not an established fact that an application-neutral per-user fairness 
regime is "disruptive to the intended use of the Internet" or any such 
thing; in fact, the evidence leads to quite a different conclusion.

Similarly, packet inspection (deep or shallow, if there is such a thing) 
without retention for the purpose of prioritizing is quite a different 
animal than packet inspection for the purpose of retaining personal 
information  to be used for commercial or other purposes.

Similarly, speculations about the viability of metered pricing are 
probably not productive, given that it's already the norm on most 
Internet access networks in the world. The Internet is, after all, a 
global phenomenon and not simply a slice of American life.

I'd prefer to focus the energies of this group in a more productive 
direction, namely to identify means of harmonizing the needs and 
requirements of groups of users on shared network links, given that 
"infinite bandwidth at no cost" is outside the solution space.

RB

Robb Topolski wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Robb Topolski <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Livingood, Jason
>     <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>
>             I was a bit thrown off by your RFC 1087 reference, "Ethics
>             and the Internet" from 1989.  Perhaps that RFC is somewhat
>             geared towards a non-commercial past, when as it says, the
>             Internet is a "national facility" used mostly by researchers. 
>
>     The reference is historical, relating to "/Recent events involving
>     the hosts on the Internet and
>     reiterate the professional responsibility every Internet user
>     bears to colleagues ..."
>     / 
>
>             Can you advise your specific technical areas of concern,
>             as it relates to this RFC (see below)?
>
>
>     They are these acts, which Comcast's current RST method and
>     proposed "Protocol Agnostic" method violate.
>      
>     /      (b) disrupts the intended use of the Internet,/
>
>     /      (c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through such/
>     /          actions,/
>
>     /      (d) destroys the integrity of computer-based information,/
>
>     /      (e) compromises the privacy of users./
>
>
> All, please be clear that WRT to RFC 1087 I'm using it as an example 
> and expressing my criticisms at the methods being employed, not the 
> persons and companies themselves.  The effects of using Protocol 
> discrimination or Consumption discrimination are these four effects 
> above. 
>
> Internet."  Please do not interpret this fact as a criticism of 
> Comcast or its participation here.  Please do interpret my message as 
> a criticism of both the old and their new proposed method.
>
> Thank you to the individual who sent me a corrective message in 
> private.  It did look like a shot, and that wasn't what I was going for.
>
>
> -- 
> Robb Topolski ([email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>)
> Hillsboro, Oregon USA
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-- 
Richard Bennett

---

From: "Peterson, Jon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 21:21:54 -0400

I'd like to second this.

We're certainly not here to pass judgment on Comcast or any other
network provider. What the IETF can do is engineer tools that may
improve the interaction between applications and the underlying network,
where previous assumptions about the relationship between those entities
have proven unreliable. The P2P case under examination here is such an
instance, and thus we have a few choices about what behaviors we might
tweak to alleviate the undesirable symptoms.

I'd like to keep the discussion here focused, to the degree that we can,
on what engineering deliverables we can identify and act upon. Is there
anything outside the proposed scope of TANA and ALTO that we've missed,
and that we should consider for IETF action? As a part of this ongoing
discussion, I personally find Comcast's updates on their planned trials
valuable, and I think the data that will result from those trials could
be very useful in refining the problem space as the IETF continues to
think through these problems. I would certainly be disappointed if our
prejudgment of those trials, or hostility to business models, ultimately
deprived us of that data.

The manner in which Comcast chooses to operate their network, and
collect revenues, is not something we can or should decide - nor should
this mailing list be a pillory where we revisit management practices
that no one here is going to advocate.

Jon Peterson

NeuStar, Inc.

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Richard Bennett
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 5:27 PM
To: Robb Topolski
Cc: [email-masked]; Livingood, Jason
Subject: Re: [p2pi] Fwd: For those who think "User Fairness/Cost
Fairness" isunacceptable...

RB

Robb Topolski wrote: 

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Robb Topolski <[email-masked]>
wrote:

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Livingood, Jason
<[email-masked]> wrote:

	I was a bit thrown off by your RFC 1087 reference, "Ethics and
the Internet" from 1989.  Perhaps that RFC is somewhat geared towards a
non-commercial past, when as it says, the Internet is a "national
facility" used mostly by researchers. 

The reference is historical, relating to "Recent events involving the
hosts on the Internet and 

in similar network infrastructures underscore the need to reiterate the
professional responsibility every Internet user bears to colleagues ..."

      (c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through such
          actions,

All, please be clear that WRT to RFC 1087 I'm using it as an example and
expressing my criticisms at the methods being employed, not the persons
and companies themselves.  The effects of using Protocol discrimination
or Consumption discrimination are these four effects above.  

Comcast is here participating -- not here acting "unethically."
Unfortunately, the title of RFC 1087 is something like "Ethics and the
Internet."  Please do not interpret this fact as a criticism of Comcast
or its participation here.  Please do interpret my message as a
criticism of both the old and their new proposed method.

Thank you to the individual who sent me a corrective message in private.
It did look like a shot, and that wasn't what I was going for.