Convergence Conversation

I got  emails off to MEPs Bloom and Harbour suggesting they vote against  the so called AT&T ammendments or the Wiki ammendments,  following a cut and past job from wiki, in Articles 20.1 and Art 21.3 in the EU telecoms package.  The ammendments state that operators need discretion in the network management practices needed to keep our internet connections running.  It is suggested the AT&T representatives are getting some practice in before the FCC gets to make a call on net neutrality.

My pleas, a bit like the efforts of the AT&T lobbyists are a waste of time and here's why!

Affordable services mean shared services and sharing means congestion,  so rules are needed and networks need to be able to cope with congestion,  even in fibre networks.  So where's the problem?

Broadband services,  not that you would know it,  ought to be defined around the limits imposed by the planning rules used by the ISPs to define a service.  There is a peak hour allocation of resources.  There are quantifiable  loss, delay and jitter characteristics and these will vary at different load levels all of which affect what you can do with the available connectivity. Even the most 'unlimited' package is associated with a 'fair use' policy.  Fair use is marketing speak for,  if you break our planning rules -which we are not going to explain because it's too hard for the marketing department,  we will take measures to keep you within the planning rules.  As customers usage rises,  more 'management' is needed.  There is a real problem when the planning rule assumes usage at 1/2 to 1/3 of the advertised rates,  and average usage creeps towards the advertised volumes,  a bit like overselling seats on an aircraft but everyone keeps turning up and bringing a friend to squeeze on board.

I wrote to the MEPs and used the example of Home Access students,  a UK program to support kids on funded school meals to get access to a laptop and some connectivity so they can do their homework online.  Most are taking the Mobile Broadband packages because these will be the easiest to buy, and sell.  I just hope their homework does not involve streaming video to watch science experiments or any educational videos.  The package might be 'fast' enough, have big enough download allowance (sometimes)  but the nature of the 'management' means streaming video is virtually unusable.  

I would not expect an MEP to have the time to absorb this level of detail,  so why is AT&T wasting its time?

At best it buys them some time.  Net neutrality is not what it initially seems. It is not a bunch of nerds seeking an open internet with infinite bandwidth for free.   As our dependancy on our connectivity grows,  the more aware we will become of its limits and how to manage around those limits. This is especially so as the debate on the USO for Broadband hots up.  The USO will not mean a minimum speed so much but the need to support a key set of services which will work in a predictable way during congested periods.  A deaf customer needs his multi-media relay service to work,  a blind customer needs the text to speech application working,  a home worker needs connectivity to the office and conferencing,  kids need to do their homework.  This multitude of need cannot be second guessed at by someone looking inside our packets and guessing at what's best for me;   which is what Deep Packet based network management is.  Worse still is some enertainment company and ISP thinking their content is somehow more important that the things I need to do.  

We may not need legislation,  it's too hard to write for one,  we do need a set of principles to work within (thank you Norway ) and we need to be told the planning parameters upon which our services are built.  We've bought it,  we like it,  I know there are limits.  Tell me what they  are so I can work within them. Do not try solving this on your own!  And certainly do not get legislation written around ever changing discretionary practices,  which at its root has the notion of keeping the customer uninformed.

• Write a post
• Invite colleagues
• About us

• Search

  Advanced search