On NN workshop RE: Re: [governance] Three IGC workshops ) NN FYI DIPLO

[Roland Perry]

In message <p06200764c9ce33f0cac3@[10.0.1.6]>, at 13:49:23 on Fri, 15 
Apr 2011, George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at attglobal.net> writes

>Dave Crocker makes a differentiation between two different concepts of 
>what is called net neutrality:
>
 >"Discussion about "neutrality" needs to distinguish between Service 
 >Neutrality and Participant Neutrality.
 >
>Participant Neutrality means that email from or to me gets treated the 
>same as mail from or to you. Equally, web pages I retrieve from Google 
>get treated the same as web pages I retrieve from Yahoo! or from 
>ietf.org.  Differential handling is based on IP Address or Domain Name.
>
>Service Neutrality means that email, web, voip telephone calls, 
>real-time remote sensor data, and every other type of "application" get 
>treated equally. Differential handling is based on the IP Protocol 
>field or the TCP/UDP Port number.  Real service neutrality means that 
>it is not possible for the network infrastructure to support quality of 
>service guarantees, such as inter-packet arrival times (jitter.)
>
>The challenge of service neutrality is technical, such as dealing with 
>the potential that preference for one service will destroy the ability 
>to use another service.
>
>The challenge of participant neutrality is political, since it relates 
>to potentially unfair treatment of different people or organizations.
>
>An example of Participant Neutrality that can be masked as Service 
>Neutrality is when two organizations have competing application 
>protocols and one is given preference.  The preference appears to be 
>based on the protocol but is really concerned with who is operating the 
>service.
 >
 >Discussions about net neutrality typically fail to make this basic 
 >distinction and therefore typically wind up with people talking past 
 >each other or, worse, imposing policies that really do restrict the 
 >ability of the Internet to properly support adequate operation of a 
 >service."
 >
>Further, it may be the case that you can have one or the other, but not 
>both simultaneously.  I haven't thought that through, but if it's true, 
>then there's a whole space of net neutrality components that need more 
>detailed analysis

You can have both forms of neutrality if there's infinite bandwidth. 
Although another of the pitfalls is failing to adequately examine where 
in the 'end-to-end' model the current bandwidth restrictions have their 
effect on neutrality.

One of the results is that when you have a network with limited 
bandwidth, it looks like you've got problems with Service Neutrality [eg 
people can't watch YouTube on their mobiles, but can query Google] when 
it could also be characterised as Participant Neutrality [people who 
have only got a mobile phone, especially when paying per megabyte, can't 
watch YouTube as effectively as those with a landline].

Therefore, expanding upon the QoS dilemma above, how about a straw man 
called Congestion Neutrality; what happens in the absence of infinite 
bandwidth.

Rather than have all communications degrade by whatever the mathematics 
physics of TCP/IP dictates (resulting in anything time critical being a 
casualty) networks are prone to introduce rules that discriminate 
between Services (all NNTP/Usenet will be slowed down, all VoIP will be 
accelerated) or discriminate between participants (all users will have a 
maximum Megabytes per month, all NNTP from servers outside our network 
will be throttled in the busy hours).

Milton argues that Congestion Neutrality (or the lack of) is widely 
recognised as a necessary Network management tool, but argues strongly 
for Service Neutrality - and in my view to e consistent ought to also be 
arguing for Participant Neutrality. Hopefully this new concept of mine 
(or has someone else invented it before?) will help clarify the debate.
-- 
Roland Perry
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