[Bloat] [Rpm] [Starlink] [LibreQoS] On FiWi

[David Lang]

I'll point out that pre-Internet, there was UUCP and dialups between the 
computers, not even always-on links. So latency was 'wait until the next dialup 
session' and bandwidth was the critical issue.

most of the early applications worked with this environment, so the transition 
to always-connected still didn't have a strong latency driver. It's only as the 
web grew (and other real-time apps were introduced) that latency began to be 
more significant than bulk bandwitdth.

but as you say, people haven't wrapped their heads around 'bandwidth is 
available' yet.

David Lang


On Tue, 21 Mar 2023, rjmcmahon via Bloat wrote:

> Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:58:17 -0700
> From: rjmcmahon via Bloat <bloat at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: rjmcmahon <rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon.com>
> To: Frantisek Borsik <frantisek.borsik at gmail.com>
> Cc: Dave Taht via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>,
>     dan <dandenson at gmail.com>, brandon at rd.bbc.co.uk,
>     libreqos <libreqos at lists.bufferbloat.net>,
>     Rpm <rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net>, bloat <bloat at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Bloat] [Rpm] [Starlink] [LibreQoS] On FiWi
> 
> I was around when BGP & other critical junctures 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_juncture_theory  the commercial 
> internet. Here's a short write-up from another thread with some thoughts 
> (Note: there are no queues in the Schramm Model 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schramm%27s_model_of_communication )
>
> On why we're here.
>
> I think Stuart's point about not having the correct framing is spot on. 
> I also think part of that may come from the internet's origin story 
> so-to-speak. In the early days of the commercial internet, ISPs formed 
> by buying MODEM banks from suppliers and connecting them to the 
> telephone company central offices (thanks Strowger!) and then leasing T1 
> lines from the same telco, connecting the two.  Products like a Cisco 
> Access Gateway were used for the MODEM side. The 4K independent ISPs 
> formed in the U.S. took advantage of statistical multiplexing per IP 
> packets to optimize the PSTN's time division multiplexing (TDM) design. 
> That design had a lot of extra capacity because of the mother's day 
> problem - the network had to carry the peak volume of calls. It was 
> always odd to me that the telephone companies basically contracted out 
> statistical to TDM coupling of networks and didn't do it themselves. 
> This was rectified with broadband and most all the independent ISPs went 
> out of business.
>
> IP statistical multiplexing was great except for one thing. The attached 
> computers were faster than their network i/o so TCP had to do things 
> like congestion control to avoid network collapse based on congestion 
> signals (and a very imperfect control loop.) Basically, that extra TDM 
> capacity for voice calls was consumed very quickly. This set in motion 
> the idea that network channel capacity is a proxy for computer speed as 
> when networks are underprovisioned and congested that's basically 
> accurate. Van Jacobson's work was most always about congestion on what 
> today are bandwidth constrained networks.
>
> This also started a bit of a cultural war colloquially known as 
> Bellheads vs Netheads. The human engineers took sides more or less. The 
> netheads mostly kept increasing capacity. The market demand curve for 
> computer connections drove this. It's come to a head though, in that 
> netheads most always overprovisioned similar to solving the mother's day 
> problem. (This is different from the electric build out where the goal 
> is to drive peak and average loads to merge in order to keep generators 
> efficient at a constant speed.)
>
> Many were first stuck with the concept of bandwidth scarcity per those 
> origins. But then came bandwidth abundance and many haven't adjusted. 
> Mental block number one. Mental block two occurs when one sees all that 
> bandwidth and says, let's use it all as it's going to be scarce, like a 
> Great Depression-era person hoarding basic items.
>
> A digression; This isn't that much different in the early days before 
> Einstein. Einstein changed thinking by realizing that the speed of 
> causality was defined or limited by the speed of massless particles, 
> i.e. energy or photons. We all come from energy in one way or another. 
> So of course it makes sense that our causality system, e.g. aging, is 
> determined by that speed. It had to be relative for Maxwell's equations 
> to be held true - which Einstein agreed with as true irrelevant of 
> inertial frame. A leap for us comes when we realize that the speed of 
> causality, i.e. time, is fundamentally the speed of energy.  It's true 
> for all clocks, objects, etc. even computers.
>
> So when we engineer systems that queue information, we don't slow down 
> energy, we slow down information. Computers are mass information tools 
> so slowing down information slows down distributed compute. As Stuart 
> says, "It's the latency, stupid".  It's physics too.
>
> I was trying to explain to a dark fiber provider that I wanted 100Gb/s 
> SFPs to a residential building in Boston. They said, nobody needs 
> 100Gb/s and that's correct from a link capacity perspective. But the 
> economics & energy required for the lowest latency ber bit delivered 
> actually is 100Gb/s SERDES attached to lasers attached to fiber.
>
> What we really want is low latency at the lowest energy possible, and 
> also to be unleashed from cables (as we're not dogs.) Hence FiWi.
>
> Bob
>
>> I do believe that we all want to get the best - latency and speed,
>> hopefully, in this particular order :-)
>> The problem was that from the very beginning of the Internet (yeah, I
>> was still not here, on this planet, when it all started), everything
>> was optimised for speed, bandwidth and other numbers, but not so much
>> for bufferbloat in general.
>> Some of the things that goes into it in the need for speed, are
>> directly against the fixing latency...and it was not setup for it.
>> Gamers and Covid (work from home, the need for the enterprise network
>> but in homes...) brings it into conversation, thankfully, and now we
>> will deal with it.
>> 
>> Also, there is another thing I see and it's a negative sentiment
>> against anything business (monetisation of, say - lower latency
>> solutions) in general. If it comes from the general geeky/open
>> source/etc folks, I can understand it a bit. But it comes also from
>> the business people - assuming some of You works in big corporations
>> or run ISPs. I'm all against cronyism, but to throw out the baby with
>> the bathwater - to say that doing business (i.e. getting paid for
>> delivering something that is missing/fixing something that is
>> implementing insufficiently) is wrong, to look at it with disdain, is
>> asinine.
>> 
>> This has the connection with the general "Net Neutrality" (NN)
>> sentiment. I have 2 suggestions for reading from the other side of the
>> aisle, on this topic: https://www.martingeddes.com/1261-2 [1]/ (Martin
>> was censored by all major social media back then, during the days of
>> NN fight in the FCC and elsewhere.) Second thing is written by one and
>> only Dave Taht:
>> https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/net_neutrality_customers/
>> 
>> To conclude, we need to find the way how to benchmark and/or
>> communicate (translate, if You will) the whole variety of the quality
>> of network statistics/metrics (which are complex) like QoE, QoS,
>> latency, jitter, bufferbloat...to something, that is meaningful for
>> the end user. See this short proposition of the Quality of Outcome by
>> Domos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=MRmcWyIVXvg&t=4185s
>> There is definitely a lot of work on this - and also on the finding
>> the right benchmark and its actual measurement side, but it's a step
>> in the right direction.
>> 
>> Looking forward to seeing Your take on that proposed Quality of
>> Outcome. Thanks a lot.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Frank
>> 
>> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>> 
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
>> 
>> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714
>> 
>> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885
>> 
>> Skype: casioa5302ca
>> 
>> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 7:08 PM rjmcmahon via Rpm
>> <rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Also, I want my network to be the color clear because I value
>>> transparency, honesty, and clarity.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> https://carbuzz.com/news/car-colors-are-more-important-to-buyers-than-you-think
>>> 
>>> "There are many factors to consider when buying a new car, from
>>> price
>>> and comfort to safety equipment. For many people, color is another
>>> important factor since it reflects their personality."
>>> 
>>> "In a study by Automotive Color Preferences 2021 Consumer Survey,
>>> 4,000
>>> people aged 25 to 60 in four of the largest car markets in the world
>>> 
>>> (China, Germany, Mexico and the US) were asked about their car color
>>> 
>>> preferences. Out of these, 88 percent said that color is a key
>>> deciding
>>> factor when buying a car."
>>> 
>>> Bob
>>>> I think we may all be still stuck on numbers. Since infinity is
>>> taken,
>>>> the new marketing number is "infinity & beyond" per Buzz Lightyear
>>>> 
>>>> Here's what I want, I'm sure others have ideas too:
>>>> 
>>>> o) We all deserve COPPA. Get the advertiser & their cohorts to
>>> stop
>>>> mining my data & communications - limit or prohibit access to my
>>>> information by those who continue to violate privacy rights
>>>> o) An unlimited storage offering with the lowest possible latency
>>> paid
>>>> for annually. That equipment ends up as close as possible to my
>>> main
>>>> home per speed of light limits.
>>>> o) Security of my network including 24x7x365 monitoring for
>>> breaches
>>>> and for performance
>>>> o) Access to any cloud software app. Google & Apple are getting
>>>> something like 30% for every app on a phone. Seems like a
>>> last-mile
>>>> provider should get a revenue share for hosting apps that aren't
>>> being
>>>> downloaded. Blockbuster did this for DVDs before streaming took
>>> over.
>>>> Revenue shares done properly, while imperfect, can work.
>>>> o) A life-support capable, future proof, componentized,
>>> leash-free,
>>>> in-home network that is dual-homed over the last mile for
>>> redundancy
>>>> o) Per room FiWi and sensors that can be replaced and upgraded by
>>> me
>>>> ordering and swapping the parts without an ISP getting all my
>>>> neighbors' consensus & buy in
>>>> o) VPN capabilities & offerings to the content rights owners'
>>>> intellectual property for when the peering agreements fall apart
>>>> o) Video conferencing that works 24x7x365 on all devices
>>>> o) A single & robust shut-off circuit
>>>> 
>>>> Bob
>>>> 
>>>> PS. I think the sweet spot may turn out to be 100Gb/s when
>>> considering
>>>> climate impact. Type 2 emissions are a big deal so we need to
>>> deliver
>>>> the fastest causality possible (incl. no queueing) at the lowest
>>>> energy consumption engineers can achieve.
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Rpm mailing list
>>>> Rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/rpm
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Rpm mailing list
>>> Rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/rpm
>> 
>> 
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] https://www.martingeddes.com/1261-2
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