[LibreQoS] [Rpm] benton's consumer broadband label prototype

Wed Oct 26 11:57:03 EDT 2022

Well, the FCC is due to announce their proposal for consumer broadband
labels on Nov 15th. What it actually is,
hasn't leaked. I'd be assembling my best arguments, venting, and
planning press releases through my favorite lobbyists,
kind of like this, to prep for that day:

https://watergate.info/1969/07/20/an-undelivered-nixon-speech.html

On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 8:42 AM dan <dandenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My argument here is more about government inadequacies.  Without government warning labels for internet service we have a massive streaming industry, gaming industry, home office workers, and so on.  It's imperfect, but the fact that many of us complain about how kids are stuck in front of an xbox playing fortnite... well I guess it's working to some degree.
>
> Government's ability to regulate and protect consumers that already exists just isn't utilized, ie if you say you sell X, you give X else void contract and potential refunds of up-front costs.   In the US at least, the government's decision making process has fed the 'bad' companies 3000-4000 per subscriber to build out services that don't address the underserved anyway.  All of this money thrown out there by the government making their decisions and they've not moved the needle at all.
>
> IMO, very simple rules on advertising based on delivering what is claimed will force industry innovation.  If a company says 'fast' and that term is too broad, then any attack on 'my latency is crap so this isn't fast' could lead to refunds.  This is capitalism after all.   Maybe companies should have to say 'best throughput' if they are trying to hyper their 1G or 2G service, they can't say 'fast' because that's not really a valid measure.  'great low latency services' instead of fast.    We have the language to market properly but companies are allowed to market vaguely and it IMO contributes to consumer ignorance and misunderstanding.
>
> For our 'fiber like' services we literally pitch latencies to various gaming services and zoom relays.
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 9:27 AM Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dan,
>>
>>
>> > On Oct 26, 2022, at 17:09, dan via Rpm <rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Complete fail on a marketing perspective though, this would have to be legislated and then handled by a third party.
>>
>>         [SM] Well this is not intended to be a marketing tool, but a regulatory tool to make sure the market works to the benefit of society (I understand that market members are incentivized to skew the market mechanism to their advantage, this is why working markets need equally working regulation, just like competitive sports require umpires/referees). So yes legislation might well be required, but that would not be a sign of failure, no?
>>
>> >  No one is going to put out essentially a warning label that says 'poor' or 'marginal' in any category for a product they sell.  I wouldn't, and we have LTE services to get to people with no other option and they are quite happy, it would be detrimental to hand them a sheet that says that the service is actually 'poor'.
>>
>>         [SM] True, but e.g. in Germany ISPs are required by law to publish their contracted rates in a pre-described fashion pre-sale and are actually held responsible to some degree to actually deliver the promised rates. (Well, not really, but consumers can get a cost-free right to immediately cancel their contract or reduce their payments commensurate to the under-delivery of the contracted speed*). What happens here is not that ISPs need to disclose shitty service but that the need to declare what they intend to deliver and they are simply held responsible to actually do so**.
>>
>>
>> *) The first option is already well established and works, the payment reduction part is ATM still being worked out.
>> **) Unfortunately, the required numbers currently do not include latency under load or even idle latency... there is still work ahead to convince the regulatory agency of that.
>>
>> > Also, my trust in the government to decide what's good or bad... laughable.
>>
>>         [SM] Compared to bigger cooperations operating in "free-market" capitalism? Really there is no alternative to government for that purpose...
>>
>> >    You'd get things like on the example page.  903.5Mbps Median download speed, 811.8 Median upload speed, gaming rating poor and video conferencing marginal, on Fios service.  I know that's an example, but it's so spot on what the government might do...
>>
>>         [SM] See e.g.:
>> https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunikation/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Anbieterpflichten/Kundenschutz/Transparenzmaßnahmen/templates_for_information_sheets.pdf;jsessionid=0868AE15965FB584C81008C96BA15E4B?__blob=publicationFile&v=1
>> and
>> https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunikation/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Anbieterpflichten/Kundenschutz/Transparenzmaßnahmen/Instruction_for_drawing_up_PIS.pdf;jsessionid=0868AE15965FB584C81008C96BA15E4B?__blob=publicationFile&v=1
>>
>> for how something similar might look in practice.
>>
>> >
>> > As an operator, I will not implement this unless forced to and then I'll support lobby efforts to get it removed.
>>
>>         [SM] Ad that is why we can't have nice things... ;) No really, I agree this needs legislative/regulatory backing/teeth to work, but that is not a failure but simply how our system developed.
>>
>> Regards
>>         Sebastian
>>
>>
>> >
>> > On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 8:30 PM Dave Taht via LibreQoS <libreqos at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >  is actually... not bad.
>> >
>> > https://www.benton.org/blog/consumer-driven-broadband-label-design
>> >
>> > --
>> > This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>> > https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
>> > Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > LibreQoS mailing list
>> > LibreQoS at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Rpm mailing list
>> > Rpm at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/rpm
>>

-- 
This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC