[NNagain] Net neutrality and Bufferbloat?

[Sebastian Moeller]

Hi Jason,


during the Covid19 era, the EU issued clarifications that even throttling a complete class like streaming video might be within reasonable network management. The only stipulations wer this needs to happen only to allow arguably more important traffic classes (like work-from home vide conferences or remote schooling) to proceed with less interferences and blind to source and sender. That is using this to play favorites amongst streaming services would still be problematic, but down-prioritizing all streaming would be acceptable. (Now the assumption is that reasonable network management will not last for ever and is no replacement for scaling the capacity to the load in the intermediate/longer terms).



> On Dec 18, 2023, at 16:10, Livingood, Jason via Nnagain <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
>> Misapplied concepts of network neutrality is one of the things that killed
>> fq codel for DOCSIS 3.1
> 
> I am not so sure this was the case - I think it was just that a different AQM was selected. DOCSIS 3.1 includes the DOCSIS-PIE AQM - see  https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8034.html and 
> https://www.cablelabs.com/blog/how-docsis-3-1-reduces-latency-with-active-queue-management. I co-wrote a paper about our deployment during COVID at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.13968.pdf. See also https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-livingood-low-latency-deployment-03.html.
> 
>> Finally, some jurisdictions impose regulations that limit the ability of
>> networks to provide differentiation of services, in large part this seems to
>> be based on the belief that doing so necessarily involves prioritization or
>> privileged access to bandwidth, and thus a benefit to one class of traffic
>> always comes at the expense of another.
> 
> Much regulatory/policy discussion still frames networks as making decisions with scarce bandwidth, rather than abundant bandwidth, and prioritization in that view is a zero-sum game. But IMO we're no longer in the bandwidth-scarcity era but in a bandwidth-abundance era - or at least in an era with declining marginal utility of bandwidth as compared to techniques to improve latency. But I digress.

	Speaking from my side of the pond, over here we still have a somewhat big divide between those sitting on heaps of capacity and those that are still in the painful range <= 16 Mbps (16 itself would not be so bad, but that class goes down below 1 Mbps links and that is IMHO painful).


> 
> To go back to the question of reasonable network management - the key is that any technique used must not be application or destination-specific. So for example, it cannot be focused on flows to the example.com destination or on any flows that are streaming video [1]. 

	See above, while as long as example.com is not violating the law this first is also not an option inside the EU regulatory framework, but the second already has been under specific limited circumstances.


> Anyway - I do not think new AQMs or dual queue low latency networking is in conflict with net neutrality. 

	I agree that AQMs are pretty safe, and I feel that packet schedulers are also fine, even conditional priority schedulers ;)

Regards
	Sebastian

> 
> Jason
> 
> [1] Current rules differ between wireless/mobile and fixed last mile networks; currently the MNOs have a lot more latitude that fixed networks but that may be sorted out in the current NPRM. My personal view is there should be a unified set of rules of all networks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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