[NNagain] FCC NOI due dec 1 on broadband speed standards

Tue Nov 14 16:45:45 EST 2023

I think the missing metrics & test vectors are around latency more than 
bandwidth.

I've attached a WiFi low latency table. Feel free to comment.

Good metrics could allow for a comprehensive analysis, at least from a 
WiFi perspective.

Latency under load is a good start, but likely not enough.

Bob

PS. Agreed, the digital transition with storage has many engineers who 
have contributed over decades. I'm very grateful to all of them.

> I am glad you are reaching out, but it may be difficult for us to do a
> joint filing.
> 
> In particular I question the seeming assumption that more wifi devices
> will drive demand for more bandwidth,
> and extrapolating from 18 devices forward may also well be a trend
> that will reverse completely in favor of more bluetooth and thread
> implementations from phone to device.
> 
> Of those 20 wifi devices today are probably
> 
> 1 or more laptops
> 1 or more tablets
> 1 or more phones
> 1 or more tvs
> 
> and of those usually only one will be active per person, while they
> are in the home, and even then....as one semi-hard number, even at
> peak hours (with the libreqos data I have), only 1/6th of households
> are watching video, and very, very few, more than one stream at the
> same time.
> 
> The steady upload bandwidth pumpers are primarily video surveillance
> devices (which as a personal preference I would prefer remain in the
> home unless otherwise activated). I do not presently know much about
> the frame rates or real bandwidth requirements of popular devices like
> ring, etc.  Similarly I am biased towards "Babycams" sending video
> from up to downstairs only and not into the cloud. I know I am bucking
> the trend on this, but it will make me skeptical of much "data" that
> exists today on it.
> 
> Then you have loads of extremely low bandwidth devices - alexa and
> other automation is measured in bits/ms, light switches, a couple bits
> a day, audio streaming 128kbit/s (when you use it). Automatic updates
> to phones and tablets, etc, take place entirely asynchronously
> nowadays and do not need much bandwidth. A small business just needs
> to
> *reliably* clear credit card transactions every few minutes.
> 
> Perhaps the biggest steady-state bandwidth suck is home gaming
> updates, but while a big market, if you haven't noticed birthrates are
> down, and immigration being canceled.
> 
> Thus I feel that the opposite number of 70-80% two people or less per
> household  that you are not optimizing for, dominates the curves.
> 
> Looking at the actual useage disparity (delta) between fiber'd cities
> and rural, uptake of passive video streaming services vs spotify,
> would give me a more pessimistic projection than most. Regrettably I
> lack the time and as few fund accurate scenarios, I would merely be
> willing to write down my estimate and find some sort of online
> "futures" market to place puts on.
> 
> Lastly, a goodly percentage of the people I know just need food,
> shelter, a job and a phone, and with broadband costs skyrocketing,
> aside from the gaming market and business, that is all they can
> afford, even with ACP.  And all that they need. Nobody has a landline
> anymore, and if it weren't for "Tv", few would want broadband at even
> 25/10.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 2:40 PM rjmcmahon via Nnagain
> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks for sharing this. I agree this works for researchers.
>> 
>> I think we're at a different state and economic returns matter too.
>> 
>> I sent the following to our engineers in hopes we can all better
>> understand what we're all trying to accomplish.
>> 
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> The attached Notice of Inquiry by the FCC shows how much our work
>> matters to most everyone in our country (and, by inference, 
>> worldwide.)
>> Broadband networks are no longer entertainment or social networks but
>> they are critical to all regardless of gender, age, race, ethnic 
>> group,
>> etc. People's health, learning, and ability to earn for their families
>> all depend on us providing world class engineering to our customers 
>> who
>> in turn provide these networks for each and all of us, our friends &
>> families, our neighbors, and most everyone else.
>> 
>> Early in my career, I worked at Cisco and had the privilege to work on
>> some of the first BGP routers that enabled the commercial build out of
>> the internet, and I'm very thankful we did that way ahead of the 2019
>> pandemic. There was no "pandemic use case" that drove us - we just
>> wanted to build the best products that engineers could build. A
>> worldwide pandemic w/o the internet could have been disastrous - so 
>> that
>> work by many in the mid 1990s seems to have paid off well.
>> 
>> I hope you each realize, today, what you've accomplished since then 
>> and
>> continue to be a part of. It's truly significant. It's been a high 
>> honor
>> to work with so many of you over the last 14+ years.
> 
> This is beautiful, btw. I feel much the same way about linux being now
> so used heavily in the space program,
> and all our code, and hardware, that will propagate across the solar
> system, and of the millions of people, that contributed to it.
> 
>> To the FCC report:
>> 
>> We begin this annual inquiry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic 
>> during
>> which time Americans increasingly turned to their broadband 
>> connections
>> to conduct their lives online by using telemedicine to access
>> healthcare, working from home, attending classes remotely, connecting 
>> by
>> video with out-of-town family and friends, and streaming 
>> entertainment.
>> Our experiences with the pandemic made it clear that broadband is no
>> longer a luxury but a necessity that will only become more important
>> with time. Never before has the critical importance of ensuring that 
>> all
>> Americans have access to high-speed, affordable broadband been more
>> evident.
>> 
>> Also note, we have more work to do. We need to increase resiliency as 
>> an
>> example. Also, the thing I'm most passionate about is low latency. The
>> FCC is now recognizing the importance of that. People are slowly
>> learning why latency is becoming equally important to capacity when it
>> comes to quality of service.
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>> PS. The rest is TLDR but I thought I post some snippets for those
>> interested
>> 
>> We believe that in examining household use cases, a simple summation 
>> of
>> required speeds for individual activities may provide a misleading
>> picture of actual broadband needs for at least three reasons. First, 
>> we
>> believe it is appropriate to take into account at least occasional
>> downloads of very large files which can be bandwidth-intensive. 
>> Second,
>> it is important to account for larger households; in 2022, 
>> approximately
>> 21% of all U.S. households had four or more people, and the number of
>> families seeking out multigenerational homes to live with additional
>> relatives rose.57 Households of all sizes must have sufficient 
>> bandwidth
>> to satisfy their needs. In addition, the number of connected devices 
>> per
>> household continues to grow, from 18.6 in the average household in 
>> 2021
>> to 20.2 in the first half of 2022.58 Taking these factors into account
>> suggests that fixed broadband download/upload needs could easily 
>> exceed
>> 100/20 Mbps.
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Service Quality. We recognize that other factors, besides the speed of 
>> a
>> broadband connection, can affect consumers’ ability to use the 
>> services
>> effectively. Chief among these factors is latency, which is the 
>> measure
>> of the time it takes a packet of data to travel from one point in the
>> network to another, and which is typically measured by round-trip time
>> in milliseconds (ms). As a measurement of advanced telecommunications
>> capability, latency can be critical because it affects a consumer’s
>> ability to use real-time applications, including voice over Internet
>> Protocol, video calling, distance learningapplications, and online
>> gaming. Actual (as opposed to advertised) speed received, consistency 
>> of
>> speed, and data allowances are also important. Such factors are not
>> simply a matter of service interruptions and consumer 
>> satisfaction—they
>> have a real and significant effect on Americans’ ability to use 
>> critical
>> web-based applications, including those that facilitate telehealth,
>> telework, and virtual learning.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> > In the beginning days of the Arpanet, circa early 1970s, ARPA made a
>> > policy decision about use of the Arpanet.  First, Arpa Program
>> > Managers, located on the East Coast of the US, were assigned computer
>> > accounts on USC-ISIA, located on the West Coast in LA.  Thus to do
>> > their work, exchanging email, editting documents, and such, they had
>> > to *use* the Arpanet to connect their terminals in Washington to the
>> > PDP-10 in California - 3000 miles away.
>> >
>> > Second, ARPA began requiring all of their contractors (researchers at
>> > Universities etc.) to interact with Arpa using email and FTP.   If
>> > your site was "on the Arpanet", you had to use the Arpanet.  If you
>> > wanted your proposal for next year's research to be funded, you had to
>> > submit your proposal using the net.
>> >
>> > This policy caused a profound attention, by everyone involved, to
>> > making the Arpanet work and be useful as a collaboration tool.
>> >
>> > JCR Licklider (aka Lick) was my advisor at MIT, and then my boss when
>> > I joined the Research Staff.   Lick had been at ARPA for a while,
>> > promoting his vision of a "Galactic Network" that resulted in the
>> > Arpanet as a first step.  At MIT, Lick still had need for lots of
>> > interactions with others.   My assignment was to build and operate the
>> > email system for Lick's group at MIT on our own PDP-10.  Lick had a
>> > terminal in his office and was online a lot.   If email didn't work, I
>> > heard about it.   If the Arpanet didn't work, BBN heard about it.
>> >
>> > This pressure was part of Arpa policy.   Sometimes it's referred to as
>> > "eating your own dog food" -- i.e., making sure your "dog" will get
>> > the same kind of nutrition you enjoy.   IMHO, that pressure policy was
>> > important, perhaps crucial, to the success of the Arpanet.
>> >
>> > In the 70s, meetings still occurred, but a lot of progress was made
>> > through the use of the Arpanet.   You can only do so much with email
>> > and file interactions.  Today, the possibilities for far richer
>> > interactions are much more prevalent.   But IMHO they are held back,
>> > possibly because no one is feeling the pressure to "make it work".
>> > Gigabit throughputs are common, but why does my video and audio still
>> > break up...?
>> >
>> > It's important to have face-to-face meetings, but perhaps if the IETF
>> > scheduled a future meeting to be online only, whatever needs to happen
>> > to make it work would happen?  Perhaps...
>> >
>> > Even a "game" might drive progress.  At Interop '92, we resurrected
>> > the old "MazeWars" game using computers scattered across the show
>> > exhibit halls.  The engineers in the control room above the floor felt
>> > the pressure to make sure the Game continued to run.  At the time, the
>> > Internet itself was too slow for enjoyable gameplay at any distance.
>> > Will the Internet 30 years later work?
>> >
>> > Or perhaps the IETF, or ISOC, or someone could take on a highly
>> > visible demo involving non-techie end users.   An online meeting of
>> > the UN General Assembly?   Or some government bodies - US Congress,
>> > British Parliament, etc.
>> >
>> > Such an event would surface the issues, both technical and policy, to
>> > the engineers, corporations, policy-makers, and others who might have
>> > the ability and interest to "make it work".
>> >
>> > Jack
>> >
>> > On 11/14/23 10:10, Sebastian Moeller wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi Jack,
>> >>
>> >>> On Nov 14, 2023, at 13:02, Jack Haverty via Nnagain
>> >>> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> If video conferencing worked well enough, they would not have to
>> >>> all get together in one place and would instead hold IETF meetings
>> >>> online ...?
>> >>
>> >> [SM] Turns out that humans are social creatures, and some things
>> >> work better face-to-face and in the hallway (and if that is only
>> >> building trust and sympathy) than over any remote technology.
>> >>
>> >>> Did anyone measure latency?   Does anyone measure throughput of
>> >>> "useful" traffic - e.g., excluding video/audio data that didn't
>> >>> arrive in time to be actually used on the screen or speaker?
>> >>
>> >> [SM] Utility is in the eye of the beholder, no?
>> >>
>> >> Jack Haverty
>> >>
>> >> On 11/14/23 09:25, Vint Cerf via Nnagain wrote:
>> >>
>> >> if they had not been all together they would have been consuming
>> >> tons of video capacity doing video conference calls....
>> >>
>> >> :-))
>> >> v
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 10:46 AM Livingood, Jason via Nnagain
>> >> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >> On the subject of how much bandwidth does one household need, here's
>> >> a fun stat for you.
>> >>
>> >> At the IETF’s 118th meeting last week (Nov 4 – 10, 2023), there
>> >> were over 1,000 engineers in attendance. At peak there were 870
>> >> devices connected to the WiFi network. Peak bandwidth usage:
>> >>
>> >> • Downstream peak ~750 Mbps
>> >> • Upstream ~250 Mbps
>> >>
>> >> From my pre-meeting Twitter poll
>> >> (https://twitter.com/jlivingood/status/1720060429311901873):
>> >>
>> >> <image001.png>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Nnagain mailing list
>> >> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
>> >> Vint Cerf
>> >> Google, LLC
>> >> 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
>> >> Reston, VA 20190
>> >> +1 (571) 213 1346
>> >>
>> >> until further notice
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Nnagain mailing list
>> >>
>> >> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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