[NNagain] On "Throttling" behaviors

[dan]

On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 1:28 AM Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de> wrote:

> Hi Dan,
>
>
>
> > On Oct 2, 2023, at 03:34, dan via Nnagain <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > I think a big problem with Net Neutrality is it's sort of a topic for
> providers and not for end users.
>
>         [SM] I respectfully disagree. If my ISP sells me access to the
> internet, I expect being able to access the whole internet, at least as far
> it is with the reasonable power of my ISP. So I would argue it is a topic
> for both parties.
>
> You missed my point.  That's a practical concern of the end user, not a
technical one.  End users (~99% of them) want to 'turn on internet and it
works as advertised'



> >  Most end users have no concept of what it is, why it's good or bad, and
> if they have a compliant service or not.  They confuse 'speed' with packet
> loss and latency.
>
>         [SM] I would agree that the majority of users might not have
> actionable concepts of how the internet works, let alone what to expect
> precisely, but I predict if we ask them whether they think it a good idea
> for their ISP to pick winners and losers of content providers I expect most
> of them to say no.
>
I agree, again, the end user wants it to work 'as advertised'.  If they buy
100M service, they want to see 100M service.


>
>
> > This is why my arguments are primarily from a consumer protection
> perspective of forcing providers to be transparent in their NN or non-NN
> activities.
>
>         [SM] Transparency is indded an important factor, but IMHO not
> sufficient.
>
I'm being pragmatic.  Building up a NEW legal infrastructure means new
challenges.  Any laws around internet access and NN have to co-exist with
all the unrelated laws.  Codifying transparency connects that transparency
to existing legal infrastructures.  "I bought 100M you gave me 10M when I
used a service" falls to a number of legal precedents already such as bait
and switch, false advertising.


>
> >  If they are going to shape streaming video down, they should have to
> put that in the big print on the plan.  In doing this, customers would get
> some practical information that doesn't rely on heavy technical details and
> various opinions.  Consumers will understand the 100x20 w/ 1080p streams.
> This could be on the broadband nutrition label *but* I would say you need
> to have that up-to-date for the times with key information on there and
> with strikethrough text.  ie, Download [ 100 ], Upload [ 20 ], streaming [
> 720 1080p 4k ] and that list can be updated yearly during the BDC process
> or whatever.
>
>         [SM] Here we get into the weeds:
> a) for customers only having access to a single (broadband) ISP this
> information would hardly be actionable
> b) personally I could agree to this, but e.g. Netflix [720], Amazon [4K],
> GoogleTV [720] (or what ever google calls this service right now) would
> IMHO be problematic.
> c) I think that this gets really hard to enforce unless the ISP also
> throttled VPN/encrypted traffic and there I see a line crossed, no amount
> of transparency would make it palatable if an ISP would heavily throttle
> all encrypted traffic.
>

I agree, this one muddies the waters.
a) except that this can trigger other competitors, RDOF, BEAD, etc.
b) I would simplify this and categorize 'streaming video/entertainment'
together and disallow any brand preferences.  Granted, limited JUST netflix
(in my model) would allow Netflix to sue the provider if they really
wanted.
c) VPN traffic is another beast and since it more or less bypasses DPI (to
some degree, encrypted netflix still behaves like netflix) but this would
be an easy carve out to say "once you're in a VPN, it's the wild west"
because frankly it is, you have at least 2 internet providers in the mix in
some way.


>
> >
> > I'm really a proponent of creating a competitive environment, not
> controlling the technical details of those products.
>
>         [SM] +1; but that only ever helps in a competitive market
> environment and that means there need to be enough buyers and sellers on
> both sides that no single one gets an undue influence over the market. At
> least in Germany we at best have an oligopoly market for internet access,
> so the "free market" by itself does not solve the discrimination problem.
> That might well be different in other parts of the world.
>
We mostly have a competitive market in the US.  Really the only thing
interfering with that is government funded monopoly either in funding
designed to create monopoly or city franchise monopolies.


> >  And making sure key parts of the rules require transparency, because
> that can help drive competition.  If a local competitor is running a DPI's
> QoE box shaping down streaming, I think they should have to share that
> conspicuously with the end user.  I can then market directly against that
> if I want.
>
>         [SM] Again I fully endorse that, but feel that by itself would not
> be enough.
>

I'm of the opinion that market tampering is 2 steps forward and then a full
stop for a decade+.  The less (without ignoring ) the government gets
involved in individual markets the better those markets are over time.
Yes, gov money can get build outs done, but in the US we've seen it time
and time again that those build outs come and then absolutely nothing
happens for a decade as those same companies wait for their next round of
funding. This holds true is basically all markets, not just internet.  It's
been a foundational argument in American economics since basically the
beginning.  It's very hard for startups or small companies to form up in
markets that were built by government money and those markets stagnate.
It's accidental protectionism essentially.


>
>
> > I would say that I think that any government money should require NN
> plans.  If a company is taking government bribes for 100x20 speed, that
> should be a NN 100x20.  They can offer 100x20 w/ 1080p streaming also, but
> that gov money should have NN baked into what they/we are paying for.
>
>         [SM] Interesting approach that I agree with, but again do not
> think it to be enough.
>
>
> >
> > I know that one of the initial ideas of NN was to say that there are no
> fast lanes, but that's ridiculous because just having different speed plans
> IS having fast lanes for premium pricing.
>
>         [SM] I think this is a misunderstanding. NN is not against ISPs
> offering different access capacity tiers at different prices, but that
> within the transparent customer-known "capacity-limit" the ISP does not
> pick winners or losers amount flows and especially not based on financial
> considerations. If an ISPs sells internet access they better do so, and
> they better not try to sell the same traffic a second time to the content
> provider. So the fast lane "fast lane" argument really means that the ISP
> does not built an unfair fast-lane for content provider A (capA) over
> content provider B (capB), and even that is subtle, if cabA puts caching
> nodes with the ISPs network, but capB does not a result in accessibility is
> not "on the ISP" however if the ISP would additionally slow down capB
> traffic that would be a problem. In a sense the thing that is problematic
> is building fast-lanes by slowing down all the rest.
>
devils advocate (yes, non-NN is the device here haha) What's the practical
difference between selling someone a 100M plan with 1080p streaming vs a
10Mbps plan for the same price?  Marketability mostly right?  ie, 100M
looks better than 10M even though the customer practically only gets 10M
for the streaming they are buying the connection primarily for.
If the ISP is primarily providing that 10Mbps '24x7' for streaming, then
most of the cost to deliver this is in that first 10M of service.  Throwing
in 90M of 'other internet stuff' is very cheap for the ISP.  So which plan
is actually better for the consumer?  100M w/ 1080p streaming or 10M NN?
100M NN would certainly cost the ISP more on average as more and more
people pull 4k streams.
So if the plans are $100 100M NN, $65 100M w/ 1080p streaming, and $65 10M
NN, is this better or worse for the consumer than $100 100M NN & $65 10M NN?

I would argue that having the transparently shaped 100M w/ 1080p streaming
in the mix is likely better for the consumer.  I will bring back your
single provider area statement above as the weakness in this particular
argument though.


>
> >  The only possible way around this is the allow or even enforce a price
> per Mbps and make it like a utility which I don't think anyone wants.  Any
> other model eliminates the sane enforcement of a 'no fast lanes' policy.
>
>         [SM] I think this is an attempt at reductio ad absurdum, that does
> not really cover the NN position well enough to be useful here. Think about
> it that wat, ISPs are not supposed to pick winners and losers (or rather
> tilt the table to create winners and losers).
>
This statement was meant to tie with the 'no fast lanes' reductionism
above.  If you can pay for faster service, then there are fast lanes based
on money.    And if there are fast lanes based on money, why is a hybrid of
2 plans worse.  Buy the cheap plan for your streaming and the fast plan for
your everything else.


>
>
> > I believe that transparency is the key here.
>
>         [SM] THe EU actually agrees., an impoertant part of the
> NN-relevant EU regulation covers transparency.
>
>
> >  Transparency in how bits are delivered and managed to the end user
> allows the consumer to make choices without demanding unrealistic education
> of those consumers.
>
>         [SM] That however seems quite a challenge... though it is not
> unheard of to offer multiple parallel explanations at different levels of
> abstraction/complexity...
>
Sometimes you need to layer your analogies or simplify things down to
receivables.  Finding the best language for the consumer for the bold print
is difficult.

>
>
> >  They know if they want more than 1080p streaming.  They know if they
> want a gamer or home work focused service that does that by shaping
> streaming down to 1080p.  There are consumer benefits to a non-NN service.
>
>         [SM] Really only if the "unfairness" of that service are exactly
> tailored to a specific users needs and desires, not sure that any single
> such a policy would be desirable for the majority of end-users, but I might
> be insufficiently creative here.
>
That's basically my claim, if an ISP can offer a 'bespoke' shaping model
for the customer's goals then non-NN is better for them.  This context came
to be through servicing a ton of migrating work from home people.  They
really want their zoom and voip and VPN sessions to work and they've had to
ban their children from watching Disney+ while the work.  I have a number
of customers with mikrotik routers as their dmark and wired ports and
completely separate plans for their home office for this reason.  We don't
offer any DPI shaping, trying to be NN-in-spirit with AQM.  Cake has met
90% of this need for us but there are circumstances where there's just too
much demand by a houseful of kids for cake to really make this common
scenario work well.


>
>
> > Those benefits dont outweigh the harm from secret shaping, but if all of
> this is clearly shown in a conspicuous way like the broadband nutrition
> label and there were teeth in that label, then NN is a feature that can be
> advertised and DPI shaped is another feature that must be advertised.
>
>         [SM] The only way I see DPI shaping ever to be in the end-users
> interesst is if that feature is under the end-users control. E.g. on a very
> slow link the administrator might decide that interactive VCs are more
> important than streaming video and might desire ways t achieve this policy
> and might appreciate if the ISPs offers such de-prioritization as a
> self-serve option
>
I like the idea of a customer portal to set the DPI shaping to their
preferences.  ie, sell them 100M service 'cooked to preference'.  outside
the scope here but I wouldn't want NN legislation to prevent this option.


>
>
> > Now for my ISP version of this.
>
>         [SM] And now it gets interesting ;)
>
>
> >
> > I WANT to compete against the companies that have to put 1080p and no 4k
> in their advertisements.  I want to offer full NN packages for the same
> price as their 'only 1080p' package.  I want the competitive environment
> and I want to know if the service area next to mine with just 1 or 2
> providers doesn't offer NN packages so I can move in on them and offer
> them.
>
>         [SM] I wish all ISPs would have such a "bring it on" let's duke it
> out on the merits attitude! Yest the big mass-market ISPs in my home market
> do not really qualify for that all they compete about are nominal
> "speed"/price (really capacity/price) and some additional features like
> flat rate for telephony to fixed line and/or mobile networks. No details
> given about specific properties... for these one needs to scour rge
> internet fora to figure out what a specific ISPs customers mainly kvetch
> about (and then one needs to abstract over the fact that not all complaints
> are created equal and some say more about a user's deficiency in
> expectation than about the ISP's service delivery).
>
Facebook and google reviews are awesome for figuring out where to expand.
Transparency rules and nutrition labels would open up bad ISPs to
competition.  To be fair it would open up good ISP to competition by great
ISPs also....


>
>
> >
> > So from my perspective, transparency in shaping is all I really think
> should be done.  And teeth in resolving a lie, ie false advertising, with a
> rulebook already in place for that so no new legal theory needs worked
> out.  "I bought the 1G NN package and I'm running the NN test suite and it
> says I'm shaped to 1080p video", rectify this ISP or I'm going to throw a
> legal tantrum to FTC, FCC, and maybe my own lawyer and get some penalty
> claims.  And that test suite is pretty darn simple.  speed test, 1G.
> Netflix, 1080p.  DPI shaped.
>
>         [SM] Alas, that NN test suit is currently made of unobtainium.
> Though some individual parts exist already. For example kudos to netflix
> for fast.com, which as far as I understand uses essentially the same of
> its CDN nodes for speedtests it would likely pick for content delivery so
> these are pretty "realistic" testing conditions. Alas the other big
> streaming platform have as far as I know not followed suit.
> As I tried to brain storm in a different context, what we would need at
> the very least would be speedtests that houses its servers in at least the
> networks of the big transit providers and runs comparative tests against
> these (either all or random pairs selected for each test). And while this
> would already be pretty ambitious to implement this would only scratch the
> surface of what would be required. However one redeeming fact is IMHO that
> NN-violations that achieve financial goals, by necessity need to be
> perceivable by the eye-balls so the thing we are looking for is likely not
> subtle but "in your face".
>
> >
> > End rant.
>
>         [SM] I rally wish more ISPs would have your spirit (and that we
> had more ISPs competing for eye-balls)! Also I think that your stance let
> the market settle this is conceptually in-line with our current
> macroeconomic system and theory (I am just not sure whether yje internet
> access market generally is healthy enough to relat on this mechanism to
> sort out bad apples).
>
> Regards
>         Sebastian
>
>
>
I think that you and I have a different level of faith in capitalism.  Your
'Not Enoughs' suggest this to me, though I might be reading too deeply
between the lines.  I've worked in a number of industries from being near
the top of the technical bits of a fortune 500 to running my own startups.
The softer and wider the net government rules casts, the less effective and
more intrusive they seem to be with more non-sense.  The simpler and
sharper toothed rules allow for a more vibrant level of competition.   I
want very simple and clean rules with a very small service area and a lot
of clamping force when necessary... so ISPs obey the rules because
consequences are capital but have the freedom to innovate and expand.
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