[NNagain] On "Throttling" behaviors

Tue Oct 3 14:09:39 EDT 2023

Bob - *"beyond FWA which is limited by physics and is energy inefficient, a
net negative to climate mitigations"* - why FWA should be energy
inefficient and net negative to climate mitigation?

I know that I'm drifting this conversation off again, but I strongly
disagree with this statement.

All the best,

Frank

Frantisek (Frank) Borsik

https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik

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On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 7:55 PM Sebastian Moeller via Nnagain <
nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Hi Bob,
>
>
> > On Oct 3, 2023, at 18:54, rjmcmahon <rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon.com> wrote:
> >
> > Natural monopolies are things with high sunk costs. Things with high
> sunk costs don't necessarily exist (like electrified roads) even though
> they add huge value to society and can help curb climate impacts. A natural
> monopoly exists unrelated to a provider already having an infrastructure in
> place per that monopoly.
> >
> > Fiber with up gradable optics to hundreds of millions of buildings that
> can leverage the NRE from data centers are natural monopolies and don't
> really exist in most places, even though they are critical to mitigating
> climate impact.
> >
> > The idea of municipal ownership of access networks in the U.S. was
> pushed in 2000 after the 1996 Telco act. It didn't work out.
>
>         [SM] I only monitored this cursory (not living in the US any
> longer), but I seem to recall quite a number of questionable plays against
> municipal ownership by the existing ISPs; I would book this as "never
> really tried", and not as we gave it an honest try but it fell short. That
> said many municipalities (in many parts of the world) are hardly in the
> shape required to built new costly infrastructure as they are having
> troubles maintaining the infrastructure on their hands with the available
> funds.
>
> > The primary companies that invested in access networks were the cable
> cos and they redid it for HFC in 2000s (along with some roll ups.) They are
> likely the only U.S. companies that will upgrade again (beyond FWA which is
> limited by physics and is energy inefficient, a net negative to climate
> mitigations.)
> >
> > The U.S. railroads were natural monopolies. They were given massive land
> grants to build out. They ran as private companies for about one century.
> They lost their monopoly position after third generations who inherited
> them used these monopolies to price guoge government during WWI and WWII.
> That's part of the reason most DoT type govt agencies today are "roads &
> airports" vs "roads, rail & airports." Rail has been re privatized and
> under invested - perfect for Warren Buffett but no so good for everyone
> else nor for the climate.
> >
> > Governments will respond to monopoly abuse after it occurs, not before.
>
>         [SM] Indeed, that is often the case...
>
> > First, the infrastructure needs massive funding to be installed, however
> that can get done. Municipal revenue bonds & networks sound nice in theory
> but haven't worked over the last two decades. Time to try something
> different.
>
>         [SM] Again I argue that has not really been tried, but unless
> there is going to be a big change in DC it is not going ot be tried for
> real in the future either, so in essence we might agree ;)
>
> Regards
>         Sebastian
>
> >
> > Bob
> >
> >
> https://www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com/news/charging-technology/us-to-build-its-first-ever-electric-road-that-wirelessly-charges-evs-as-they-drive.html
> >
> >> Hi Colin,
> >>> On Oct 2, 2023, at 22:34, Colin_Higbie via Nnagain <
> nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>> While product and service innovation often originates from pure R&D or
> work performed in academic labs, in virtually all cases, converting that
> into commercially viable products and services is the result of profit
> incentives. A company won’t invest in doing something new with attendant
> risks unless they can expect a return on that investment greater than the
> alternatives (or they believe it will provide strategic support to some
> other product or service). For that reason, we want to be extremely careful
> about regulating how companies can implement innovations, including the use
> of potentially distasteful business practices. None of us who want to see
> the Internet become better over time and more accessible should want
> anything resembling NN regulation.
> >>      [SM] At its core NN regulations really just say that who is selling
> >> internet access services is supposed to do exactly that and not try to
> >> act as gate-keeper picking winners and losers. I might be
> >> insufficiently creative here, but I do not think a simple "do not
> >> discriminate" directive really restricts the space of potential
> >> innovations in any meaningful way.
> >>> The regulatory side of this is largely not a technical discussion
> because future innovation, by definition, may exceed technical
> considerations we can conceive of today.
> >>      [SM] Indded, prediction is hard, especially predictions about the
> future ;)
> >>> It's easy to conceive of examples where an ISP wants to prioritize or
> penalize certain kinds of traffic. And while that may seem superficially
> bad, it’s an important part of the very competition that drives innovation
> and cost reductions over time. E.g., recall when Google Fiber had been
> willing to install Gbps fiber in places at a time when most of the rest of
> the country was struggling to get 20Mbps connections. If Google had wanted
> to limit that to Google services, that still might have been a boon to
> those customers.
> >>      [SM] I respectfully disagree, that would not have been meaningful
> >> internet access. An unrestricted 20M internet access link has more
> >> general utility that even a 10G gate-keeper only link (who that
> >> gate-keeper is is irrelevant). (I am not saying the 20M would be
> >> without issues)
> >>> Further, it could have shown the uses and values of what was then
> considered limitless bandwidth for a home or small business user.
> >>      [SM] Yeah, on that question we are still waiting even though >= 1
> >> Gbps services are not all that rare anymore. As far as I can see it we
> >> still lack use-cases that strictly require fast links that go above
> >> simple "more parallel" or "faster".
> >>> Even though this would clearly have been in violation of the tenets of
> NN, it would have provided important data that might have spawned
> significant investment by others and advanced the state of connectivity
> across the board.
> >>      [SM] This is purely speculative though, it might as well had shown
> >> nothing of that kind by the sheer fact that google fiber roll-out was
> >> so small as to be not representative of anything, no?
> >>> I know the counter argument to this is that local ISP monopolies
> already break innovation, and those companies, especially the big cable
> companies, therefore have no incentive to provide a good service. I largely
> agree with that (there is still some small incentive, in that if they are
> too terrible, customer outcry will turn to voter outcry and demand breaking
> those monopolies, and they don’t want to risk that).
> >>> Therefore, the legal issue to address is NOT how they treat or
> prioritize data, whether by content or protocol – which they should be
> allowed to do, EVEN WHEN IT’S BAD FOR CUSTOMERS – but, at least referring
> to the U.S. specifically with our federal/state system, to put federal
> limits on durations of regional monopoly durations. I believe this is
> within the scope of what FCC can mandate (some would debate this and it may
> take the courts to sort it out). These need not be purely # of years, they
> can be a function of time to recoup deployment costs. If a company
> negotiated a local monopoly as part of covering their deployment costs, I
> would personally say that they should be given an opportunity to recoup
> those, but then after that, they need to open up their lines for use by
> competing firms, similar to what happened with the RBOCs and the old
> telephone lines.
> >>      [SM] The problem is that access networks often are not legal
> >> monopolies, but natural monopolies where if company A has a high-speed
> >> capable network deployed it becomes economically unattractive for
> >> other companies to deploy their own network (the competitor can
> >> torpedo such a deployment by lowering prices such that too few
> >> customers change to make the whole thing stay in the "loss" region for
> >> a long time). So leaving the access network to market players will
> >> always result in the incentive to monetize the gate-keeper role that
> >> is inherent in the network's structure.
> >> One solution to this problem (not the only one) is to put the access
> >> network into the public hands, like other important infrastructure.
> >> The idea would then be like in Amsterdam, Zuerich and a few other
> >> places to have a local access network provider that in turn
> >> "concentrates" access links in COs local IXs where interested ISPs con
> >> connect to and then offer all end-users in that access network
> >> internet access services. That still leaves the natural monopoly of
> >> the access network untouched, but puts it under management of en
> >> entity that is not likely to exploit this (as fully as private
> >> entities are).
> >>      This is however pretty orthogonal to direct NN concerns, and I am
> >> sure not a generally accepted model. (Say if I would be operating a
> >> small ISP and would differentiate myself by how well I manage my
> >> access network, I likely would detest such ideas, and if I would
> >> operate a big ISP I would detest them for other reasons ;) so this is
> >> ver end-user centric and also relies on some modicum of faith in local
> >> government)
> >>> This is also the legal logic behind patents: give a company a 20 year
> monopoly on the invention in exchange for making it public to everyone and
> showing them how to do it (the patent must provide clear instructions). We
> deem the temporary monopoly worthwhile to incent the innovation, provided
> the inventor makes it public. This is the right philosophy to consider for
> something like bandwidth innovation, investment, and access.
> >>> In short, with ISP’s the open-ended government protected monopolies
> are the problem,
> >>      [SM] Again these often are not legal monopolies where nobody else
> is
> >> permitted to build a competing network, but natural monopolies where
> >> the expected return of investment falls with the number of already
> >> existing networks, while the cost stays constant. AND the number of
> >> ISPs tgat might actually bite the bullet and set diggers in motion is
> >> still so small that in the end, we might change from a monopoly to an
> >> oligopoly situation, bith are regimes in which the free market does
> >> not really deliver on its promises.
> >>> not the providers’ ability to overcharge customers or prioritize some
> data over others. Competition will fix that over time, as long as
> competition is allowed to occur. And while it may be faster to force it
> through regulation, that has dangerous long-term consequences with respect
> to future innovation.
> >>      [SM] Yes, meaningful competition could help, but IMHO an oligopoly
> >> likely would not result in meaningful enough competition. This is
> >> where the access network in public hand ideas comes in, it makes the
> >> cost to enter a market for ISPs relatively cheap, they really only
> >> need to pull/rent fibers to the local IX and maybe deploy
> >> OLTs/DSLAMs/CMTSs there (depending) on the local network tech, and can
> >> start offer services, without having to deal with the access network.
> >>> Starlink is one example of innovation. FTTH is another. Cellular-based
> Internet is another.
> >>      [SM] All of which are orthogonal to NN regulations, neither
> depended
> >> on violating the "do not discriminate" rule, no?
> >>> Simply buying bulk access on existing lines and repackaging it under
> different terms could be yet another. Those all seem obvious, because
> they’re the ones we know. The real danger in unforeseen consequences is the
> dampening effect NN-style regulations have on yet-to-be-seen innovations,
> the innovations that never come to fruition because of the regulations.
> >>      [SM] I claim that rules and regulations always set the stage for
> >> which business decisions are acceptable/profitable and which are not,
> >> that is true whether we add the NN mandates to the mix or not, so I
> >> really do not see how these will have a meaningful influence on future
> >> expected innovation (unless that innovation really is all about active
> >> discrimination, but in that case I see no real loss).
> >> Side-note: The thing is "discrimination" is still permitted under most
> >> NN rules, as long as it is under active control of the end-users, not
> >> the ISP. So I am sure some end-users would appreciate an "prioritize
> >> vide conferencing and VoIP over video streaming and gaming under load"
> >> option offered by their ISP and might even be willing to pay a little,
> >> as long as the end user can toggle this option at will it will not be
> >> subject to NN regulations as far as I understand. This clearly leaves
> >> some innovation space available even for active discrimination.
> >> Regards
> >>      Sebastian
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Colin Higbie
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