[NNagain] [M-Lab-Discuss] The FCC 2024 Section 706 Report, GN Docket No. 22-270 is out!

[Jack Haverty]

I didn't study the whole report, but I didn't notice any metrics 
associated with *variance* of latency or bandwidth.  It's common for 
vendors to play games ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics!") to make their 
metrics look good.   A metric of latency that says something like "99% 
less than N milliseconds" doesn't necessarily translate into an 
acceptable user performance.

It's also important to look at the specific techniques used for taking 
measurements.  For example, if a measurement is performed every fifteen 
minutes, extrapolating the metric as representative of all the time 
between measurements can also lead to a metric judgement which doesn't 
reflect the reality of what the user actually experiences.

In addition, there's a lot of mechanism between the ISPs' handling of 
datagrams and the end-user.   The users' experience is affected by how 
all of that mechanism interacts as underlying network behavior changes.  
When a TCP running in some host decides it needs to retransmit, or an 
interactive audio/video session discards datagrams because they arrive 
too late to be useful, the user sees unacceptable performance even 
though the network operators may think everything is running fine.   
Measurements from the end-users' perspective might indicate performance 
is quite different from what measurements at the ISP level suggest.

Gamers are especially sensitive to variance, but it will also apply to 
interactive uses such as might occur in telemedicine or remote 
operations.  A few years ago I helped a friend do some tests for a 
gaming situation and we discovered that the average latency was 
reasonably low, but occasionally, perhaps a few times per hour, latency 
would increase to 10s of seconds.

In a game, that often means the player loses.  In a remote surgery it 
may mean horrendous outcomes.  As more functionality is performed "in 
the cloud" such situations will become increasingly common.

Jack Haverty


On 2/26/24 12:02, rjmcmahon via Nnagain wrote:
> Thanks for sharing this. I'm trying to find out what are the key 
> metrics that will be used for this monitoring. I want to make sure 
> iperf 2 can cover the technical, traffic related ones that make sense 
> to a skilled network operator, including a WiFi BSS manager. I didn't 
> read all 327 pages though, from what I did read, I didn't see anything 
> obvious. I assume these types of KPIs may be in reference docs or 
> something.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help on this.
> Bob
>> And...
>>
>> Our bufferbloat.net submittal was cited multiple times! Thank you all
>> for participating in that process!
>>
>> https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-400675A1.pdf
>>
>> It is a long read, and does still start off on the wrong feet (IMHO),
>> in particular not understanding the difference between idle and
>> working latency.
>>
>> It is my hope that by widening awareness of more of the real problems
>> with latency under load to policymakers and other submitters
>> downstream from this new FCC document, and more reading what we had to
>> say, that we will begin to make serious progress towards finally
>> fixing bufferbloat in the USA.
>>
>> I do keep hoping that somewhere along the way in the future, the costs
>> of IPv4 address exhaustion and the IPv6 transition, will also get
>> raised to the national level. [1]
>>
>> We are still collecting signatures for what the bufferbloat project
>> members wrote, and have 1200 bucks in the kitty for further articles
>> and/or publicity. Thoughts appreciated as to where we can go next with
>> shifting the national debate about bandwidth in a better direction!
>> Next up would be trying to get a meeting, and to do an ex-parte
>> filing, I think, and I wish we could do a live demonstration on
>> television about it as good as feynman did here:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4
>>
>> Our original posting is here:
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/19ADByjakzQXCj9Re_pUvrb5Qe5OK-QmhlYRLMBY4vH4/edit 
>>
>>
>> Larry's wonderful post is here:
>> https://circleid.com/posts/20231211-its-the-latency-fcc
>>
>> [1] How can we get more talking about IPv4 and IPv6, too? Will we have
>> to wait another year?
>>
>> https://hackaday.com/2024/02/14/floss-weekly-episode-769-10-more-internet/ 
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/2024_predictions/
>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain

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