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<p>As a matter of drafting the FCC has left some potholes:</p>
<p>"We clarify that a BIAS [Broadband Internet Access Service]
provider's decision to speed up 'on the basis of Internet content,
applications, or services' would 'impair or degrade' other
content, applications, or services which are not given the same
treatment,"</p>
<p>That phrase "speed up" is too vague. Does it conflict with
active or fair queue management? Does it prohibit things that
some Ethernet NIC "offloads" do (but which could be done by a
provider) such as TCP data aggregation (i.e. the merging of lots
of small TCP segments into one big one)? Does it prohibit
insertion of an ECN bit that would have the effect of slowing a
sender of packets? Might it preclude a provider "helpfully"
dropping stale video packets that would arrive at a users video
rendering codec too late to be useful? Could there be an issue
with selective compression? Or, to really get nerdy - given that
a lot of traffic uses Ethernet frames as a model, there can be a
non-trivial amount of hidden, usually unused, bandwidth in that
gap between the end of tiny IP packets and the end of minimum
length Ethernet frames. (I've seen that space used for things like
license management.) Or might this impact larger path issues,
such as routing choices, either dynamic or based on contractual
relationships - such as conversational voice over terrestrial or
low-earth-orbit paths while background file transfers are sent via
fat, but large latency paths such as geo-synch satellite? If an
ISP found a means of blocking spam from being delivered, would
that violate the rules? (Same question for blocking of VoIP calls
from undesirable sources. It may also call into question even the
use of IP address blacklists or reverse path algorithms that block
traffic coming from places where it has no business coming from.)<br>
</p>
<p>The answers may be obvious to tech folks here but in the hands of
troublesome lawyers (I'm one of those) these ambiguities could be
elevated to be real headaches.</p>
<p>These may seem like minor or even meaningless nits, but these are
the kinds of things that can be used by lawyers (again, like me)
to tie regulatory bodies into knots, which often a goal of some
large organizations that do not like regulation.<br>
</p>
<p>In addition, I can't put my finger on it, but I am sensing that
without some flexibility the FCC neutrality rules may be creating
a kind of no cost, tragedy of the commons situation. Sometimes a
bit of friction - cost - can be useful to either incentivize
improvements and invention or to make things (like spam) less
desirable/more expensive to abusers.<br>
</p>
<p> --karl--<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/10/24 7:31 AM, Frantisek Borsik
via Nnagain wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAJUtOOiBCOrVwi9=g4F27sZ7bCw32A=yRCrqiy56CBghq1kAvw@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>"Net neutrality proponents argued that these separate lanes
for different kinds of traffic would degrade performance of
traffic that isn't favored. The final FCC order released
yesterday addresses that complaint. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"We clarify that a BIAS [Broadband Internet Access Service]
provider's decision to speed up 'on the basis of Internet
content, applications, or services' would 'impair or degrade'
other content, applications, or services which are not given
the same treatment," the FCC's final order said. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The "impair or degrade" clarification means that speeding
up is banned because the no-throttling rule says that ISPs
"shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the
basis of Internet content, application, or service."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a
href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/fcc-explicitly-prohibits-fast-lanes-closing-possible-net-neutrality-loophole/"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/fcc-explicitly-prohibits-fast-lanes-closing-possible-net-neutrality-loophole/</a><br>
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<div>All the best,</div>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Frank</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Frantisek
(Frank) Borsik</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><a
href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik"
style="color:rgb(17,85,204)"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Signal,
Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714 </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">iMessage,
mobile: +420775230885</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Skype:
casioa5302ca</p>
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style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><a
href="mailto:frantisek.borsik@gmail.com" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">frantisek.borsik@gmail.com</a></p>
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