[opendtv] Re: FCC issues net neutrality rules in face of Congress and carriers

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:02:51 -0400

At 3:42 PM -0500 10/30/09, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:

 >
 Geeeze Bert.

 These are walled garden services using the same pipes that the
 cable companies use for Internet services. Just because they
 use IP packet data does not mean that they were delivered via
 the broadband Internet.

Geez, Craig, what is it about net neutrality that you don't get? Or what is it about the Internet that you don't get?

Net neutrality means that the Internet sources are all to be treated equally by the broadband provider. So, is it okay for the broadband provider to give better QoS to his own IP streams than to streams from other ISPs?

Absolutely. They are using a network they own for a proprietary paid service, they ARE NOT using the Internet to deliver these bits. Today, virtually all cable systems segregate traffic into different portions of "their spectrum." Digital TV and VOD are in separate bands from the broadband service and OBVIOUSLY operate using different QOS constraints; A customer may accept buffer refreshes with streaming Internet video, but they will not tolerate pauses and stuttering when they are paying for Digital TV and VOD services.

As is happening in the telco industry, the future is likely to be all IP networks with traffic moving with different QOS guarantees, based on the application. Even when this happens, a cable company or Telco can still provide QOS guarantees for their paid services that are different than those for their broadband Internet service. This IS NOT a network neutrality issue.

If however, Comcast decides to build a huge VOD server under a mountain, and make the PAID service available to ANYONE with a broadband Internet connection, they could not provide different QOS guarantees for their broadband subscribers than they would for viewers using other ISPs, and they could not reduce the QOS for competitors relative to their own service.

What makes the IP data sourced by the given ISP any less "internet" than IP data sourced by other ISPs?

The TV and VOD services have nothing to do with their ISP service. They are using a network they own to deliver services to subscriber who are on that network.

Perhaps a better analogy is corporate IP networks. These networks are proprietary and carry traffic that is not (openly) available via the Internet. They also provide access to the Internet for their employees, and they may use the Internet for remote access to their corporate nets.

This is probably closer to what cable and telco networks will look like in the future, at lest until it is no longer profitable to offer proprietary services. Consider the realities of 3G cellular networks today. The telcos still charge per minute fees for telephone traffic and this traffic operates with higher QOS guarantees. But VOIP is about to replace those proprietary minutes and all of the historic interconnection fees that were part of switched telco networks. Long distance fees largely went away in the last decade, and wireline phones are being disconnected in droves. Soon you will just pay for a data plan and single function phones will become a historic artifact, much like buggy whips.


As I said before, the term has to be defined and used carefully, or you will simply dissuade those who deploy the broadband pipes. Net neutrality is a great sound bite for politicans, though.

Those who are dissuaded because it may hurt their dying legacy businesses will die.

Regards
Craig


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