While public comments to the NPRM were streaming in, a federal appeals court finally issued a ruling in the Comcast vs. FCC case that launched the Network Neutrality debate in full force in 2008. The court found that the FCC didn’t have authority over Comcast’s network management practices.  So who owns the Network Neutrality debate? The FCC has started another process to try to get the jurisdiction that the courts said that they did not have, which caused countless US Congressmen to caution the FCC that they were stepping on the toes of Congress. All the while, industry was working together to try to come up with their own proposal. 

Last week, Verizon and Google issued a very public stance on the network neutrality topic.  In essence, their joint policy proposal enshrines the notions of reasonable network management (like the draft rules in the NPRM and the FCC’s broadband Policy Statement of 2005 before it) and the importance of transparency of such practices.
At Sandvine, we’ve long advocated that an “unmanaged network is not a neutral network”.  We took the opportunity to educate policy makers on the nature of today’s Internet; outlining how certain applications and users, left unmanaged, take more than a fair share of network resources, to the detriment of the quality of experience of others.  Access to the Internet needs to be equitable.  In consultations with the FCC, and other industry leaders such as the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, I have recommended the following criteria for ‘reasonable network management’:

1. Narrowly-tailored
Management is implemented only where congestion exists and when congestion is causing quality of experience issues for a large number of subscribers.

2. Proportional and reasonable effect
Policy has an effect on subscribers or applications that is proportional to the effect the user or application is having on the network.  Policy applies the smallest reasonable intervention to alleviate congestion and improve quality of experience for the majority of subscribers.

3. Legitimate and demonstrable technical need
Congestion management and quality of experience issues can be demonstrated to exist in the network and management’s technical remedies are effective in achieving its targeted goals.

4. Transparent disclosure
Operator can disclose its traffic management policies in a simple, useful and predictable manner.

5. Auditable
Service provider can demonstrate that the above requirements are met through its auditing and reporting capabilities.

It seems like the principles of reasonable network management and transparency are gaining broad acceptance across the industry.  While Sandvine supports the spirit behind the Verizon Google (V-G) proposal, I believe that one substantial improvement could be made with respect to the appropriate use of prioritization, where the V-G proposal is unclear. In one instance the proposal says: “Prioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard, but the presumption could be rebutted.” And in another:
“Reasonable network management includes any technically sound practice: … to prioritize general classes or types of Internet traffic, based on latency”. 

I believe that the V-G proposal is trying to avoid anti-competitive prioritization (such as between service providers of a given application class, such as Google versus Yahoo!), while supporting prioritization for the purposes of managing congestion and preserving the quality of experience for users and applications (such as prioritizing time-sensitive VoIP traffic over e-mail during times of congestion), which I support. I am confident that any rules that may result from this proposal would clarify this point.

The V-G proposal wisely carves out “managed services”, which allows service providers to offer their own differentiated value-added IP-based services, such as an IP video or voice service, and prioritize that traffic to give subscribers the quality of service they expect. Also, the V-G proposal suggests that wireless networks be excluded from the rules, which I believe is a prudent approach for now. Given the dynamic evolution of wireless networks, a wait-and-see-how-it- works-in-fixed approach seems acceptable to me.  And last but not least, the V-G proposal calls for limited FCC jurisdiction, preventing a blank-slate of authority by the FCC over Internet broadband access, and essentially keeping other aspects of the Internet value chain unregulated. This is the outcome that Internet content providers are looking for, and the outcome that will continue to spur growth in consumer content choice.

This theme was also echoed at the Light/Heavy Reading panel in which our CTO, Don Bowman, participated in titled “Policy, DPI & Net Neutrality: Heaven or Hell”.  The general consensus by the panelists was that the definition of reasonable and transparent network management, although ambiguous, did provide service providers the latitude necessary to manage their networks for optimal subscriber experience and to move ahead with their plans. 

More specifically, closer to home, there is a lot of buzz about how to optimize mobile traffic to improve the subscriber quality of experience.  This is in the form of advanced techniques for delivering video since video is the “killer app” in mobile, just as it is on the fixed side.  Service providers want video on their network but need to ensure good quality – Sandvine solutions can easily interoperate with such specialized applications for traffic optimization.  Implementing network efficiencies, either at the edge with 4G technologies or in the core, is one of the 4 prongs that AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega advocated in Tuesday’s CTIA keynote to spur mobile growth, the other 3 being releasing more spectrum, leveraging compatible technologies (Wifi, Femtocells), and optimizing applications for delivery over the air.  It’s exciting to be part of this mobile Internet explosion!

For example, as a result of being situated next to one of the world’s largest fresh water lakes, the city of Chicago offers an un-metered water service and flat-rate billing based upon the size of your house.

One would initially think that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but what happens, is that it leads to a tremendous waste of water. After living in the city for a while, Chicagoans tend to get lax on how they use Lake Michigan’s resources. Simple tasks like watering the lawn and not paying attention (or at times even caring) can lead people to water the sidewalk or city streets. Trust me, I lived there and did it from time to time (of course not on purpose) and I saw many of my neighbors do it.

This isn’t all that much different from the Internet — downloading large files and never using them or sending large attachments to everyone in your address book effectively wastes bandwidth that could be used by others.

I now live in the Sonoran Desert where water is a precious commodity and I pay for every drop I consume. Now that my monthly bill is tied directly to how much I use, I quickly take all the recommendations on how to consume less water; such as ensuring that I have no leaky faucets, minimizing or eliminating the grass (or sidewalks) I water and not washing the family car in the driveway.

Now of course this isn’t a perfect analogy as water has intrinsic value per liter and a packet does not. And water companies are less concerned about peak usage as they have the ability to store reservoirs of water to tap into during peak hours. But I think the analogy is close enough to make the point that people should be made aware of their consumption of network bandwidth so as not to waste it like many of my former neighbors did with their water in Chicago.

At the end of the day, bandwidth is a limited network resource. If there is any way we can make consumers aware of how they are using their bandwidth to ensure they are not wasting it, it would greatly help everyone’s quality of service when using their Internet service. Usage-based billing is one of the most effective ways service providers can manage the costs of building out their networks while at the same time making users aware of their usage.

However, over the years discrimination has become synonymous with prejudice, and it is in this light that the network neutrality debate has focused. However, differentiating one thing does not have to come at the expense of another. Differentiation can be a means of reducing waste and increasing efficiency. Consider the case of a nation in south-east Asia. Assume a popular networked video game console is launched, and that all of the gaming servers are located in Redmond, Washington, USA. Assume that the nation has 2 primary means of reaching the west coast of the US: one that goes east to west, and one west to east. Based on distance alone, the east to west underwater cable will have the lowest latency. But, the overland west to east cable will also have many more routing exchanges, which add even more latency (as much as 1-2ms per exchange).

In this environment, if the ISP were to route gaming traffic destined to Redmond via the short cable, and email traffic via the long cable, there would be an advantage given to the gaming traffic, and no disadvantage to the email traffic. Thus differentiation does not need to come at the expense of anything. This network is more efficient, and all users would achieve a better experience using it.

Is it the intent of the new fifth principle to disallow such activity? The explicit wording would appear to do so. But that goes against the spirit of innovation and relentless search for efficiency that has been the core of the Internet culture.