Net%20Neutrality%20or%20Net%20Bias?%20Finding%20the%20Proper%20Balance%20in%20Network%20Governance

1
Net Neutrality or Net Bias? Finding the Proper
Balance in Network Governance

• A Presentation at the
• What Rules for IP-enabled NGNs Workshop
• International Telecommunication Union
• Geneva, Switzerland 23-24 March 2006
• Rob Frieden, Professor of TelecommunicationsPenn
  State Universityrmf5_at_psu.edu
• web http//www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/m/rmf5/
  

2
Explaining the ConceptsNetwork Neutrality

• Advocates for network neutrality in the United
  States and elsewhere have called upon NRAs and
  legislatures to ensure that Internet Service
  Providers (ISPs) cannot discriminate against,
  or favor specific bitstreams.
• Net neutrality advocates want to convert
  aspirational views of what the Internet can be
  into rules that can restrict ISP flexibility in
  terms of pricing, service quality and offerings.
• They believe this principle should apply both
  upstream to other ISPs, or downstream to other
  ISPs, including how end users are treated.
• Net neutrality advocates believe that the
  Internet has contributed to national
  productivity, economic opportunity and innovation
  in light of its nondiscriminatory, end-to-end
  connectivity.

3
The FCCs Four Network Freedoms

• In a Policy Statement The FCC has articulated
  four non-biding
• principles
• (1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful
  Internet content of their choice
• (2) consumers are entitled to run applications
  and services of their choice, subject to the
  needs of law enforcement
• (3) consumers are entitled to connect their
  choice of legal devices that do not harm the
  network and
• (4) consumers are entitled to competition among
  network providers, application and service
  providers, and content providers.

4
Explaining the ConceptsNetwork Flexibility

• Advocates for network flexibility reject
  constraints on their ability to price
  discriminate and recoup sizeable investment in
  broadband infrastructure.
• They view net neutrality as thwarting competition
  and creating disincentives to invest in NGNs.
• Advocates for net flexibility note that ISPs do
  not operate as common carriers in most nations.
• As information service providers, ISPs have
  flexibly negotiated interconnection arrangements
  without evidence that any ISP or user group has
  faced concerted refusals to deal boycotts or and
  other anticompetitive practices.

5
How Does Either Concept Jibe with Existing
Internet Protocols?

• ISPs have achieved widespread geographical reach
  by securing best efforts routing and reciprocal
  carriage agreements from other ISPs information
  service providers.
• They acquired significant market penetration by
  offering subscribers unmetered All You Can Eat
  service options.
• Nethead philosophy about the Internet
  emphasizes lofty notions about ubiquitous access
  with less emphasis on cost recovery and analysis
  of cost causation.
• Netheads favor zero payment Sender Keep All/Bill
  and Keep peering.

6
Revenge of the Bellheads Internet Privatization
Changes the Protocols and Who Rules

• As the Internet grew government incubators
  withdrew financial support forcing a more
  commercial orientation.
• The Internet industrial structure became more
  hierarchical with small ISPs paying for transit
  and a few Tier-1 ISPs continuing to peer.
• Because the major telecoms carriers own the major
  ISPs, a Bellhead management and telecoms cost
  recovery template predominates.
• The telecom template has a route specific focus
  with comprehensive route tracking, usage metering
  and cost accounting.

7
Challenges to a Telecoms-Based Economic Model

• ISPs generate some content as well as the bit
  transport conduit.
• Traffic streams typically are asymmetrical, i.e.,
  a small upstream request triggers a large cascade
  of traffic, often augmented by unsolicited
  advertising.
• Transiting and peering are connection and
  bandwidth based with less, if any, emphasis on
  metering.
• Until recently metering cost exceeded the
  benefits, and tunneling a complete end-to-end
  link was technologically difficult and likely to
  violate existing best efforts transit and
  peering agreements.

8
Net Bias Versus Reasonable Price and Service
Discrimination

• Net bias occurs when an ISP deliberately
  discriminates against a specific type of
  bitstream or generator of a bitstream without an
  operational justification. This includes
  blocking ports and snifting bits to identify
  and block certain types, e.g., a competitors
  VoiP traffic.
• ISPs can and should drop bits and deny service
  based on congestion and the inability to route
  bits. Net bias occurs when an ISP denies access
  even though ample capacity to switch and route
  the traffic exists.
• ISPs can and should offer end users different
  bandwidth and throughput speeds as well as
  different interconnection and access arrangements
  to upstream peers versus clients.
• Net bias occurs when an ISP deliberately degrades
  service by partitioning bandwidth and leaving it
  underutilized so that public transit routes
  become more congested and unreliable.

9
Conclusions and Recommendations

• Network flexibility in pricing, service
  provisioning and quality of service options can
  make economic sense.
• However deliberate blocking or degrading traffic
  does not.
• ISPs should be able to partition bandwidth and
  offer downstream end users and upstream ISPs
  different levels of bandwidth and QOS.
• Better than best efforts is not a contradiction,
  but existing interconnection and SLAs may
  restrict this option as might competition laws.
• ISPs should fully disclose terms and conditions.
  Requiring transparency does not foreclose net
  flexibility.

10
Conclusions and Recommendations (cont.)

• Net flexibility should not extend mid-stream to
  the switching and routing of traffic between a
  content source and end user unless and until a
  single ISP can offer a superior and complete
  routing from server to client.
• SBC-att Ed Whitacre has not demonstrated how
  content providers such as Google have enjoyed a
  free ride. On the other hand ISPs should have
  the option of offering a more expensive, premium
  content delivery option if ISPs can deliver it.
• Net bias to mid-stream traffic should not occur
  simply because certain content providers generate
  a lot of traffic and have greater market
  capitalization, or because an ISP can create
  congestion like Enron did.