On Jul 13, 2014, at 7:55 AM, Miles Fidelman <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net> wrote:
> Randy Bush wrote:
>>>> ahhh. so
>>>> not government regulated == wild west
>>> lawless, big guys fighting with little guys in the middle == wild west
>> at this point, maybe john curran, who you may remember from nearnet,
>> usually steps in with a good screed on industry self-regulation.
>
> yeah John, where are you (John and I sat a few doors from each other at one
> point, way back)
Oh joy, a network neutrality discussion, and it's taking place 1) on nanog, 2)
over
the weekend, and 3) when I no longer run an ISP or a
data-center/content-source...
It took some doing, but I was able to quell my urge to respond immediately
(being at
the beach with family likely helped enormously... :-)
So the right answer to this entire mess would have been to provide competitive
cost-
based access to the underlying facilities (copper, coax, fiber) including
associated
colocation and power services, and consider that justified given the long
regulated
history that made the establishment of the cable plants and rights-of-way
possible.
(Note - we actually had this equal-facility-access framework in the US at one
point,
but it was later "fixed" by a determination that effective competition could be
provided among service providers of different technologies (e.g. FTTH, cable,
dish)
and that nothing more was needed. The result was the vertical integration that
we
often see today - from access loop through Internet service and up to and
including
content in many cases.
Attempting to now address this problem (of equitable access to Internet users)
via
regulation of interconnection arrangements may not be very productive in the
end; it
is a palliative measure that has potential for great complexity - similar to
having
every gated community in the country file paperwork describing their programs
for
handling of local delivery and pizza companies, and/or any fees for priority
access
along the community roads, and all of this despite most of the community's
insistence
that third-party vehicles should just be allowed to pass through.
There generally should be a point of interconnection which allows for
settlement-
free handoff of traffic to local customers; the current industry-based "peering
model" has done a reasonable job of finding such accommodations when they can
be
achieved, even if it does so with only nominal outside visibility. I understand
the desire for more consistency and public visibility into such industry
agreements,
but would have greatly preferred efforts in that area as a prerequisite step
(which
would allow for actual data and analysis to be introduced in the discussion)
before
any further measures such as per-agreement regulatory review or formalization
of
tiered priority mechanisms... Alas, that sort of structured approach is not
how
government generally works, so we're going to go from standstill to "the
complete
solution" in one large leap and have to hope it works out for the best.
/John
Disclaimer: My views alone - I would appreciate not having my packets molested
if
you should happen to disagree with them... ;-)
