[175887] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Cogent admits to QoSing down streaming
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dorian Kim)
Thu Nov 6 13:20:35 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Dorian Kim <dorian@blackrose.org>
In-Reply-To: <545BBA1B.4010906@ispn.net>
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2014 13:16:13 -0500
To: Blake Hudson <blake@ispn.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
Personally I hope that such an environment never happens. Fast/slow =
lanes are pretty meaningless. Such service differentiation only has =
meaning when there=E2=80=99s persistent congestion and I=E2=80=99d =
rather that networks work out ways to scale past demand rather than =
throttle them.
-dorian
> On Nov 6, 2014, at 1:12 PM, Blake Hudson <blake@ispn.net> wrote:
>=20
> If I were a Cogent customer I would like to have seen more =
transparency (an announcement at least). However, I don't see anything =
wrong with their practice of giving some customers "Silver" service and =
others "Bronze" service while reserving "Gold" for themselves. Even if =
applications like VoIP do not function well with a Bronze service level.
>=20
> Now, a customer that was under the impression they were receiving =
equal treatment with other customers may not be happy to know they were =
receiving a lower class of service than expected. This is not a net =
neutrality matter, it's a matter of expectations and possibly false or =
deceptive advertising.
>=20
> I would much rather see an environment where the customer gets to =
choose Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels of service for his or her traffic =
as opposed to an environment where the provider chooses fast/slow lane =
applications at their own discretion.
>=20
> --Blake
>=20
> Patrick W. Gilmore wrote on 11/6/2014 10:12 AM:
>> =
<http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/11/cogent-now-admits-slowed-netflixs-=
traffic-creating-fast-lane-slow-lane.html>
>>=20
>> This is interesting. And it will be detrimental to network neutrality =
supporters. Cogent admits that while they were publicly complaining =
about other networks congesting links, they were using QoS to make the =
problem look worse.
>>=20
>> One of the problems in "tech" is most people do not realize tone is =
important, not just substance. There was - still is! - congestion in =
many places where consumers have one or at most two choice of providers. =
Even in places where there are two providers, both are frequently =
congested. Instead of discussing the fact there is no functioning =
market, no choice for the average end user, and how to fix it, we will =
now spend a ton of time arguing whether anything is wrong at all because =
Cogent did this.
>>=20
>> Wouldn't you rather be discussing whether 4 Mbps is really broadband? =
(Anyone else have flashbacks to "640K is enough for anyone!"?) Or how =
many people have more than one choice at 25 Mbps? Or whether a company =
with a terminating access monopoly can intentionally congest its edge to =
charge monopoly rents on the content providers their paying customers =
are trying to access? I know I would.
>>=20
>> Instead, we'll be talking about how things are not really bad, Cogent =
just made it look bad on purpose. The subtlety of "it _IS_ bad, Cogent =
just shifted some of the burden from VoIP to streaming" is not something =
that plays well in a 30 second sound bite, or at congressional hearings.
>>=20
>> It's enough to make one consider giving up the idea of having a =
functioning, useful Internet.
>>=20
