[178415] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mel Beckman)
Fri Feb 27 14:46:41 2015
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Mel Beckman <mel@beckman.org>
To: William Herrin <bill@herrin.us>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 19:44:40 +0000
In-Reply-To: <CAP-guGWg87fGQQL==i1EO6-+8evzNF=d-Gg+N1nMbUpV0C06WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
Bill,
In what way is my argument a straw man? I specifically address the assertio=
n you make, that an ISP must deliver X Mbps whenever you demand it, by expl=
aining the real world essential practice of oversubscription.
Let's say you decide to start your own ISP, call it BillsNet. You buy a 1Gb=
ps upstream pipe from Level3 for $6,000/month (a realistic price delivered =
to your facilities over fiber). You run wireless links to your customers vi=
a 100Mbps WiFi and a multi-gigabit redundant WiFi backbone, so that your on=
ly last-mile recurring cost is your labor to maintain your WISP network.=20
Suppose, generously, that the going rate for 5x50Mbps broadband is $100/mo =
in your area (it's likely less). Only 20 customers can operate at full spee=
d on this network (20 x 50Mbps =3D 1,000Mbps), so following your rule, you =
have to cap your income at $2,000/mo. You're losing $4,000/mo and you haven=
't yet spent a dime on salaries, hardware, deployment, or maintenance.
I call this the "iron man" argument. ;)
-mel
On Feb 27, 2015, at 10:54 AM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us>
wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Mel Beckman <mel@beckman.org> wrote:
>> On Feb 27, 2015, at 9:56 AM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us>
>> wrote:
>>> Deceit is Bad Behavior. If you sell me an X megabit per second
>>> Internet access service, you should do everything reasonably within
>>> your power to make sure I can access the Internet sites of my choice
>>> at X megabits per second.
>=20
>> This is not feasible. ISPs work by oversubscription, so it's never possi=
ble
>> for all (or even 10% of all) customers to simultaneously demand their fu=
ll
>> bandwidth. If ISPs had to reserve the full bandwidth sold to each custom=
er
>=20
> Hi Mel,
>=20
> Respectfully, that's a straw man argument. You alter the parameters of
> my criticism then proceed to show how the altered argument is
> unreasonable.
>=20
> All utilities work by oversubscription: electric, natural gas, water
> and sewer. When the sewer authority fouls up their oversubscription
> model and your pee ends up in my basement, guess who pays for the
> cleanup? They do.
>=20
> I have some unfortunate first-hand experience with this.
>=20
>=20
>> Anyone who doesn't understand [oversubscription]
>> will be unable to engage in reasonable discussion about ISP practices.
>=20
> You said it, not me.
>=20
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>=20
>=20
>=20
> --=20
> William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us
> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>
