[178677] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Naslund, Steve)
Mon Mar 2 12:00:33 2015
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: "Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund@medline.com>
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 17:00:28 +0000
In-Reply-To: <20150228.094712.1305952464703391341.wwaites@tardis.ed.ac.uk>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
>> I was an ISP in the 1990s and our first DSL offerings were SDSL
>> symmetric services to replace more expensive T-1 circuits. When
>> we got into residential it was with SDSL and then the consumers
>> wanted more downstream so ADSL was invented. I was there, I
>> know this.
>So was I and my experience was different. We decided that it would be more=
profitable as a small ISP to re-sell Bell Canada's ADSL than to try to unb=
undle central offices all over the place. The arguments from the business s=
ide had >nothing whatsoever to do with symmetry or lack thereof. The choice=
of technology was entirely by the ILEC.
What I am trying to tell you is that Bell Canada was way behind the curve i=
n deployment to DSL technology. I am coming to you from the perspective of=
a guy who designed and built DSL networks not a reseller. By the time the=
LEC started selling you ADSL, the market had already spoken and ADSL was t=
he customer's choice. The LECs looked at what us facilities based ISPs dep=
loyed and decided to start reselling the same thing. If they had the deman=
d to resell SDSL, they would have (and they do, it is called a clear channe=
l DS-1 port). It just makes no difference to them, a loop and a port is ju=
st a loop and a port.
>> To that I will just say that if your average user spend as much
>> time videoconferencing as they do watching streaming media then
>> they are probably a business.
>No, you misunderstand. I don't dispute that the area under end-user traffi=
c statistics graphs is asymmetric. But that the maximum value -- particular=
ly the instantaneous maximum value which you don't see with five minute sam=
pling -- >wants to be quite a lot higher than it can be with a very asymmet=
ric circuit. If someone works from home one day a week and has a videoconfe=
rence or too, we still want that to work well, right?
The bottom line is that you have to tell me how much downstream speed you w=
ant to give up to get more upstream speed. If you don't want that then you=
are just telling me you want more overall speed which is a different argum=
ent. Videoconferencing is a red herring argument because it is also asymme=
tric in most cases and the bandwidth of a videoconference does not even com=
e close to that of a movie download where quality matters more than lag.
>And perfect symmetry is not necessary. Would I notice the difference betwe=
en 60/60 and 60/40 or even 60/20? Probably not really as long as both numbe=
rs are significantly more than the expected peak rate. But 24/1.5, a factor=
of 16, >is a very different story.
If you don't like the up to down ratio, I get it. The problem is you eithe=
r need more intelligent networks to automatically set this ratio based on u=
sage (which is not actually easy, remember RSVP anyone?) or you have to try=
to please most of the people most of the time which is how it works today.
Steven Naslund
Chicago IL
