[81103] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: BCP regarding TOS transparancy for internet traffic
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lars Erik Gullerud)
Wed May 25 16:27:46 2005
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 22:27:20 +0200 (CEST)
From: Lars Erik Gullerud <lerik@nolink.net>
To: "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <4294DA3D.6030805@ehsco.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Wed, 25 May 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:
> On 5/25/2005 3:42 PM, Lars Erik Gullerud wrote:
>
>> I.e. my customer with two offices who run their own IPSec tunnel between,
>> should in other words no longer be able to pay me for improved delivery
>> without buying a full VPN offering from me (which they don't really need,
>> or want)?
>
> If they don't need or want special handling what are they paying for? But
> since they are paying for it, perhaps its up to you to figure out how to
> deliver on your promise.
But here is what you don't seem to understand - I DO deliver on my
promise. Said customer's packets WILL get special handling, my backbone
routers will happily put whatever packets they tag with a non-BE DSCP in
the appropriate queues as the packet traverses the network. Or if they
prefer, we can even tag it FOR them on the access router they are
connected to. Where's the offloaded complexity you refer to?
The "general population", who does NOT pay for that privilege, gets the
BE-treatment, which is what they pay for. And that requires a rewrite of
the DSCP/TOS for said traffic, otherwise how do you prevent packets
from the "general population" filling up the queues you have reserved for
the customers who pay you more? Rewrite-to-BE is pretty commonplace these
days you know.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying this service (which a lot
of ISPs offer, and a lot of customers pay them for), has no right to
exist, and everyone should go out and buy provider-based VPNs or dedicated
L2 connectivity instead. The thing is - not all customers WANT a
provider-based VPN. And if customers want something, you can be sure
providers are selling it.
> And yet, getting somebody to pay for something/nothing (as the case may
> be) doesn't come with a license to manhandle everybody else's traffic.
Sure it does. There is this new thing called the marketplace. If you pay
me for special treatment, I will give you special treatment. If you don't,
then I will carry your traffic according to the terms in your contract,
which, in the case of best-effort service, is best-effort service. If you
are unhappy with the service, you can buy a different service, or choose a
different supplier.
That being said, I don't believe ANYONE has ever complained about their
packets being "manhandled" by the DSCP being rewritten to BE - even
customers seem to understand that "you get what you pay for", and special
treatment in the form of QoS costs more money.
/leg
