I'd define true net neutrality quite simply as delivering the same performance to all traffic regardless of source or content of that traffic.
That said QoS and other more complicated traffic engineering mechanisms are widely implemented and seems kind of hard to get rid of. Google for example makes use of egress peer engineering techniques to ensure certain applications of theirs will take lower latency paths to customers, while they may shed other traffic from customer VMs in Google cloud to higher latency paths. Or we might move Skype traffic onto low latency backbone paths and give it lower latency over some other traffic that we can't identify. Does this count as non-neutral? If so, that's a really-really big deal for all the cloud providers, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google who do this.
Cloud providers are carriers. Their backbones are larger and growing faster than the ISPs you refer to. And they are hosting a lot of content and services from multiple providers. If they provide preferential treatment to their own products over products they host then this situation is no different to the one you're thinking of.
No, you are completely wrong. Cloud providers are not carriers, they are service providers(PaaS, IaaS.)
"Carrier" in this context(Net Neutrality) is short for telecommunications carrier, which are regulated by the FCC in the United States[1].
The classification is a legal one. It was refined by the Telecommunications Act of 1996[2]
AWS/Azure/GCE are neither regulated by the FCC nor classified as telecommunications carriers as they do not sell broadband access.
Simply owning you own "backbone" does not make you a carrier either. There are plenty of large corporations that own their own backbones that are not carriers. Being a carrier has nothing to do with hosting content either.
In this scenario (where we are exploring the issue of Net Neutrality) they perform the same function as carriers for a lot of the services you utilize on the internet. Legal distinctions are pointless to this discussion, because this discussion is about the appropriateness of those legal distinctions and regulations in the first place.
>In this scenario (where we are exploring the issue of Net Neutrality) they perform the same function as carriers for a lot of the services you utilize on the internet. "
No, fundamentally they(cloud providers) do not perform the same service as carriers. If I had Comcast as my ISP I could not call them up and cancel my service and then call up Amazon and say I would like to buy internet access.
Honestly, it doesn't seem like you understand how the different segments of the internet fit together - Tier 1 ISPs, last mile networks, transit, peering and service providers networks.
I need to pay the ISP or else I can not get to the services I am paying a cloud provider for. This is the whole issue. I am basically a captive consumer.
The debate has never been about classifying "cloud providers" as telecommunication carriers.
>"Legal distinctions are pointless to this discussion, because this discussion is about the appropriateness of those legal distinctions and regulations in the first place."
Legal distinctions are "pointless" in a discussion about federal oversight and regulatory jurisdiction? That is completely absurd.
> legal distinctions are pointless to this discussion
Legal distinctions are absolutely material to this discussion. You can't pretend they don't exist; you need to persuade representatives and their constituents that the current legal framework is outdated and is in need of revision.
I'd define it as delivering the same performance to all traffic regardless of the source or content of that traffic, except for the content of the Differentiated Services field of the IP header.
That lets QoS work, while preventing all the scummy behavior that NN is against.
>I'd define true net neutrality quite simply as delivering the same performance to all traffic regardless of source or content of that traffic.
That requires bending the laws of physics to implement. Google fiber will always be able to deliver Youtube content faster than anyone else, the speed of light being what it is and all....or perhaps you are suggesting they should be forced to house their servers in Comcast Data Centers?
>QoS and other more complicated traffic engineering mechanisms are widely implemented and seems kind of hard to get rid of.
Its more than just that. The entire communications infrastructure -- not just internet but nearly all form of comms -- embed within themselves the notion of over-subscription. The phone company, internet ISP, postal service all have more potential demand than they have available bandwidth. QoS must be implemented otherwise these services would simply collapse.
Moreover, If I pay for 1Gb internet and you pay for dial-up is that "neutral"? Is it legal for me to pay you extra to route my VOIP traffic with priority? Or should that be banned?
NN was a very very clever name for a political regulatory move. Unfortunately when people try to get to the task of defining it they uncover that its basically a solution in search of a problem.
>>I'd define true net neutrality quite simply as delivering the same performance to all traffic regardless of source or content of that traffic.
>That requires bending the laws of physics to implement. Google fiber will always be able to deliver Youtube content faster than anyone else, the speed of light being what it is and all....or perhaps you are suggesting they should be forced to house their servers in Comcast Data Centers?
That's clearly not what I said. You seem to have a poor understanding of how networks and the internet work to contrive this strawman.
> Its more than just that. The entire communications infrastructure -- not just internet but nearly all form of comms -- embed within themselves the notion of over-subscription. The phone company, internet ISP, postal service all have more potential demand than they have available bandwidth. QoS must be implemented otherwise these services would simply collapse.
This also doesn't make sense. Many of the backbones I am intimate with are among the largest in the world and yet have no trouble avoiding congestion through correct provisioning. Some providers like Comcast due to whatever (organizational, incompetence, business) reason do not do this. QoS doesn't really work how you think it does. NN is about ensuring that like NetFlix and JoeBlogsNewStreaming service get equal treatment on the network. They are not going to be riding in separate classes. The anti-NN tactics of the big carriers is to throttle, actively not upgrade peering connection, route over longer paths, etc.
> Moreover, If I pay for 1Gb internet and you pay for dial-up is that "neutral"?
Yes.
> Is it legal for me to pay you extra to route my VOIP traffic with priority? Or should that be banned?
That is a better question. Personally I somewhat lean towards not allowing multiple classes of service on the internet or access networks. But so long as the classes are not selectively applied to traffic by the carrier, and are selected/paid for by the consumer buying the circuit/transit then at least that is a level playing field and I am okay with it.
>"This also doesn't make sense. Many of the backbones I am intimate with are among the largest in the world and yet have no trouble avoiding congestion through correct provisioning.
Please state specifically which backbones that are among the largest in the world you are "intimate" with. And please provide a citation for its 1:1 to traffic ratio. There isn't a network in the world that isn't oversubscribed.The entire practice of "capacity management" is based on oversubscription.
>"Some providers like Comcast due to whatever (organizational, incompetence, business) reason do not do this. QoS doesn't really work how you think it does. NN is about ensuring that like NetFlix and JoeBlogsNewStreaming service get equal treatment on the network. They are not going to be riding in separate classes. The anti-NN tactics of the big carriers is to throttle, actively not upgrade peering connection, route over longer paths, etc."
The OP is correct and they seem to have a good grasp of how QoS works as they mentioned DSCP bit and the IP header. The OP is also correct in that every single segment of a network is oversubscribed from the top of rack switch, the uplinks from the ToR to the core, transit and peering, to the 10/40 Gig waves that make up backbones.
Again, nobody has a 1:1 subscription ratio anywhere in their network. It would be a colossal waste and you would be out of business. Profitability in Telecom and networks in general is predicated on oversubscription.
Take the most basic example of a top or rack switch that has 48 x 10 Gig ports = 480 Gbs and yet has an uplink capacity of 4 x 40 = 160 Gbs. This represents a 3:1 oversubscription ratio and is part of the design of the switch[1]. This port to backplane capacity oversubscription is probably the most important consideration in evaluating switches.
And ISPs most certainly use QoS to violate Net Neutrality. You might want to read up on the 2007 BitTorrent Comcast controversy. Comcast execs also admitted as much[2].
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It really seems that not only do you don't have a good understanding of how the internet works but you also don't have a good understanding of the economics of it either. It becomes more evident with each of your posts.
>> "This also doesn't make sense. Many of the backbones I am intimate with are among the largest in the world and yet have no trouble avoiding congestion through correct provisioning.
> And please provide a citation for its 1:1 to traffic ratio. There isn't a network in the world that isn't oversubscribed.The entire practice of "capacity management" is based on oversubscription.
This is getting a little ridiculous. Again a straw man. Where did I say 1:1 subscription ratios were provisioned. That doesn't mean you can't provision enough capacity to carry your peak load. Any network engineer would understand what I said. (And I'm happy to report I know what a top of rack switch looks like, thanks for the link.)
This seems to be something you're very passionate about, but you only seem to want NN on ISPs and don't want to consider NN on a wider context with an understanding of where things are going. I was interested in having that conversation because I have a background with it, if you don't understand that environment then you don't need to participate.
>" Many of the backbones I am intimate with are among the largest in the world and yet have no trouble avoiding congestion through correct provisioning."
I noticed you didn't answer the question about which backbones you are intimately familiar with.
If they are among the largest in the world then they are likely public networks all of which experience congestion at various points.
That said QoS and other more complicated traffic engineering mechanisms are widely implemented and seems kind of hard to get rid of. Google for example makes use of egress peer engineering techniques to ensure certain applications of theirs will take lower latency paths to customers, while they may shed other traffic from customer VMs in Google cloud to higher latency paths. Or we might move Skype traffic onto low latency backbone paths and give it lower latency over some other traffic that we can't identify. Does this count as non-neutral? If so, that's a really-really big deal for all the cloud providers, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google who do this.