Technology Review
The FCC's coming struggle: regulating "fairness" on the airwaves.
Every cell phone tower includes scheduling software that decides how fast e-mails, videos, and photos flow to and from wireless gadgets. Today these schedulers are programmed, at least in part, to make sure that the most profitable Internet traffic moves along at a fast clip. But under forthcoming Federal Communications Commission (FCC) "Net neutrality" regulations, wireless carriers may have to more strongly consider something else: fairness.
"Sometimes these (wireless) schedulers are designed to maximize throughput, rather than fairness," says Dipankar Raychaudhuri, director of the Winlab, a mobile Internet research lab at Rutgers University. "For example, you can maximize throughput to someone who has a strong signal--favoring one user who has a high signal over another who doesn't--so that it leads to higher revenue."
Last week, delivering on an Obama campaign promise, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced in a speech that he would propose Net neutrality regulations. Such rules would promote the Internet as a level playing field, and prohibit service providers from slowing down or blocking access to websites or applications. The actual draft rules will be released next month, but Genachowski made it clear that both wired and wireless technologies are in the crosshairs. "It is essential that the Internet itself remain open, however users reach it," he said, adding that "how the principles apply may differ depending on the access platform or technology."
Ensuring Net neutrality across the airwaves will be more complex though. "I don't have a position on Net neutrality," Raychaudhuri adds, "but this would be quite an interesting technical problem to try and solve."
The complexity of the situation is illustrated by a recent flare-up in the wireless space. The FCC is investigating a claim by Google that its Google Voice application was unfairly rejected from Apple's iPhone App Store. AT&T, which provides iPhone service, shot back in a letter to the FCC that Google's voice application blocks calls to some rural areas where it would be more expensive for Google to connect.
It's not clear yet whether Google Voice--which bridges both Internet and landline connections--would be considered in violation of any existing regulation. Because while traditional phone companies are barred by regulation from blocking calls to far-flung exchanges, Internet telephony applications do not yet face such regulation.
As any cell phone user knows, quality of service depends on how close the nearest cell towers are, how many other people are using the network, and a host of other factors. Already, the number of iPhones in service is causing traffic congestion on AT&T's network, and "this will happen to all of the operators as smart phones and data traffic grows very rapidly," says Raychaudhuri.
Defining and regulating "fairness" as it pertains to wireless Internet traffic is inherently difficult, says Mung Chiang, a Princeton electrical engineering professor working on broadband access algorithms. "The notion of congestion--what is it, how often it happens, who is to blame--it's much harder to define in wireless networks," compared to landline Internet connections, he says. "Who is going to take the blame when somebody close to a tower transmits signals that may wipe out others, even if this person may not be downloading movies?"
Verizon says its next wireless network technology could link up cars, home appliances, and more.
Recent FCC hearings pitted network operators and content distributors against each other. But if the two can find a way to collaborate, the Internet will work better for everybody.
or that ISPs will curtail certain kinds of speech, as is widely done in some other countries
I personally would be more concerned about governments curtailing "certain kinds of speech" through the regulatory process then any ISP.
All in the name of "fairness" of course.
What an ironic statement given that corporations are already deciding that. While my technical knowledge is scant, one thing is very clear: this isn't a technical issue. It's a human rights issue. To allow corporations to decide who gets to "speak" first on the basis of profit is dangerous and unethical.
It's not exactly an either-or situation. There can be human rights/public benefit issues and technical issues at the same time. My problem is that the technical issues won't be handled properly if they're regulated by a blunt instrument like the FCC.
I really don't understand?
Is the internet more or less a connection of privately owned networks? Or does the government own a large part of it?
What other examples of unfair behaviors have occured to promt Congress to step in? Has there been any major failures in the system, that require the government intervention? If the internet is slower for a person with a cheaper service, is that person harmed in some way?
I was very confused when congress passes a tax on internet radio, why? Because it has the word radio in it?
Congress' need to impose rules smell very fishy. What do you think?
Brian Glassman
It is hard to understand if we assume that the FCC is actually trying to solve a real problem or, if we assume that they actually have the interests of the US citizen at heart. Both are bad assumptions.
This is an excellent article on the topic yet I think the author is far too accepting of the government's stated motivation.
A federal government always serves to grow itself. More regulation and vaguely defined things like "Fairness" and "Lawful Content" provide a blank check to expand and intrude. Essential to their continued growth, is control of information. So this is a grand slam. Politicians and bureaucrats of all flavors and persuasions are extremely frustrated by the internet because it is TRUE free press and far too much sunlight shines on them.
To understand, start with an inspirational quote from Senator Jay Rockefeller on Net Neutrality:
"At times, this free market of ideas has been threatened by communications providers blocking access to lawful content and applications. Such actions harm all Internet users and undermine the innovation that has made this country strong"
Except for certain rural/remote locations, we have unlimited content access, an incredible number of connectivity options, wired and wireless in this country. Have you seen ANY indication the Internet is not completely open and fair to anyone or anything? Hmmmm. Me neither. There really is no problem - just a carefully scripted crisis:
a) take a perceived problem - wireless companies legitimately managing bandwidth to keep wireless networking viable, and paint them as evil corporations unfairly controlling the Internet.
b) create a class of victims denied access by those self-serving evil corporations.
c) proclaim the government as the one who must ride to the rescue. But alas, they cannot help us unless we grant them the sole power to decide what is "fair" and that we must grant them this power not only for wireless internet but for all of the internet.
The author points out this is a complicated combination of technical, business, market, and investment factors. This is something only a free market can solve. Entrusting this to a bloated bureaucracy like the FCC will ensure it grinds to a halt. But that is actually just fine for those inside the beltway.
Now lets ponder a couple of other quotes from Senator Rockefeller and the picture may come a bit more into focus:
The Internet is "Number One National Hazard"
and...
"It really almost makes you ask the question would it have been better if we had never invented the Internet,"
But as they say on TV, "wait, there's more"
These same Net Neutrality "defenders" have mounted another white horse called the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009" (HR 3458). Don't you just love the Orwellian names they come up with? HR 3458 gives the government the power to decide what is lawful content.
So to recap, we give Congress the power to decide what is lawful content and we give the FCC the power to shut down servers that are not playing "fair", according to rules they get to make up.
Kiss the Internet goodbye baby.
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web20lawyer
1 Comment
net neutrality for wireless networks
There are certain realities in the marketplace. Broadband, both wired and wireless, is a commodity. Carriers have tried to avoid this issue for many years by controlling access to off deck mobile products and access discrimination. By extending net neutrality to wireless networks, Congress will be enforcing market realities, not choosing market winners and losers. We, as consumers and professionals, need an open and unfettered marketplace to spur innovation. This will be a powerful move in the mobile marketplace - equivalent to the rules that allowed mobile number porting. Let mobile and digital products operate across networks. -- by the Mobile Lawyer. http://www.web20lawyer.com/page0/page11/mobile-compliance-laws.html
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davidwilson1992
1 Comment
Re: net neutrality for wireless networks
You hit the nail on the head. Bandwidth is a commodity. Content is the real value driver. The cable model is dying. The wireless model has to change. The internet must remain neutral in order to grow new businesses, industries, and to spur our economy.
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theradicalmoderate
48 Comments
Re: net neutrality for wireless networks
I beg to differ. The only reason that bandwidth appears to be a commodity is because the vast majority of internet traffic is currently transported over TCP, which has excellent congestion control properties. Even here, the traffic engineering that optimizes web access via HTTP assumes more down-link traffic than up-link traffic by about a factor of 10, which is why the ISPs hate peer-to-peer traffic, where bandwidth needs are roughly symmetrical.
Other emerging applications, especially real time applications (e.g. voice and video over IP, gaming, various forms of tele-operation, etc.), which use the UDP-based RTP protocol, have no congestion control, and rely solely on the fact that real time applications produce data at a predictable rate. ISPs must be allowed to admit and shape RTP traffic, or it can easily overwhelm the network. Similarly, quality-of-service has to be applied to RTP or the real time applications that depend on it stop working. You simply can't do that in a commodity network.
If you enforce application neutrality, you're condemning the internet to a TCP-based future, which will stifle many promising new classes of applications. I have no problem with location neutrality, where content from different sources must be treated neutrally. But traffic engineering for specific applications is extremely complicated. It is certainly more complicated than a set of regulations can encompass.
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