What is "normal Internet service"?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: June 15, 2009 8:24:31 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Subject: What is "normal Internet service"?

Brett, what do you see as "normal" Internet usage?  You've spoken quite
negatively (and quite often!) in this forum about peer-to-peer,
bandwidth management, etc. Today, you spoke of "the bandwidth that
YouTube can squander". But, like it or not, Youtube is one of the most
popular applications on the web.  The question, then, is this: what is
the service that you and other similar ISPs intend to provide?  What is
your vision of what the Internet should be?  To me, you seem to be
advocating the Internet of 10 years ago: relatively small transfers,
comparatively static (and hence cacheable) web pages, a download-mostly
model, etc.

I accept that your network is geared towards that, for both economic
and technical reasons.  But it's quite clear that that's not the
product most people want to consume (albeit perhaps not pay for).  How
can these be reconciled?

I see two alternatives here.  First, there is a regulatory approach:
applications that don't meet a certain model of the network are
banned.  This seems unlikely in most countries.  If nothing else, it
would freeze innovation -- to me and to many others, the beauty of the
Internet is that it encourages innovation at the edges.

The other alternative is to let the market work its will.  If the costs
(and hence prices) for the service people want are too high, people
will scale back their expectations or demands.  If others can offer a
service you cannot or will not, then those others will prosper at your
expense.

Your course, as best I can tell, has been load management: throttle
expensive requests to something you can afford without raising prices
too much.  Users may or may not be satisfied with that in the long
term, but absent regulatory intervention the market will decide.

The one strategy you cannot pursue is to demand that others meet your
definition of the Internet.  Google presumably has its own reasons for
not wanting Youtube videos cached.  Perhaps it's so they get an
accurate hit-count, which they need for feedback and advertising sales,
and even for their "most viewed" counters.  In other words, they're
maximizing their own utility function.  It isn't reasonable to ask them
to maximize yours.  You can respond -- but at a certain risk, as
outlined.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb




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