1. Open access to Content [jg1], Applications [jg2] and Services [jg3]; choice of devices [jg4].
2. Non-discrimination [jg5].
3. Transparency of network management practices [jg6].
4. FCC enforcement power.
5. Differentiated services.
6. Exclusion of Wireless Access from these principles (for now).
7. Universal Service Fund to include broadband access.

The non-discrimination paragraph is weakened by the kinds of words that are invitations to expensive litigation unless they are precisely defined in legislation. It doesn’t prohibit discrimination, it merely prohibits “undue” discrimination that would cause “meaningful harm.”

The managed (or differentiated) services paragraph is an example of what Ammori calls “an obvious potential end-run around the net neutrality rule.” I think that Google and Verizon would argue that their transparency provisions mean that ISPs can deliver things like FIOS video-on-demand over the same pipe as Internet service without breaching net neutrality, since the Internet service will commit to a measurable level of service. This is not how things work at the moment; ISPs make representations about the maximum delivered bandwidth, but for consumers don’t specify a minimum below which the connection will not fall.

The examples the Google blog gives of “differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon’s FIOS TV)” appear to have in common the need for high bandwidth and high QoS. This bodes extremely ill for the Internet. The evolution to date of Internet access service has been steadily increasing bandwidth and QoS. The implication of this paragraph is that these improvements will be skimmed off into proprietary services, leaving the bandwidth and QoS of the public Internet stagnant.

The exclusion of wireless many consider egregious. I think that Google and Verizon would argue that there is nothing to stop wireless being added later. In any case, I am sympathetic to Verizon on this issue, since wireless is so bandwidth constrained relative to wireline that it seems necessary to ration it in some way.

The Network Management paragraph in the statement document permits “reasonable” network management practices. Fortunately the word “reasonable” is defined in detail in the statement document. Unfortunately the definition, while long, includes a clause which renders the rest of the definition redundant: “or otherwise to manage the daily operation of its network.” This clause appears to permit whatever the ISP wants.

So on balance, while it contains a lot of worthy sentiments, I am obliged to view this framework as a sellout by Google. I am not alone in this assessment.

If the rumors turn out to be true, Google might consider changing Point 6 of its corporate philosophy (which currently says “You can make money without doing evil“) to “We don’t care. We don’t have to.”

Update: Google and Verizon deny the rumor.

The nice man who answered told me that the best way to make my voice heard on this issue is to file a comment at the FCC website, referencing proceeding number 09-191.

So that my comment would be a little less ignorant, I carefully read an article on the Huffington Post by Marvin Ammori before filing it.

My opinion on this is that ISPs deserve to be fairly compensated for their service, but that they should not be permitted to double-charge for a consumer’s Internet access. If some service like video on demand requires prioritization or some other differential treatment, the ISP should only be allowed to charge the consumer for this, not the content provider. In other words, every bit traversing the subscriber’s access link should be treated equally by the ISP unless the consumer requests otherwise, and the ISP should not be permitted to take payments from third parties like content providers to preempt other traffic. If such discrimination is allowed, the ISP will be motivated to keep last-mile bandwidth scarce.

Internet access in the US is effectively a duopoly (cable or DSL) in each neighborhood. This absence of competition has caused the US to become a global laggard in consumer Internet bandwidth. With weak competition and ineffective regulation, a rational ISP will forego the expense of network upgrades.

ISPs like AT&T view the Internet as a collection of pipes connecting content providers to content consumers. This is the thinking behind Ed Whitacre’s famous comment, “to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!” Ed was thinking that Google, or Yahoo or Vonage are using his pipes to his subscribers for free. The “Internet community” on the other hand views the Internet as a collection of pipes connecting people to people. From this other point of view, the consumer pays AT&T for access to the Internet, and Google, Yahoo and Vonage each pay their respective ISPs for access to the Internet. Nobody is getting anything for free. It makes no more sense for Google to pay AT&T for a subscriber’s Internet access than it would for an AT&T subscriber to pay Google’s connectivity providers for Google’s Internet access.

It points out that with “3% of smartphone users now consuming 40% of network capacity,” the carrier has to draw a line. Presumably because if 30% of AT&T’s subscribers were to buy iPhones, they would consume 400% of the network’s capacity.

Wireless networks are badly bandwidth constrained. AT&T’s woes with the iPhone launch were caused by lack of backhaul (wired capacity to the cell towers), but the real problem is on the wireless link from the cell tower to the phone.

The problem here is one of setting expectations. Here’s an excerpt from AT&T’s promotional materials: “Customers with capable LaptopConnect products or phones, like the iPhone 3G S, can experience the 7.2 [megabit per second] speeds in coverage areas.” A reasonable person reading this might think that it is an invitation to do something like video streaming. Actually, a single user of this bandwidth would consume the entire capacity of a cell-tower sector:

Source: High Speed Radio Access for Mobile Communications, edited by Harri Holma and Antti Toskala.

This provokes a dilemma – not just for AT&T but for all wireless service providers. Ideally you want the network to be super responsive, for example when you are loading a web page. This requires a lot of bandwidth for short bursts. So imposing a bandwidth cap, throttling download speeds to some arbitrary maximum, would give users a worse experience. But users who use a lot of bandwidth continuously – streaming live TV for example – make things bad for everybody.

The cellular companies think of users like this as bad guys, taking more than their share. But actually they are innocently taking the carriers up on the promises in their ads. This is why the Rethink piece says “many observers think AT&T – and its rivals – will have to return to usage-based pricing, or a tiered tariff plan.”

Actually, AT&T already appears to have such a policy – reserving the right to charge more if you use more than 5GB per month. This is a lot, unless you are using your phone to stream video. For example, it’s over 10,000 average web pages or 10,000 minutes of VoIP. You can avoid running over this cap by limiting your streaming videos and your videophone calls to when you are in Wi-Fi coverage. You can still watch videos when you are out and about by downloading them in advance, iPod style.

This doesn’t seem particularly burdensome to me.

Summary Presentation: Acrobat
NPRM: Word | Acrobat
News Release: Word | Acrobat
Genachowski Statement: Word | Acrobat
Copps Statement: Word | Acrobat
McDowell Statement: Word | Acrobat
Clyburn Statement: Word | Acrobat
Baker Statement: Word | Acrobat

The NPRM itself is a hefty document, 107 pages long; if you just want the bottom line, the Summary Presentation is short and a little more readable than the press release. The comment period closes in mid-January, and the FCC will respond to the comments in March. I hesitate to guess when the rules will actually be released – this is hugely controversial: 40,000 comments filed to date. Here is a link to a pro-neutrality advocate. Here is a link to a pro-competition advocate. I believe that the FCC is doing a necessary thing here, and that the proposals properly address the legitimate concerns of the ISPs.

Here is the story from Reuters, and from AP.

1. 3G (UMTS) download speeds average about a megabit per second; 2.5G (EDGE) speeds average about 160 kbps and 2G (GPRS) speeds average about 50 kbps.
2. For VoIP, latency is a critical measure. The average on 3G networks was 336 ms, with a variation between carriers and countries ranging from 200 ms to over a second. The ITU reckons latency becomes a serious problem above 170 ms. I discussed the latency issue on 3G networks in an earlier post.
3. According to these tests, Blackberries are on average only half as fast for both download and upload on the same networks as iPhones and Android phones. The Blackberry situation is complicated because they claim to compress data-streams, and because all data normally goes through Blackberry servers. The ARCchart report looks into the reasons for Blackberry’s poor showing:

The BlackBerry download average across all carriers is 515 kbps versus 1,025 kbps for the iPhone and Android – a difference of half. Difference in the upload average is even greater – 62 kbps for BlackBerry compared with 155 kbps for the other devices.
Source: ARCchart, September 2009.

The cellular companies want you to buy cellular service then pay extra to get signal coverage. Gizmodo has a coolly reasoned analysis.

AT&T Wireless is doing the standard telco thing here, conflating pricing for different services. It is sweetening the monthly charge option for femtocells by offering unlimited calling. A more honest pricing scheme would be to provide femtocells free to anybody who has coverage problem, and to offer the femtocell/unlimited calling option as a separate product. Come to think of it, this is probably how AT&T really plans for it to work: if a customer calls to cancel service because of poor coverage, I expect AT&T will offer a free femtocell as a retention incentive.

It is ironic that this issue is coming up at the same time as the wireless carriers are up in arms about the FCC’s new network neutrality initiative. Now that smartphones all have Wi-Fi, if the handsets were truly open we could use our home Wi-Fi signal to get data and voice services from alternative providers when we were at home. No need for femtocells. (T-Mobile@Home is a closed-network version of this.)

Presumably something like this is on the roadmap for Google Voice, which is one of the scenarios that causes the MNOs to fight network neutrality tooth and nail.

1. Open access to Content
2. Open access to Applications
3. Open access to Services
4. Freedom for users to attach devices to the network
5. Non-discrimination for content and applications
6. Transparency of network management practices

The first four of these principles were initially articulated by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell in 2004 as the “Four Freedoms.” Numbers 5 and 6 are new. The forthcoming rules will apply these six principles to all broadband access technologies, including wireless.

Genachowski made the case that Internet openness is essential and that it is threatened. He acknowledged that network providers need to manage their networks, and said that they can control spam and help to maintain intellectual property integrity without compromising these principles.

The threats to Internet openness come from reduced competition among ISPs and conflicts of interest within the ISPs, because they are also trying to be content providers.

Genachowski rightly sees these threats as serious:

This is not about protecting the internet against imaginary dangers. We’re seeing the breaks and cracks emerge, and they threaten to change the Internet’s fundamental architecture of openness. This would shrink opportunities for innovators, content creators and small businesses around the country, and limit the full and free expression the internet promises. This is about preserving and maintaining something profoundly successful and ensuring that it’s not distorted or undermined.

These rules will be very tough to enforce. The fundamental structure of the business works against them. A more effective approach may be to break up the ISPs into multiple independent companies, for example: Internet access operations, wide area network operations, and service/content/application operations. The neutrality problem is in the access networks – the WANs and the services are healthier. With only the telcos (DSL and fiber) and the MSOs (cable) there is not enough competition for a free market to develop. This is why Intel pushed so hard for WiMAX as a third mode of broadband access, though it hasn’t panned out that way. It is also why municipal dark fiber makes sense, following the model of roads, water and sewers.

An idea that is as patent jargon goes “obvious to one skilled in the art,” can sometimes have obvious handicaps to one experienced in the industry. While exposing a broadband wireless data connection through a smartphone’s Wi-Fi radio is massively useful to consumers, it is unlikely to appeal to network service providers, who would prefer you to buy a wireless data card (and an additional service subscription) for your laptop rather than to simply use the wireless data connection that you are already paying for on your phone.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. I will be stunned if Atheros’ implementation appears on any phone subsidized by (or even distributed by) a wireless carrier, until they can figure out a way to charge extra for it. As Tim Wu says in his Wireless Carterfone paper (the Wireless Carterfone concept was promoted by Skype, and rejected by the FCC last April):

carriers are in a position to exercise strong control over the design of mobile equipment. They have used that power to force equipment developers to omit or cripple many consumer-friendly features.

The billing issue may not be that intractable. Closely related models already exist. You can get routers from Cisco and other vendors that have a slot for a wireless WAN card, and the service providers have subscription plans for them. More similarly, this could be viewed as a kind of “tethering” But tethering only lets one PC at a time access the wireless WAN connection – unless that PC happens to support My Wi-Fi.

Update: Marvell has announced a similar capability for its 88W8688 chip.

The idea is that if users can easily measure their network bandwidth and quality of service, they will be able to hold their ISPs to the claims in their advertisements and “plans.” As things stand, businesses buying data links from network providers normally have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which specifies minimum performance characteristics for their connections. For consumers, things are different. ISPs do not issue SLAs to their consumer customers. When they advertise uplink and downlink speeds, these speeds are “typical” or “maximum,” but they don’t specify a minimum speed, and they don’t offer any guarantees of latency, jitter, packet loss or even integrity of the packet contents. For example, here’s an excerpt from the Verizon Online Terms of Service:

VERIZON DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE OR EQUIPMENT PROVIDED BY VERIZON WILL PERFORM AT A PARTICULAR SPEED, BANDWIDTH OR DATA THROUGHPUT RATE, OR WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE…

Businesses pay more than consumers for their bandwidth, and providing SLAs is one of the reasons. Consumers would probably not be willing to pay more for SLAs, but they can still legitimately expect to know what they are paying for. The Measurement Lab data will be able to confirm or disprove accusations that ISPs are intentionally impairing traffic of some types.

This is a complicated issue, because one man’s traffic blocking is another man’s network management, and what a consumer might consider acceptable use (like BitTorrent) may violate an ISP’s Acceptable Use Policy (Verizon:”…it is a violation of… this AUP to… generate excessive amounts of email or other Internet traffic;”). The arguments can go round in circles until terms like “excessive” and “unlimited” are defined numerically and measurements are made. So Measurement Lab is a great step forward in the Network Neutrality debate, and should be applauded by consumers and service providers alike.