In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
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The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
In part because most of the attention in the early days of the Internet was on connectivity and ensuring networks and devices could interconnect and communicate successfully, security and quality of service techniques were not a focus of the discussions around network protocols and functionality. Such features have instead often been offered “over the topâ€, usually as attributes in applications or as functionalities in web sites or distributed services. The complexity and volume of Internet traffic today – and the fact that much more of it than ever before is “real time†or time sensitive – means that the Internet’s traditional routing and processing schemes are challenged more than ever. It is no longer realistic to expect that all of the heavy lifting to make applications and services work well on the Internet in today’s “two-way, heavy content, complex applications†world can be done through the old models. More work needs to be done at all levels to ensure better quality and improved services. This includes the network level as well. This need not threaten the basic foundation of the Internet – its ability to provide consumers with access to any content they wish to use and connect any device they want to a broadband network. Competition, broad commitment to openness by industry and advocates, and oversight by regulators helps ensure this foundation remains. But it does mean that enhanced network based features and functionalities should not be automatically viewed with concern. Such features can be an important aspect of the Internet’s improvement and future evolution.Indeed we shouldn't fear rational and transparent management; it's part of what has always made these systems work as well as they have for us. ]]>
[/caption]
The general discussion was about the lessons learned from light licensing of wireless spectrum in the US, on the success of Wi-Fi and the failure of UWB, and what we can realistically hope to gain from the White Spaces licensing regime. As a person with a foot in both camps - technical and regulatory - it was an interesting exercise in the contrast in the ways that engineers and policy people deal with these issues. In general, hard-core RF engineer Peter Ecclesine and I were the most pessimistic about White Space futures, while the policy folks still see the FCC's Report and Order as a victory.
In lobbying, you frequently run into circumstances where the bill you're trying to pass becomes so heavily encumbered with amendments that it's not worth passing. Rather than get your policy vehicle adopted in a crippled form, it's better in such circumstances to take it off the table and work with the decision-makers to revive it in a future session without the shackles. While this is a judgment call - sometimes you go ahead and take the victory hoping to fix it later - it's dangerous to pass crippled bills in a tit-for-tat system because you're conceding a win in the next round to the other side.
I suggested that the FCC's order was so badly flawed that the best thing for White Space Liberation would be to have the court void the order and the FCC to start over. This message wasn't well-received by Rick Whitt, but I had the feeling Peter is on board with it.
The problem with the White Spaces is that the FCC couldn't make up its mind whether these bands are best used for home networking or for a Third (or is it fourth or fifth?) pipe. The power limits (40 milliwatts to 1 watt) doom it to home networking use only, which simply leads to more fragmentation in the home net market and no additional WAN pipes. That's not the outcome the champions of open networks wanted, but it's what they got.
eComm, incidentally, is a terrific conference. The focus is very much on the applications people are developing for mobile phones, and it's essential for people like me who build networks to see what people want to do with them, especially the things they can't do very well today. Lee Dryburgh did a fantastic job of organization and selecting speakers, and is to be congratulated for putting on such a stellar meeting of the minds.]]>In order to engage in enforcement, there needs to be either: (1) An existing, articulated rule or standard against which to judge behavior; or (2) Authority for the enforcement body to adjudicate and issue rulings based on general notions of fairness/equity. It is difficult to argue that number (1) is present here. The FCC expressly stated that its broadband principles are not rules. If they are not rules, then it is hard to see how the FCC can turn around and try to police violations of them as if they were . . . well . . . rules. Doing so would put the FCC on perilously shaky legal ground. As for number (2), CDT believes that everyone with a stake in the Internet — which at the end of the day is pretty much everyone, period — should be extremely wary of any assertion of open-ended and highly discretionary FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet service. Even those who may like what the FCC proposes regarding the Comcast question should consider that they may be far less happy with what some future FCC may do, once the door to largely unguided regulatory action is open. CDT believes that the FCC neither has nor should have open-ended authority to craft policies for the Internet out of whole cloth. This is the problem with suggesting, as some commentators have, that Internet neutrality concerns could be addressed via case-by-case adjudication and enforcement rather than ex ante rules. You can’t adjudicate and gradually build up a body of common law unless there is some underlying standard to adjudicate against — or unless you have broad authority to make law from scratch. That’s why CDT continues to call for legislation in this area. Having the FCC initiate and craft the entire legal framework, without Congress setting the parameters, cedes too much authority to the agency. It will be interesting to see how an eventual FCC order, if there is one, addresses the murky legal status of the FCC’s Policy Statement and what legal hook the agency tries to hang its action on.One other thing I'd add is this: an ideal residential Internet access system needs to be managed in two different but equally important phases: 1) Allocate bandwidth fairly among competing accounts; and then 2) Prioritize streams within each account according to application requirements. Phase 1 keeps you from being swamped by your neighbor, and keeps you from swamping him, and Phase 2 prevents your VoIP session from being swamped by your BitTorrent session. The problem with the Comcast Sandvine system is that it skips phase 1 and simply does phase 2, application-level traffic shaping. And the problem with the FCC order that Chairman Martin is floating about is that it makes phase 2 shaping illegal. It's incredibly useful to manage streams for each user as he would want them managed if he had direct control over them. I think future home gateways will empower users to do this, but in the meantime it's desirable for the ISP to manage sessions appropriately. The first rule of regulation should be "do no harm," and on that basis Martin's prescription is bad medicine.]]>
MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.Actually, that's not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
Technorati Tags: wifi]]>
The network will soon begin to require applications to perform congestion control, and those applications which do not perform congestion control will be harshly penalized by the network (probably in the form of preferentially dropping their packets during times of congestion).An actively-managed Internet is a functional Internet.]]>