[kictanet] KICTANet Digest, Vol 164, Issue 18

Fri Jan 14 06:25:34 EAT 2022

Adrian

Thank you for sharing and reviving the Net Neutrality issue. I love the way
you've broken this down and provided some possible solution. However, I
think you may need to add a possible third solution:-

The Internet is an Information Super Highway so why not borrow from how we
use the Highway?

1. A lane for slow cars
2. Another one for high speed cars
3. Another for trucks
4. Another for huge trucks.

And the common denominator here is that highways are public infrastructure
and public infrastructure is managed by government. Get my drift?

The reason I'm looking at this in such a way is that Net Neutrality is
supposed to protect all players not just BigTech. For example, we MUST
protect local initiatives like Viusasa from this nonsense of ISPs charging
content providers for access. I will remain a diehard supporter of Net
Neutrality. However, I recognize that not all sizes fit all and as time
changes then so must we. The fundamentals of Net Neutrality should remain
but how we execute them can be nuanced to different situations.

One last thing - if we allow each car manufacturer to build its own highway
network what would the world come to? This is what BigTech is doing with
all it's initiatives for internet access. This is where Policy Makers the
world over are completely missing the point. This is what is creating all
this confusion.

Is it time to declare the Networks that serve us all Public Utilities and
regulated as such? This might not be the most popular thing to say but here
we are...

Ali Hussein

Tel: +254 713 601113
Twitter: @AliHKassim
Skype: abu-jomo
LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 4:19 AM Adrian Teri via KICTANet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Good day all,
>
> It's time to revisit the topic of net neutrality which in my opinion
> hasn't been quite fleshed out.
>
> ISPs in the early days, circa the '90s, had assumptions that today no
> longer hold true. From my reading, users were expected to do light tasks
> like check their email, surf the web and occasionally download some files.
> Well these assumptions have taken ~30 years to validate and they are being
> broken down!
>
> Reality today is that innovations have further pushed and strained the
> net. The "inter networks" is just a collection of networks and computers
> communicating with each other. In the early days, large orgs or
> corporations had mutual and voluntary agreements of peering into each
> other's networks where the value of the traffic was assumed at the end of
> day/month etc would be balanced between what a peer pushed through you and
> what you pushed through them.
>
> Fast forward to today, Content companies are the ones pushing all the
> bandwidth down and there is no reciprocity. What happens to switches and
> their buffers at the ISPs? They start to drop packets as they are  being
> saturated/bogged down by the spikes. What happens to all other traffic like
> people doing a web search, scrolling through emails, reading blogs etc?
> They will all be affected by packet loss, slower pings(higher RTTs) and
> increased jitter(packet delay). The other ISP's customers will simply be
> given priority!
>
> Yes, it was a failure on the ISPs when they were building their business
> models but at the end of day something has to give. And yes, there is
> prioritization in traffic like for voice and video. VOIP packets have
> priority tags(are moved up the queue) and ever wonder why in
> networks(mobile or WI-FI) you are defaulted to a lower quality compared to
> the speeds? Well ISPs are forcing you down these selections at the start as
> they don't want you hitting their networks as much. See bandwidth or
> traffic shaping. The notion of "net neutrality" inaugurating "speed" lanes
> is simply untrue; they have existed but of concern here is *paid
> prioritization* or in some instances large ISPs having conglomerates
> favouring their own content provider(s).
>
> There are generally two solutions from the ISPs perspective:
>
> (1). Make the end users have variable pricing for their "WI-FI" bills just
> like you pay for what you consume with electricity & water, *which we(as
> consumers) highly dislike* *for the internet* or,
> (2). Have a fixed charge for your fixed data customers and make the
> content and whoever will innovate high bandwidth products pay for the
> spikes/elevated/bursts. They already have a relationship with their
> customer and they can easily track their usages. They collect from their
> customers and pay the ISPs who are presumed to have aggregates of bandwidth
> overages for each content/high bandwidth pushing company.
>
> No. 2 is what happens in bills for colocations and some hosting provider's
> bandwidth/fibre. There is a committed and burstable data rate. This is the
> classic 95th(95-5) percentile billing model.
>
> An interesting read by Steven Levy: In the Plex HOW GOOGLE THINKS, WORKS
> AND SHAPES OUR LIVES, PART FOUR: GOOGLE'S CLOUD chapter 2: "My Job was to
> get in the car, get on a plane, go find data centers." accounts how #Google
> in their earlier days squeezed terabytes of indexed data from west to east
> coast colocation facilities in ~15 - 18 hour bursts per month. They then
> literally turned off their router ports for 28-29 days per month and their
> bandwidth costs would be zero!
>
> I haven't touched on #Netflix's Open Connect, a caching solution installed
> at an ISP's large router(s), as only *5% *of traffic is delivered through
> it. However, the reporting is ~ 10 yrs old and would be happy to see newer
> numbers. Also, there was a notable unfairness where #Netflix was paying and
> setting up infrastructure at #Comcast but expected the opposite from small
> ISPs.
>
> Finally, I don't see how 5G will cool this problem as it occurs at the
> exchanges and peering points.
>
> Yours Kindly,
> Adrian
>
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 at 11:15, <kictanet-request at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> wrote:
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: Should streaming services pay ISPs for increased traffic?
>>       (Josiah Mugambi)
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Josiah Mugambi <josiah.mugambi at gmail.com>
>> To: "Kenya's premier ICT Policy engagement platform" <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> Cc:
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2021 11:13:57 +0300
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Should streaming services pay ISPs for increased
>> traffic?
>> Almost certain that Netflix content is mirrored in Korea given that:
>> - Netflix hosts on AWS
>> - AWS has availability zones
>> <https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regions_az/> in
>> Seoul
>>
>> This
>> <https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/30/south-korean-isp-sk-broadband-counterclaims-against-netflix-for-bandwidth-usage-fees/>
>> is also interesting:
>>
>> "Meanwhile, another global streaming giant, Disney Plus, is set to launch
>> in South Korea in November. Disney Plus reportedly plans to use third-party
>> content delivery networks (CDNs) instead of using ISP’s networks to avoid
>> the bandwidth usage fees."
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 1:27 PM Kathy Mwai via KICTANet <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think that YouTube presents the same traffic problem to ISPs
>>> that Netflix does. (By the way I'm an on and off Netflix subscriber so I
>>> haven't particularly experienced any issues watching any big hyped shows
>>> like the game of thrones or the Squid games at the moment) The nature of
>>> Netflix content is similar to the movie theatres. When it's a
>>> blockbuster being premiered like with the Bond movie this last week, the
>>> traffic to the movie theaters is more as I experienced last weekend: But
>>> not when it's just kawaida movies, and YouTube never churns out content in
>>> this fashion, so we could remove them from the notorious list for now.
>>>
>>> That being said, if anything I think it should only be Netflix
>>> incentivising a rounded up figure not the content providers and if it means
>>> Netflix deducts a cost from the content providers to forward to the ISPs,
>>> so be it I suppose? At the end of the day, content gets broadcast as that
>>> is the intention. Perhaps I'm being naive in imagining a perfect world
>>> where such good business practices exist, but what if really? Or maybe once
>>> 5G becomes ubiquitous the conversation will change...
>>>
>>> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 at 13:09, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, if Netflix, YT, and all the other content providers decide to
>>>> incentivise, how will they measure how much the incentive has worked? And
>>>> how much value do they get from their funds?
>>>> Will the ISPs be incentivised based on the traffic volumes to the
>>>> content providers or just a rounded up figure?
>>>> Perhaps the best way out of this is for the ISPs to come together and
>>>> ask the content providers to put their content infrastructure locally
>>>> (mirror the content) so that their int'l bandwidth is left
>>>> untouched???
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 12:58 PM Kathy Mwai via KICTANet <
>>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This seems to me to be a Business Sustainability Strategy for Netflix,
>>>>> because if users don't have a good experience with its content as a result
>>>>> of slow speeds, will people want to keep subscribing for a service they
>>>>> feel they may not get the full experience of? And I suppose envisaging this
>>>>> situation could be the reason why they have different packages based on
>>>>> your pipe output. Netflix and content providers obviously majorly depend on
>>>>> ISPs for the success of their undertaking, and so I feel that it is good
>>>>> business practice for Netflix to incentivise ISPs to enable them
>>>>> upgrade their services. And that they should probably do that especially in
>>>>> geographies where they have high subscriptions and not just in the US, and
>>>>> to be proactive about it. This way everyone stays in business...
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 09:53, Ali Hussein via KICTANet <
>>>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> @Mwendwa Kivuva <kivuva at kictanet.or.ke> and all
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think ISPs are not being realistic. On one hand they squeeze us on
>>>>>> 'fair usage' on the other hand they are squeezing content providers for
>>>>>> 'over using' their pipes. If content creation is so lucrative why not get
>>>>>> into it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let me remind everyone the principles of Net Neutrality -
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Net neutrality is the concept that states that organizations, such
>>>>>> as Internet service providers, should treat all data on the internet
>>>>>> equally. It promotes a free and open internet, where users can access
>>>>>> content without restriction, provided the content does not violate any
>>>>>> laws.*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If we allow this loop hole you suggest where does it end? Let's take
>>>>>> a look at our local scenario in Kenya.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Safaricom is already in the content business. If we allow this
>>>>>> liberal interpretation of Net Neutrality it won't be long before they
>>>>>> demand gatekeeping charges from Viusasa and other local content
>>>>>> providers...Which will create a clear conflict of interest.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let's be careful. I have ALWAYS advocated for a clear Policy and
>>>>>> Regulatory interpretation of Net Neutrality Rules in this country. We are
>>>>>> yet to see any. MOICT and CA wako wapi?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Ali Hussein*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Fintech | Digital Transformation
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tel: +254 713 601113
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Skype: abu-jomo
>>>>>>
>>>>>> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>>>>>> <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are
>>>>>> purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
>>>>>> organizations that I work with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 1:25 PM Mwendwa Kivuva via KICTANet <
>>>>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Interesting angle Washington. It is indeed a chicken and egg
>>>>>>> situation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As a network engineer, you know the implication of the international
>>>>>>> transit data on the cost of running an ISP. Profitability of an ISP is
>>>>>>> based on the assumption that on average, the users will not consume more
>>>>>>> than fair quota, and if they do, other users using limited services but
>>>>>>> paying the same amount per package will compensate and balance out the
>>>>>>> cost, leaving some margin for profitability. If streaming services squeeze
>>>>>>> out this advantage from ISPs, which is very easy because you just leave the
>>>>>>> service running, and it consumes all bandwidth, what recourse does ISPs
>>>>>>> have? Increase the cost to consumers? Share the burden with commercial
>>>>>>> content providers? Degrade service offered by content providers? Where
>>>>>>> should the balance be?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, 8 Oct 2021, 12:51 Odhiambo Washington via KICTANet, <
>>>>>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 12:38 PM Mwendwa Kivuva via KICTANet <
>>>>>>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In the United States, Netflix has been paying a fee to broadband
>>>>>>>>> provider Comcast Corp for faster streaming speeds.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> South Korea's ISP SK Broadband has sued Netflix to pay for costs
>>>>>>>>> from increased network traffic and maintenance work because of a surge of
>>>>>>>>> viewers to the U.S. firm's content.
>>>>>>>>> Seoul court said Netflix should "reasonably" give something in
>>>>>>>>> return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple
>>>>>>>>> South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not
>>>>>>>>> pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> other content providers such as Amazon, Apple and Facebook are
>>>>>>>>> paying SK Broadband for usage of the network.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Should content providers compensate network providers for
>>>>>>>>> increased traffic to their network? Is this a net neutrality issue where
>>>>>>>>> all content should be treated equally?se or personalize, respect privacy,
>>>>>>>>> do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> How is my usage of my services I am paying my ISP for being
>>>>>>>> interpreted as "usage by my content provider"?
>>>>>>>> Is this the chicken-and-egg situation I have been hearing about?
>>>>>>>> I am already paying my ISP. If I didn't, they'd not even see the
>>>>>>>> traffic to Netflix, YT, etc.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Content providers compensating network providers for increased
>>>>>>>> traffic to their network seems like stealing for me. The content providers
>>>>>>>> are not using the ISP network. It's the client who pays for the link who
>>>>>>>> does. Do ISPs want to give FREE connections to me so that I can use
>>>>>>>> Netflix, YT, HBOMax and have these content providers pay them for my own
>>>>>>>> traffic?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>>> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
>>>>>>>> Nairobi,KE
>>>>>>>> +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
>>>>>>>> "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' :-)
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> KICTANet mailing list
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and
>>>>>>>> institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet
>>>>>>>> is a catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology
>>>>>>>> sector. Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity
>>>>>>>> Building, Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and
>>>>>>> institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet
>>>>>>> is a catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology
>>>>>>> sector. Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity
>>>>>>> Building, Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable
>>>>>>> behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and
>>>>>>> bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect
>>>>>>> privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
>>>>>>> engagement platform.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> KICTANet mailing list
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>>>>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and
>>>>>> institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet
>>>>>> is a catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology
>>>>>> sector. Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity
>>>>>> Building, Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable
>>>>>> behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and
>>>>>> bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect
>>>>>> privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
>>>>>> engagement platform.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> *Dream and Your Dreams Will Fall Short <kathymwai at gmail.com>...*
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> KICTANet mailing list
>>>>> KICTANet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
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>>>>>
>>>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and institutions
>>>>> interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet is a
>>>>> catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology sector.
>>>>> Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity Building,
>>>>> Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>>>>>
>>>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>>>>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>>>>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>>>>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>>>
>>>>> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
>>>>> engagement platform.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
>>>> Nairobi,KE
>>>> +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
>>>> "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Dream and Your Dreams Will Fall Short <kathymwai at gmail.com>...*
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and institutions
>>> interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet is a
>>> catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology sector.
>>> Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity Building,
>>> Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>>>
>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>
>>> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
>>> engagement platform.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Josiah Mugambi
>> _______________________________________________
>> KICTANet mailing list
>> KICTANet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
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>
>
> KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and institutions
> interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet is a
> catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology sector.
> Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity Building,
> Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>
> KICTANet - The Power of Communities, is Kenya's premier ICT policy
> engagement platform.
>
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