Arts & Labs is hosting “New Media New Network: The evolution of content on the Internet“.

Mike McCurry kicks off event.  Wants this to be a good dialog on Net Neutrality rather than the typical sloganeering.

Richard Wiley (Former Chairman of FCC) acting as moderator is opening the first panel.

• Some suggest broadband is too slow and expensive in the US (George Ou: though their data is suspect)
• Some people don’t want to buy broadband even if they have it available to them.

Richard Wiley is introducing

• Bret Swanson (Entropy Economics, WSJ Contributor)
• S. Derek Turner (Research Director, Free Press)
• Robert Curtis (FCC Director, Network Deployment)
• Christopher Yoo (Director, Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania Law School)

Wiley is asking Robert Curtis how FCC is measuring broadband.

Robert Curtis

• FCC has top notch engineers looking at the problem
• Gathering very detailed and granular data at block census level

Derek Turner

• High cost of deploying broadband e.g., Verizon FiOS costing $800 for pass and $700 for hookup
• Too much waste in USF could be better used for broadband

Christopher Yoo

• Difference between AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS
• FiOS caused downgrade in Verizon stock because of high cost, but they’ve turned Wall Street around
• AT&T spends less on U-verse, which needs prioritization of IPTV over Internet
• We don’t know which model is right
• How do we reach these high cost places
• Broadband is less of a “human right” than a job

Bret Swanson arrives late due to delayed flight

Derek Turner – Everyone should have high speeds broadband universal service

Christopher Yoo – Universal service is thorny

Richard Wiley – Do we really need 5, 10 Mbps if someone just wants to shop online

Bret Swanson – Don’t think one speed definition for broadband makes sense.  Wife accumulated 38 GB data, but took 4 days to backup at 1.2 Mbps upload, but fine speed for this application because it operated in the background.  Other applications may need more speed.  Need flexibility to match what people want to pay for bandwidth.

Christopher Yoo – Backing up files is a low priority event.  You can get away with slow bandwidth for low priority applications.  Usage caps for low priority traffic and non congestion inducing applications don’t make sense.  So minimum speed requirements are silly.

Robert Curtis – Too much focus on download speeds.  Latency and many other components are important.

Robert Wiley – Why do people not buy 25+ Mbps service when it’s available to them

Derek Turner – Higher prices for high bandwidth services makes sense

Robert Wiley – What’s incentive for ISPs to deploy higher capacity if consumers don’t want it in significant numbers

Bret Swanson – ISPs are already making bet that customers will come.  Important to have flexibility in technology and business models and finance

Christopher Yoo – Broadband is not demand- or supply-led.  We suspect video is the killer app.  My mother-in-law only uses email.  Why should she pay for the video upgrade?  Scavenger class will be better for P2P, because usage can be very cheap because it’s using idle capacity.

Richard Wiley – Can we build more advanced network as customers become more sophistocated

Robert Curtis – More services classes may not be practical

Derek Turner – Government should have role in making sure we have robust networks and bridging adoption gap.  Don’t believe ISPs will offer $5 or $10 broadband service

Christopher Yoo – Some DSL companies did offer sub $20 services which could cannibalize some of their high end services, but they should decide which model works for them.

Bret Swanson – Wireless will soon be able to fulfill basic services.

Richard Wiley – Do you think video is the killer app

Bret Swanson – Video already is and will continue to be a driver.  Number of killer apps in the video arena.  Cloud computing 2.0.  Super computer with 1000 graphics processors.  Need very low latency and high capacity.

Christopher Yoo – Most messages coming from wireless devices

Wiley – Does Net Neutrality deter investments

Derek Turner – My report at Free Press found that it didn’t deter investments (George Ou – The Free Press report was flawed)

Second panel just started

Talking about reasonable network management in the NPRM

Richard Wiley introducing panelists

• Richard Bennett (Research Fellow, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)
• Robb Topolski (Chief Technologist of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation)
• Dave Farber (Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at the School of Computer Science, Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University)
• Harold Feld (Legal Director of Public Knowledge)

Richard Bennett

• Started Net Neutrality debate in 2002 to address Lessig et al.
• Applications have different requirements.
• Most people use web browsing, but we’re going into world where apps are getting more diverse.
• DiffServ and IntServ hasn’t been implemented in Internet yet
• Scavenger service discussed in first panel
• We need users and applications to be able to tell the network its requirements, and network needs to price things correctly

Robb Topolski

• Found that Comcast was secretly using TCP reset on BitTorrent
• I am a technology explainer
• Network providers were focused on faster
• Net was neutral and routers were based on first in first out
• Neutral net days limited, ISPs want to monetize Internet with smarter in addition to faster
• Smarter net with out-of-order delivery is friendly towards some apps, but hostile to other apps (George Ou – There is a universally fair way to prioritize)

Dave Farber

• I was thesis adviser to some “fathers of the Internet”
• laying down simplistic rules on the first mile (access portion) is far too simplistic
• Some traffic goes across border, don’t know how FCC would regulate that
• IETF establishes default International standards
• Can’t see IETF before FCC asking “is this reasonable network management”
• Networking moving to pure optical and completely different protocol (other than TCP)
• Current college grads will see that transition
• In the past, some questions “why gigabit”.  Now we say “only a gigabit”?
• Putting federal rules on this will be catastrophic

Harold Feld

• No speech prepared
• Will respond to other panelists
• Cell phone congestion around 97 and 98, “all circuits busy”
• Possible to limit everyone to 10 minutes
• Could charge for premium “always available service”
• Because there was a regulatory scheme, you will be common carriers and you can’t tier like that
• Carriers were forced to invest in more infrastructure
• Now we’re looking for “flexibility” in data prioritization, but there’s no difference with cell phone
• NPRM is focused on last-mile
• Best effort network has served us well
• Comcast decision was classic network management problem
• Comcast knocked off top 1000 users regardless of congestion
• Comcast was required to management in more neutral fashion (George Ou: not true.  Comcast now prioritizes low bandwidth users OVER high bandwidth users)

Robb Topolski

• Internet has largely been dumb pipe
• Don’t believe priortization is pro-consumer because Comcast’s system had negative impact

Dave Farber

• Backbone Internet already prioritizes, so access regulation is less relevant since most communication is not local
• End-to-end QoS is very difficult, but it’s always been a goal because many applications need this capabilities e.g., remote video surgery

Harold feld

• Agrees with Dave Farber
• Telephony network focused on reliability
• Fast lanes on the Internet is anti-neutrality
• Local caching and private networks is non neutral
• But never allowed access provider to control priority for end user based on economic rents

Richard Bennett

• Most packet differentiation happens on the networks attached to the Internet (the network of networks)
• Since networks on the edges have packet differentiation capability, why prohibit it in the Internet itself

Robb Topolski

• Service operator should not discriminate between applications and shouldn’t be in business of application classification

Dave Farber

• Comcast did a stupid thing, but FCC never regulated stupid
• Current Comcast system is reasonable
• Prioritization should not be limited to just law enforcement
• Apps need to be prioritized to give customers what they ask for
• File backup doesn’t care about throughput or latency
• Voice does care about latency

Richard Bennett

• Question of managed services will become central debate in NPRM
• Managed services is known to consumers as “tripple play”
• It’s the revenue stream for next generation broadband
• Americans aren’t willing to pay a lot for Internet, but will pay for telephony and Internet
• Managed services need to be protected in order to invest
• Pro-regulators don’t want to allow price based priority differentiation on Internet data
• Internet data needs similar priortization to compete with managed services, but pro-regulators are getting themselves into trouble by banning this

Harold Feld

• In favor of user labeling their own priority
• (Wiley asks what happens if someone marks everything as high priority)
• Feld rants about off peak electricity, but does not answer Wiley’s question
• ISP shouldn’t make that choice
• (Wiley repeats question what happens if user abuses privileges)
• Feld dodges question and says “what’s the risk”

Robb Topolski

• Great to have user choice
• ISP shouldn’t use DPI
• Create quota for priority packets to limit abuse
• (George Ou – Agreed on user set priority with quotas, but what happens when most users don’t use this because they lack the will or knowhow.  But why ban the universally fair and sensible way of prioritizing low bandwidth applications over high bandwidth applications?  This is no different than Comcast’s current practice of prioritizing low bandwidth users over high bandwidth users)

Dave Farber

• FCC isn’t qualified to define reasonable network management
• FCC doesn’t attend IETF
• IETF is best for defining network management
• vague regulatory terms worry me because it creates life time jobs for lawyers
• (about half the room of lawyers take offense)
• Worried about FCC telling engineers what’s reasonable
• We have a mechanism (outside of new regulation that works) that works
• Non-discrimination rule is bad because we ALWAYS have discrimination e.g., ISP allowing Google to put in their edge caching servers
• Stupid acts like Comcast’s TCP reset system can be dealt with by FCC on case by case basis

Wiley – Given differences between wired and wireless, does it make sense to apply Net Neutrality to wireless?

Richard Bennett

• Wireless Net Neutrality drives me up the wall
• Wired has option to add bandwidth, though it’s not panacea that Robb suggests, but this is not available to wireless
• We want to deploy pipes that can be fully saturated
• Net Neutrality regulation would outlaw legal engineering solutions

Harold Feld

• Turns out iPhone was exclusive for economic and not technological reasons
• Apple app store based on economic decision

Richard Bennett

• Is Harold Feld declaring an iPhone a “human right”, and that iPhone must be forced to support CDMA in addition to GSM?
• Computers aren’t limited certain broadband providers (George Ou – not the same as a cell phone)

Dave Farber

• Lawyers and economists have their own language.
• Would be good if FCC got technology people in quiet room to develop some guidelines