Net Neutrality is the enemy of VoIP and gaming
VoIP news published “15 of the Greatest Enemies of Net Neutrality“, but something is amiss because the Net Neutrality rules from the FCC’s NPRM as it currently stands would actually hurt real-time applications like VoIP or online gaming. The current NPRM draft does not allow any prioritization in favor or or against particular applications (although it is asking for public comments if this is right), but this is wrong because there is a universally fair way to prioritize applications by always giving low-bandwidth applications higher priority than high-bandwidth applications.
Since gaming and VoIP are always low bandwidth, they should always get higher priority so that it isn’t negatively impacted by jitter from other applications. This is no different from the FCC permitting Comcast’s “Fair Share” system which gives higher priority to low bandwidth subscribers over high bandwidth subscribers which has been approved by the FCC.
Yet the currently proposed Net Neutrality regulations would not permit this common sense approach to network management which is why two of the founders of the Internet oppose these regulations. The inventor of the Internet Dr. Robert Kahn and the “father of networking” David Farber deserve better than being vilified like this because they clearly understand the dangers of heavy handed regulation, and they clearly understand the issues better than those who would vilify them.
I believe there is a need to pull back a step and ensure the data transport characteristics of the connectivity we are purchasing is fully described. This includes the planning rules for service we are buying. Peak hour bandwidth allocations and the underlying loss and delay charactisterics at various load levels. Identifying the load level where loss and delay characteritics become unpredictable is critical. Even the strict adherents of end to end philosophy need to know how hard they can load their connectivity before it starts to fail.
Fundamentally the labelling ought to identify what our connectivity was engineered to achieve. None does. Once this level of transparency is available, we can move on to how users choose to use their bandwidth and available quality by deciding what services to consume.
It is possible to slice and dice the available bandwidth and quality amongst your applications in a dynamic way to deliver assured outcomes. It is matter who does it, how easy is it to do, and how easy to change, when your trying new SIp devices or applications.
Your suggestion of standardising budgets (bandwidth and quality)for applications is pragmatic for affordable packages, but irritating and limiting if you wish to switch a VOIP supplier or change your conferencing or VPN around. Even for affordable packages and I am thinking poor families, as the kids grow, the mix and source of educational content changes or you elderly relatives need support remotely, it is even more important that the limited bandwidth and quality is not tied to a particular service set, but can be changed.
This conversation has some way to go as it is only when we get full transparcny of the data transport, can we know its full potential.
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