[ih] Internet/Wireless Principle of Levelness

[Jack Haverty]

I hadn't thought of that but it's quite possible.  Good observation.  To
us Users, the Internet is just a big mysterious black box with no one in
charge.  

That "gaming app" was actually a scheme for operating radios from across
the 'net during amateur radio contests.  That probably appears to
network operators as minor miscellaneous traffic of unknown purpose.   I
characterize it as "gaming" because it has similar traffic
characteristics.   We never could figure out if the apps tried to use
any of the obscure "knobs" of the Internet, like TOS settings in packet
headers, or whether or not such settings would make any difference in
how the packets were actually handled.

I suppose it's possible that the big real Gaming app operators pay the
network operators to give their traffic the appropriate service.  So
packets recognized by the operators as some kind of preferred customer
would get different treatment from my friend's packets.

I've wondered how the politicians expected violations of Net Neutrality
law to be detected and investigated.   Who can tell that their packets
are getting any different treatment...?   What tools could the cops use
to figure out what was happening...?  

Makes we wonder if there ever was Net Neutrality at all in the actual
operating Internet.

The original ARPANET days and NOC keep coming to mind.  Network
management extended all the way to the ends at the users, e.g., with
things like the machine in the NOC that continuously dialed TIP ports
all over the country to see if they were working.   It seems like nobody
in today's operators takes an end-user service responsibility.

After 40 years, I'm curious whether that "routers built by anyone"
directive and resultant mechanisms starting with EGP were a Good Idea,
or a Horrible one....

/Jack


On 11/11/19 12:51 PM, James J Dempsey wrote:
> [ this is not sent to internet-history ]
>
> internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org wrote:
>
>> My friend tried complaining to his ISPs' tech support, but they all said
>> their service was working fine.? Perhaps that is a consequence of the
>> "Levelness" that now makes Users' applications involve many different
>> service and equipment providers?
>>
>> Is this latency how Users now see the effects of those "deep buffers"???
>> Why would providers require a feature that makes their customers
>> unhappy.....?
> I speculate that one of the reasons this might be happening is the demise of
> net neutrality.
>
> An ISP lets packets from Netflix, HBO though because Netflix and HBO have
> been extorted into paying the ISP to let their packets through unmolested.
>
> An ISP sees "random game port" traffic, does deep packet inspection on it
> and can't determine what it is, so throws it in the "random traffic that
> hasn't paid the tax" which might be the same as "someone trying to trick us
> by hiding the nature of their traffic".  Some news articles call this the
> "internet slow lane."
>
> Of course, by "ISP", I might mean any carrier along the path, though the end
> user's ISP is the most likely place this would happen.
>
> When I see pixelization from some big provider like Netflix, I assume that
> their back end servers are getting overloaded.
>
> Just random thoughts,
>
> --Jim--