Subject: [Tsvwg] Re: terminology issues in draft-floyd-tsvwg-besteffort - flat monthly pricing

From: Bob Briscoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:26:02 +0100

Sally,

I just realised that I should have added a very important point about "who 
controls the choice" to the rather philosophical response below.

I'm trying to make sure we at the IETF don't have to decide whether the 
Internet more favours rich people, malicious people or selfish people. I'm 
trying to make it so what you think or what I think about this doesn't 
matter (at least any more than what everyone else in the world thinks).

Firstly, what I'm proposing would sit alongside the current Internet 
(re-ECN packets are distinguishable from non-re-ECN packets, so they 
effectively partition all traffic orthogonally to Diffserv).

Secondly, one partition would be the current Internet, with all its 
vulnerabilites to selfish and malicious users as well as all its strengths. 
The other partition would be this new proposal where the market and social 
governance can control the way the Internet shares out resources.

At a grander level, the choice of how much resource each of the two 
partitions gets would be under the direct control of ISPs, but in turn 
their choices are also affected by the market and perhaps by social control 
through government regulation.

I know this fits your preferred model of how new resource allocation 
strategies should be added to the Internet. The question is whether it is 
sufficiently important to use IP header space to provide this choice. We 
don't need to decide that now, but we do need to debate it widely - more 
widely than tsvwg.

Bob

At 18:16 24/07/2007, Sally Floyd wrote:
>>3/ User pricing: Flat monthly (in our simplest effective proposal).
>>
>>Please don't imply we're advocating user congestion pricing, given the 
>>whole reason we brought re-ECN to the IETF back in 2005 was because we 
>>found a way to limit congestion without constraining how operators price 
>>their services to their customers. Specifically, re-ECN is designed to 
>>work with flat monthly pricing.
>
>This draft is not about re-ECN.  It is about the usefulness of
>"simple best-effort traffic", and the usefulness of flow-rate fairness
>for simple best-effort traffic.
>
>This draft is not about the presence or absence of flat monthly
>pricing for users.  One could have flat monthly pricing with no
>other limitations, one could have flat monthly pricing with volume
>limits, or one could have flat monthly pricing with some form of
>"you get what you pay for".  The first two forms don't result in
>"rich" users getting all of the bandwidth in times of high congestion
>(e.g., after the earthquake).  The third form easily could.  E.g.,
>if all of the traffic was "you get what you pay for", even with
>flat monthly fees, then it could be really expensive to send packets
>in the time interval after the earthquake, or some other highly-congested
>period, and only the rich would be able to send packets.  I would
>be opposed to setting such a "you get what you pay for" goal as the
>overriding goal for the global Internet, with or without flat monthly
>fees.

I know. It's distasteful to me to (I am a life-long socialist). But the 
alternatives are worse. I have thought about this long and hard.

On the demand side: If the rich don't get to be able to buy the right to 
use capacity, the alternative is that the malicious and selfish get to 
drive out those trying to be sociable in their use of the Internet. And 
that's for always, not just during earthquakes. Also, the lack of any 
resource sharing arbitration will lead to a vacuum that will be filled by 
the rich and powerful (which is what deep packet inspection represents - 
those with power and influence controlling what can and can't be done on 
the Internet).

On the supply side: The malicious and selfish will use the Internet 
excessively, but not pay their share, so there won't be sufficient 
incentives for anyone to invest in more capacity for those of us who want 
to use the Internet responsibly.

In summary, a knee-jerk reaction against a market mechanism needs to be 
tempered by the thought of what will otherwise fill the vacuum - the lesson 
of the Soviet Union?

However, you will notice in my draft on fairness (and in my design of 
re-ECN) that I have been careful to enable more equitable resource 
allocation schemes locally. This can give _true_ equality, whereas flow 
rate equality is just a license for the selfish and malicious to take what 
they want.

Overall, I put my hands up and admit it: we don't have a better system for 
allocating resources on planet scale than a market. I wish we did. We do 
have better resource sharing capabilities locally though, and I want to 
enable them.

Bob

>- Sally
>http://www.icir.org/floyd/

____________________________________________________________________________
Notice: This contribution is the personal view of the author and does not 
necessarily reflect the technical nor commercial direction of BT plc.
____________________________________________________________________________
Bob Briscoe,                           Networks Research Centre, BT Research
B54/77 Adastral Park,Martlesham Heath,Ipswich,IP5 3RE,UK.    +44 1473 645196

---

From: dimitri papadimitriou <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 05:22:42 +0200

bob

you wrote:

"so there won't be sufficient incentives for anyone to invest in more 
capacity for those of us who want to use the Internet responsibly."

this might be indeed a concern

but as shorter life socialist ;-) i do also strongly believe that before 
discussing the solution space we should first within the IETF community 
at large come with a good, clear, and common understanding whether this 
is a concern or not, if this is the case how important & urgent it might 
be, have better understanding about of some of the root causes, etc.

-d.

Bob Briscoe wrote:
> Sally,
> 
> I just realised that I should have added a very important point about 
> "who controls the choice" to the rather philosophical response below.
> 
> Internet more favours rich people, malicious people or selfish people. 
> I'm trying to make it so what you think or what I think about this 
> doesn't matter (at least any more than what everyone else in the world 
> thinks).
> 
> vulnerabilites to selfish and malicious users as well as all its 
> strengths. The other partition would be this new proposal where the 
> market and social governance can control the way the Internet shares out 
> resources.
> 
> their choices are also affected by the market and perhaps by social 
> control through government regulation.
> 
> strategies should be added to the Internet. The question is whether it 
> is sufficiently important to use IP header space to provide this choice. 
> We don't need to decide that now, but we do need to debate it widely - 
> more widely than tsvwg.
> 
> 
> Bob
> 
>>> Please don't imply we're advocating user congestion pricing, given 
>>> the whole reason we brought re-ECN to the IETF back in 2005 was 
>>> because we found a way to limit congestion without constraining how 
>>> operators price their services to their customers. Specifically, 
>>> re-ECN is designed to work with flat monthly pricing.
>>
> resource sharing arbitration will lead to a vacuum that will be filled 
> by the rich and powerful (which is what deep packet inspection 
> represents - those with power and influence controlling what can and 
> can't be done on the Internet).
> 
> incentives for anyone to invest in more capacity for those of us who 
> want to use the Internet responsibly.
> 
> tempered by the thought of what will otherwise fill the vacuum - the 
> lesson of the Soviet Union?
> 
> rate equality is just a license for the selfish and malicious to take 
> what they want.
> 
> Overall, I put my hands up and admit it: we don't have a better system 
> for allocating resources on planet scale than a market. I wish we did. 
> We do have better resource sharing capabilities locally though, and I 
> want to enable them.
> 
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
>> - Sally
> Notice: This contribution is the personal view of the author and does 
> not necessarily reflect the technical nor commercial direction of BT plc.
> .

---

From: Bob Briscoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:31:43 +0100

Dimitri,

At 04:22 27/07/2007, dimitri papadimitriou wrote:
>discussing the solution space we should first within the IETF community at 
>large come with a good, clear, and common understanding whether this is a 
>concern or not, if this is the case how important & urgent it might be, 
>have better understanding about of some of the root causes, etc.

I've been working in non-IETF fora where that issue has been debated for 
some years. That would be difficult for the IETF to do. It's difficult for 
economists to come to any conclusion on that issue. Partly because it gets 
convolved with monopoly issues in access networks.

But in my view, the problem is a lot more basic - in the current Internet 
architecture there isn't even the basics of a mechanism to support resource 
allocation: accountability. That sounds like billing, but that's not what I 
mean. I mean being able to attribute a cost to a user or network 
(irrespective of what you do with the information).

It would be equivalent to a supermarket not being able to tell who had 
taken stuff off the shelves. I think most economists would agree that lack 
of accountability removes most incentives to invest if demand doesn't 
easily satiate (e.g. a provider has the incentive to keep investing in 
supplying all-you-can-eat buffet to people with limited stomach capacity, 
but if faced with a range of customers with huge stomachs, they tend to 
find other ways to limit demand - e.g. one plate each).

Bob

>>doesn't matter (at least any more than what everyone else in the world thinks).
>>>>found a way to limit congestion without constraining how operators 
>>>>price their services to their customers. Specifically, re-ECN is 
>>>>designed to work with flat monthly pricing.
>>>
>>for allocating resources on planet scale than a market. I wish we did. We 
>>do have better resource sharing capabilities locally though, and I want 
>>to enable them.
>>
>>Bob
>>
>>>- Sally
>Bob Briscoe, <[email-masked]>      Networks Research Centre, BT Research

---

From: dimitri papadimitriou <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:46:20 +0200

bob,

see in-line

>> but as shorter life socialist ;-) i do also strongly believe that 
>> before discussing the solution space we should first within the IETF 
>> community at large come with a good, clear, and common understanding 
>> whether this is a concern or not, if this is the case how important & 
>> urgent it might be, have better understanding about of some of the 
>> root causes, etc.
> 
> some years. That would be difficult for the IETF to do. It's difficult 
> for economists to come to any conclusion on that issue. Partly because 
> it gets convolved with monopoly issues in access networks.

since you are trying to address a non technical problem with a technical 
solution, there is a need for:
- determining whether this is a concern that the ietf is willing to
   address
- understanding root causes and effects and how penalizing they are
- the impact of the various mechanisms that could be put in place to
   solve the issue(s)
- whether the proposed solution really solves the problem for which they
   have been defined (reliability) and whether the cure is not worse
   than the disease itself (side effects)

all these point deserve imho a much better documentation that what's 
available and necessary in order to progress such effort

> But in my view, the problem is a lot more basic - in the current 
> Internet architecture there isn't even the basics of a mechanism to 
> support resource allocation: accountability. That sounds like billing, 
> but that's not what I mean. I mean being able to attribute a cost to a 
> user or network (irrespective of what you do with the information).

per rfc 2828, accountability is the property of a system or a service
(including all of its system resources) that ensures that the actions of
a system entity may be traced uniquely to that entity, so that it can be
held responsible for its actions.

in the present case, i think you are referring to the process where
users would be accountable for the openly accessible internet resources
they are making use of

the main technical point is fairness rules & enforcement on responsible 
internet's resources usage (outside of any market,business or economical 
pressure)

> taken stuff off the shelves. I think most economists would agree that 
> lack of accountability removes most incentives to invest if demand 
> doesn't easily satiate (e.g. a provider has the incentive to keep 
> investing in supplying all-you-can-eat buffet to people with limited 
> stomach capacity, but if faced with a range of customers with huge 
> stomachs, they tend to find other ways to limit demand - e.g. one plate 
> each).

hence, your concern is to limit the demand for economical reasons

mine, is to avoid starvation that could result if too big stomachs are 
present at the same time for societal reasons

hence, you see that one may have multitude of causes, different 
motivations, multiple approaches to the problem and a set of resulting 
solutions, all these points deserve much better analysis in my opinion

-d.

>>> I'm trying to make sure we at the IETF don't have to decide whether 
>>> the Internet more favours rich people, malicious people or selfish 
>>> people. I'm trying to make it so what you think or what I think about 
>>> this doesn't matter (at least any more than what everyone else in the 
>>> world thinks).
>>> market and social governance can control the way the Internet shares 
>>> out resources.
>>> partitions gets would be under the direct control of ISPs, but in 
>>> turn their choices are also affected by the market and perhaps by 
>>> social control through government regulation.
>>> strategies should be added to the Internet. The question is whether 
>>> it is sufficiently important to use IP header space to provide this 
>>> choice. We don't need to decide that now, but we do need to debate it 
>>> widely - more widely than tsvwg.
>>>
>>> Bob
>>> I know. It's distasteful to me to (I am a life-long socialist). But 
>>> the alternatives are worse. I have thought about this long and hard.
>>> On the demand side: If the rich don't get to be able to buy the right 
>>> to use capacity, the alternative is that the malicious and selfish 
>>> get to drive out those trying to be sociable in their use of the 
>>> Internet. And that's for always, not just during earthquakes. Also, 
>>> the lack of any resource sharing arbitration will lead to a vacuum 
>>> that will be filled by the rich and powerful (which is what deep 
>>> packet inspection represents - those with power and influence 
>>> controlling what can and can't be done on the Internet).
>>> In summary, a knee-jerk reaction against a market mechanism needs to 
>>> be tempered by the thought of what will otherwise fill the vacuum - 
>>> the lesson of the Soviet Union?
>>> allocation schemes locally. This can give _true_ equality, whereas 
>>> flow rate equality is just a license for the selfish and malicious to 
>>> take what they want.
>>> Overall, I put my hands up and admit it: we don't have a better 
>>> system for allocating resources on planet scale than a market. I wish 
>>> we did. We do have better resource sharing capabilities locally 
>>> though, and I want to enable them.
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>>> - Sally

---

From: Bob Briscoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 04:09:59 +0100

Dimitri,

At 09:46 31/07/2007, dimitri papadimitriou wrote:
>>for economists to come to any conclusion on that issue. Partly because it 
>>gets convolved with monopoly issues in access networks.
>

I agree. Many people have now clocked that there is probably a big problem 
here, but no-one (including me) has really quantified the problem, or the 
likely impact of the proposed solution (tho I have tried to _characterise_ 
the likely impact of my proposed solution in terms of how I expect the 
Internet might evolve).

I have an idea how to create a model to comapre the Internet with and 
without, and I've started a new research activity here in BT to quantify 
the problem at least by delivering a model and allowing people to see what 
the impact would be if they plug in assumptions that they believe are valid.

But, as the guy at this URL says:
<http://paperpicker.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/dismantling-a-religion-is-tcp-wrong/>
"It would be nice to see a simulation illustrating the difference, but that 
does not have to be Briscoe's job, of course. It is the networking research 
community who should react."

>>architecture there isn't even the basics of a mechanism to support 
>>resource allocation: accountability. That sounds like billing, but that's 
>>not what I mean. I mean being able to attribute a cost to a user or 
>>network (irrespective of what you do with the information).
>

Yes. The solution I have proposed actually makes a leap here - it moves 
information about the effect of the entity's action towards the entity, 
rather than identifying the entity where its effect is felt.

>users would be accountable for the openly accessible internet resources

Exactly

>internet's resources usage (outside of any market,business or economical 

That's not really the main technical point, which as you rightly point out 
is primarily about accountability. Fairness enforcement and better fairness 
are likely outcomes of accountability. They are secondary effects, that I 
predict will happen because of the invisible hand of economics - if we only 
had accountability. IOW, my tract on fairness was my attempt to answer your 
third bullet - on what impact there will be from introducing accountability.

>>stomachs, they tend to find other ways to limit demand - e.g. one plate each).
>

That's not a good characterisation. My concern is to ensure either demand 
shrinks or supply grows - whichever users want. I certainly don't want to 
limit demand if it is true demand (rather than just desire or whim).

>present at the same time for societal reasons

I would share with your concern (and Sally's) if I was proposing congestion 
pricing to end-users. But I don't believe congestion pricing will be common 
at all. I've proposed bulk per-user token bucket policers 
<draft-briscoe-tsvwg-re-ecn-04.txt>, which prevent small stomachs being 
starved except for short periods. I've also shown (in a paper on the likely 
impact on DDoS) why ISPs are likely to offer only token bucket policers to 
their users (which would tend to rule out starvation).
"Using Self-interest to Prevent Malice;
Fixing the Denial of Service Flaw of the Internet"
<http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/B.Briscoe/projects/refb/#refb_dplinc>
It is an early workshop-style paper that outlines what we expect a more 
rigorous model would look like (ie it doesn't yet meet your requirement for 
more rigor). And I'm the first to admit, no-one can really predict how such 
subtle distinctions will play out.

All I can say is that each society will be able to control the outcome if 
it chooses to: ruling out starvation is possible with the technology I have 
proposed - but I don't believe such policy choices should be embedded in 
the technology that the IETF gives to the world. No matter how strongly 
some of us believe that starvation is wrong.

>solutions, all these points deserve much better analysis in my opinion

Of course. For many years now I've been working as hard as I can, but 
there's a limit to how much we can do - only a few of us have been rowing 
this boat. I hope I have brought it sufficiently to everyone's attention 
that a larger part of the research community will focus on the better 
analysis you'd like.

However, I believe TCP's lack of attention to flow durations alone is 
sufficient grounds for the IETF to be greatly concerned about the current 
resource control approach. We all already know the long-tailed distribution 
of flow durations, so we can all imagine just how bad resource allocations 
are going to be that don't take duration into account.

Bob