interconnection – Wetmachine

Economist/NYT opinion writer Paul Krugman coined the term “Zombie idea” to describe an idea that, despite being repeatedly refuted with evidence, keeps coming back. Not surprisingly, zombie ideas typically have powerful constituencies that benefit from the adoption of the zombie idea they push, and who invest a great deal of money and energy continuing to resurrect the idea each time it gets killed.

This Halloween brings us the return of the “content companies should pay money to last mile networks because they use more resources” idea. I first explained why this was a dumb idea back in 2006, after then-AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre explained that he wasn’t going to let companies with content his subscribers actually wanted “use his pipes for free,” Despite lots of reasons why this is a Dumb Idea that would end up seriously reorganizing the internet economy for the worse, you find carriers around the world reviving it because $$$. This is particularly true outside the U.S., where the argument also gets caught up in debates about American dominance of internet content and popular culture. There is a separate U.S. flavor, supported by folks like Brendan Carr, about charging “big tech” to build out broadband infrastructure, which I’ve also previously criticized. But the non-US flavor has been gaining traction as a function of the “Techlash” and therefore needs some in depth discussion — especially since we can actually see the predicted bad consequences play out in real time in South Korea.

Back in 2016, South Korea adopted a new interconnection rule based on a long-standing telco compensation rule called “sending party network pays” (SPNP). As I’ll explain in detail below, SPNP has deep roots in the whacky world of telecom “settlement” (the fancy word for who pays whom in international calling) how networks compensated each other for exchanging traffic. Those opposed to adopting this approach predicted (based on about 100 years of history) that it would prove impossible to enforce without super intrusive government oversight and would introduce severe latency into S. Korea’s networks as the “sending networks” (such as Netflix, but also gaming companies and others with high resolution visual content) routed traffic in clever ways to avoid paying significant charges. To the surprise of no one except the advocates for the proposal, the predicted badness happened. The cost of transit skyrocketed, latency dramatically increased, and the Korean government keeps needing to consider new and more intrusive ways to (a) stop companies from avoiding the fees to ISPs while (b) trying to target foreign content providers while protecting domestic uses they like — such as video chat and video games.

Despite this real world example, and an impressive array of folks explaining in detail why they totally hate this stupid idea, important folks in the European Council (egged on by the EU telcos) continue to think this is a Totally Awesome Idea. So I will explain how we got here, what traditional “sending network party pays” actually means, why this ain’t it, but even setting that aside, why what happened in S. Korea shows this is a Really Dumb Idea.

More below . . . .

At the press conference following the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) March 31 Open Meeting, Chairman Tom Wheeler made the following observation:

“Interconnection is part of the Network Compact.” Peering “is just a $3.50 word for interconnection.”

Wheeler followed up this statement by explaining that there was a difference between “network neutrality” and the “open internet” on one hand and “interconnection” as the ‘path to the Internet’ on the other hand. While government has a critical role in monitoring peering/interconnection to protect the values of the Network Compact, it isn’t a network neutrality issue. You can see Wheeler’s full statement here (Start at 144:45 – 147:23 has unrelated stuff in middle) (transcript here).

After the meeting, the FCC released a separate statement that they really mean it when they say that they aren’t going to do peering as part of the Net Neutrality rules. While Brendan Sasso at National Journal gets points for noticing that “the FCC could decide to enact separate regulations on the issue or force Comcast to accept new rules in order to receive permission to buy Time Warner Cable,” most folks I’ve read in the press have broadly interpreted this as indicating the FCC will not look into the Comcast/Netflix dispute or complaints by Cogent and Level 3 about large edge-providers squeezing them for higher interconnection fees.

Personally, I think most people are totally misreading this. Wheeler’s statements make it look more likely to me that the FCC will start looking closely at the Internet peering market, not less likely, especially as part of the Comcast/TWC deal. Indeed, Comcast’s Chief Lobbyist David Cohen, who ranks in my book as one of the absolutely smartest and most effective telecom lobbyists ever, has already started backing away from earlier statements that regulators would ignore peering issues and that he expects them to look at the Comcast/Netflix deal. (Unsurprisingly, Cohen also said he expects regulators to find no problems with the deal and called Netflix CEO Reed Hasting’s arguments that this eviscerated net neutrality “hogwash.”)

Below, I will rant at considerable length that (a) Wheeler is right, this is not a “network neutrality” issue, but the same goddam interconnection issue that we have struggled with for more than a hundred years in every networked industry from railroads to electricity to broadband; (b) The FCC needs to actually look at this and study it and understand how the market works before it makes any decisions on what to do; and, (c) While Wheeler is not saying in any way, shape or form he actually plans to do anything before he has real information on which to base a decision, he is signaling — for anyone actually paying attention — that he is, in fact, going to actually look at this as part of his overall transition of the agency around his “Fourth Network Revolution” and “Network Compact” ideas.

While this last would seem pretty basic and obvious, it represents a significant change in policy from the previous insistence that IP magic pixie dust obscures all things Internet and makes them invisible to the FCC. Whether I agree with what Wheeler ultimately does or not — and I have no idea what he might ultimately do here, he could decide the market is competitive and working just fine — I don’t believe Wheeler is going to go around with his eyes and ears covered blathering about the magic nature of the Internet. I think Wheeler is actually going to check under the hood and see what actually makes the damn thing tick — and Comcast is just the company to help him do it.

Much ranting below . . .

Tag: interconnection

S. Korea “Sender Pays” Is a Warning, Not a Model, or Why (Almost) Everyone Keeps Telling the EU This Is a VERY Bad Idea.

My Insanely Long Field Guide To Understanding FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Statement On Peering.