We all have heard the Internet described as a “network of networks” but we generally give little thought to the remarkable logistics involved.  For the Internet to operate, thousands of networks – small and large, wireless and wireline, urban and rural, domestic and global – must establish arrangements to govern how they interconnect and exchange traffic.  While there are different types of providers (backbone, content delivery network (CDN), etc.) and different types of arrangements (settlement-free peering, paid transit) – see this White Paper for a good explanation – the key point is that these myriad of arrangements have developed over time, in the marketplace, without any legislative or regulatory intervention.  That the Internet works at all is amazing; that it works 24/7 to bring consumers content from around the world at lightning speed borders on the miraculous.

The FCC consistently has taken a “hands off” approach to these arrangements. It has not imposed any form of regulation on these arrangements, nor has it intervened in the periodic disputes that occur between backbone providers, like Level 3’s dispute with Cogent in 2005 – in which Level 3 insisted that Cogent pay a fee for transmitting content on Level 3’s network rather than peering on a settlement-free basis. Moreover, while the FCC has been considering net neutrality regulations for some time, it has never suggested that it was considering any change in the regulatory treatment of backbone and CDN providers. (Indeed, even the most fervent net neutrality advocates, like Free Press, have recognized the legitimacy of these commercial arrangements; see note 8 on pg. 17 in these comments).

So is there anything unusual about the dispute between Comcast and Level 3 that should cause the Commission to reassess its hands off approach to these types of arrangements?  No.  While some of the initial commentary, reacting solely to Level 3’s press statement, reflected a knee-jerk reaction that any dispute involving the Internet implicates net neutrality; as the day wore on, cooler heads seem to be prevailing, with most observers, including some net neutrality advocates, recognizing that this was nothing more than one party to a commercial negotiation trying to use the regulatory process to gain negotiating leverage (Also see this article from Multichannel News).

Nor can Level 3 credibly claim to be surprised by Comcast’s approach.  Comcast’s policy on settlement-free peering – including its expectation that any peering partner “maintain a traffic scale between its network and Comcast that enables a general balance of inbound versus outbound traffic” – is posted right on its website. When Level 3 approached Comcast and asked for a significant change in the parties’ physical interconnection arrangement, it should have fully expected that Comcast would seek a corresponding change in the parties’ business arrangement, consistent with the general practice across the industry.

Under the circumstances, Level 3’s plea for government intervention in this commercial negotiation is entirely unwarranted.

(You can also read coverage on the conference blog and at Barron’s Tech Trader Daily blog.)

Burke makes a good case for cable’s resilience in the face of the supposed looming threat of online video (See my post from last week). I particular enjoy the bit, during an exchange about “à la carte” offerings of service, when Burke gently chides Swisher for comparing the monthly price for Comcast’s video service to the daily price for the Wall Street Journal.

Here we go: Comcast launches DOCSIS 3.0 in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including such communities as Aberdeen, Spokane, Beaverton, and Eugene. The Extreme 50 tier offers download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Comcast will also double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers at no additional cost.

The company has a web page which allows you to check if wideband is available in your area or to sign up for e-mail updates when it is rolled out to you.

UPDATE: Media coverage.

• Comcast Rolls Wideband in the Pacific Northwest
• Comcast’s 50 Mbps service comes to OR, WA next month

In January, I wrote about Brian Roberts’ CES keynote, in which he talked about wideband.  In the spring, Comcast deployed DOCSIS 3.0 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. This week, Comcast deployed wideband service to residential homes and businesses in parts of New England, including the Boston Metropolitan region and Southern New Hampshire, as well as areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey. In addition to the new speed tiers, Comcast also is increasing speeds for most of its existing customers.

I walk though all this because many of the technology deployments we discuss on this blog are all part of a larger pattern. DOCSIS 3.0 uses channel bonding to join 6 MHz channels together to provide greater bandwidth. In order to free up channels to provide such services, cable operators have to manage their networks.That’s why you see analog channels moved to the digital tier, as I discussed again recently.

Comcast expects to reach more than 10 major markets and pass nearly 10 million homes and businesses in the next several months.

• Comcast Goes Wide With Wideband
• Comcast To Widen ‘Wideband’ To 10 Million Homes
• Comcast boosts speeds, holds prices: Twin Cities customers are the first in the nation to get the boost in high-speed Internet.
• Comcast Is Launching Its Wideband Modem Service
• Comcast broadens reach of DOCSIS 3.0, 50Mbps connections
• Comcast Takes ‘Wideband’ Wider
• Promoting tru2way TVs

What this means is that you can buy a tru2way TV set (initially offered in 42-inch class and 50-inch class sizes), get it set up on your Comcast service, and receive  two-way services without a set-top box.

Tru2way technology is being used to create a common software platform that will enable cable companies, consumer electronics companies, content developers, network programmers and others to extend interactivity to the TV set and other kinds of devices. The new Panasonic VIERA HDTVs are built with tru2way technology inside enabling consumers to access two-way digital cable programming, like video on demand, without a cable operator-supplied set-top box. Panasonic and Comcast have worked together to lead the development and deployment of tru2way technology and related products which are based upon specifications developed by CableLabs®, the industry’s research and development arm.

Comcast customers in the Chicago and Denver areas will be the first in the U.S. to have access to tru2way digital cable service with additional cities expected to go live in the coming months. The tru2way VIERA HDTVs will be available in the Chicago area at Abt Electronics in Glenview and at Circuit City locations and at Ultimate Electronics and Circuit City stores in the Denver area.

Let’s step back in time to January. I wrote about the launch of the tru2way brand and Panasonic & Comcast’s announcement of tru2way products. In May, I posted a video introduction to tru2way, shot at the CableNET exhibit during The Cable Show. in June, I posted about CableCARDs and tru2way and how those two technologies differ and overlap.

But suppose you can’t see it tonight. Or maybe you want to watch it over again tomorrow. Well, good news for Comcast cable subscribers. The three presidential debates, and the vice presidential debate, will be available On Demand, the day after their original broadcast. C-SPAN, Comcast Media Center and TVN Entertainment are teaming up to make the debates available to viewers. [I stand corrected. Other cable operators are also carrying the debates on Video on Demand as well. Check your local system.]

Comcast has already made On Demand programming available from the Democratic and Republican conventions, major speeches from the candidates and Spanish language content.

You may recall an earlier post on C-SPAN’s Convention Hub, which provided online coverage of the two conventions. Now they’ve launched Debate Hub, a one-stop shop for embeddable video of the debates, coverage from the blogosphere and a variety of other tools for broadband subscribers.

Features include:

• Embeddable video of all debates in their entirety from the C-SPAN Video Library. Users can edit, share and post this video on their own websites.
• Interactive timelines that allow users to watch the debate or read the transcript question-by-question and candidate-by-candidate.
• Word trees that give visual representations of the language used by each candidate throughout the debates.
• Aggregated blog and Twitter coverage of the debates, enabling users to follow the latest online debate news and analysis.
• Debate Cam, providing live streaming video from multiple locations including the debate hall, media filing center, protest area and on-campus debate watch parties.

And while it has nothing to do with cable, I have to give a shout-out to Twitter’s new Election 2008 portal, which allows you see tweets flowing by in real time.

…the real question for today’s broadband networks is not whether they need to be managed, but rather how.

We couldn’t agree more, since I’ve expressed that same sentiment once or twice or thrice. Network managers know that networks need to be managed. Cerf even explained why:

Network capacity (bits per second or data rate) is a limiting factor in all communications networks. Users cannot send traffic faster than the amount of network capacity available to them. But when users’ aggregate demand exceeds the available capacity of the network, network operators naturally seek to manage the traffic loads… The end result is the potential for traffic congestion, leading to service delays and even outages for consumers.

Cerf then goes on to discuss various methods, such as transmission rate caps, low latency prioritization and bandwidth constraints, but they’re all based on that phrase: “…not whether [networks] need to be managed, but rather how.” [Emphasis added.] I take great interest in these remarks, because I’ve been following his arguments over the last couple years.

For example, back on June 13 of 2006, he appeared on Public Radio’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show. You can find that episode online; if you skip ahead to about 23 minutes in, you can hear Cerf speak of net neutrality for a few minutes. At that time, he argued that innovation will be stifled and users will not be able to freely access content unless the Internet is kept “open and neutral.” He said that the government may need to provide protection. Two years later, it’s unclear what innovation was stifled.

By October of 2007, Cerf was speaking of other concerns, such as at his address at the WebbyConnect conference, which I attended. He said in his speech that “net neutrality” as a phrase has been distorted and that he would clarify what Google was asking for.

• It’s okay to charge for higher capacity.
• It’s okay to address denial of service attacks, viruses and so on.
• It’s okay to provide low latency services.
• As long as all of these practices are done in a non-discriminatory fashion.

Even at this point, Cerf was arguing that network management was necessary, but he had his opinion about what methods ought to be used.  That approach is much better than comments (like this one) that argue that the “management” argument is a scare tactic. There are those who would claim we should just build a bigger pipe. But then you read this quote from a Singapore ISP executive: “Even buying more bandwidth will not work since stuff like BitTorrent is designed to gobble whatever extra bandwidth we buy.”

Cerf specifically mentions that conversations with Comcast engineers have led him to a better understanding of the underlying motivation and rationale for that company’s network management decisions. As we often see, when people examine the capacity constraints we face and the unique challenges of running cable systems, it can contribute to the conversation.

Now that Cerf has confirmed that network management is a fact and a necessity, we can begin to have the broader dialogue about the network management that needs to take place. Cerf argues the “how” of network management is the important piece of the puzzle, but I would suggest the “who” is even more critical – as in, “Who decides what network management practices are reasonable?”

Cerf argues that government should. I think that is the wrong approach. I think it makes more sense for engineers and companies to make those decisions, not government bureaucrats. Those decisions should be based on what methods of network management might be most efficient and which ones would provide the best experience for the largest number of their customers. They should not be based on the dreams and schemes of politicians.

I recently heard one of these people describe network congestion as akin to a mail truck being full. This kind of talk makes my head hurt.

I shudder to think of the regulations that would be dreamed up by the US Department of Network Management.

• Richard Bennet of Broadband Politics: A sad day for the Internet
• Randolph J. May of the Free State Foundation: Hard Cases Make Bad Law: On Regulatory Bits and Torrents–Part II
• Barbara Esbin of The Progress & Freedom Foundation: Legally and Procedurally Suspect and Misguided as a Matter of Policy
• Scott Cleland of The Precursor Blog: Takeaways from FCC Decision on Reasonable Network Management
• Cynthia Brumfield at IP Democracy: FCC’s Copps: Apply Net Neutrality Principles to Wireless Carriers
• Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM: FCC Punts on Network Neutrality
• Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica: Reactions to FCC’s Comcast decision come fast and furious
• Drew Clark at Broadband Census: FCC Hammers Comcast For Deception and Unreasonable Internet Practices

UPDATE: Will Richmond at VideoNuze: The FCC’s Comcast Sanction: More Problems, Fewer Solutions Ahead

In response, the NCTA  has released the following statement from Kyle McSlarrow, our President & CEO:

“One need look no further than today’s FCC decision for proof that engineering challenges on the Internet should be solved by engineers, not government officials. In second-guessing reasonable network management techniques (with no notice or guidelines in place) that benefit the overwhelming number of broadband subscribers in America, the FCC has inexplicably elevated the interests of a few bandwidth hogs over everyone else.”

As we further digest the decision, we will be following the reaction from others in the telecom policy sphere and will comment further and share what others are  saying.

As I wrote just last week, it’s critical that we can all agree with the principle that “some kind of network management is necessary to ensure a quality experience for our customers.” Once we get past that concept, we can discuss and debate what’s the best way to achieve the goal of a quality Internet experience, but we can hopefully also agree that the government is not the best body to make these decisions.

In this morning’s Washington Post, FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell poses the question: Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis? He outlines past network challenges and describes how “engineers, academics, software developers, Web infrastructure builders and others” came together to find solutions. He then answers his own question.

The Internet has flourished because it has operated under the principle that engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.

P2P apps present particular challenges for network managers, as McDowell acknowledges, and just building bigger pipes doesn’t fix the problem. That’s not to say that this challenge (and others) can’t be addressed. McDowell points out that we need to avoid creating a bigger problem.

Our Internet economy is the strongest in the world. It got that way not by government fiat but because interested parties worked together toward a common goal. As a worldwide network of networks, the Internet is the ultimate “wiki” environment — one that we all share, build, pay for and shape. Millions endeavor each day to keep it open and free. Since its early days as a government creation, it has migrated away from government regulation.

If we choose regulation over collaboration, we will be setting a precedent by thrusting politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions.