Comments on: CTIA and Public Knowledge Debate on Net Neutrality

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:38:32 +0000

I have never had the problems as you mention near Moscone Center when in Europe. It’s like all the “bars” are painted on the phone, calls don’t get dropped, etc. This leads me to think a lot of the problem is that the US operators like AT&T just haven’t make the same kind of investment in infrastructure as the European operators. It’s not a problem with radio spectrum in as much as it can be solved by using a smaller cell sizes. If the cell size is too large for the number of active customers in it, then there will be problems. People know how to solve this problem. It doesn’t need additional radio spectrum. Just more radios.

I think the underlying question regarding “network neutrality” is should an operator be able to give preference to services it make more money on than lower revenue services. Should, for example, Comcast now that it is buying NBC, give better service to NBC shows than an other content provider. Can they use their monopoly position to squeeze out the competition?

The stakes in this debate are significant. One of the bad outcomes will be that there won’t be one Internet. An end customer will have to subscribe to multiple providers to get all content. IMHO, this is what will happen if we don’t have some reasonable regulations in place. Given the pubic statements from providers like AT&T, I don’t trust them to do the right thing. They seem to consistently saying they will do what everyone fears.

By: PhoneBoy

PhoneBoy — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:43:47 +0000

Backhaul is a problem, @tom, but it is far from the only problem. What you describe is something similar to what I’m told MetroPCS is doing: deploying a lot of smaller towers in neighborhoods.

@Aaron it’s not just about QoS. It’s the fact that by nature of what the operators already do (prioritize their own non-IP voice traffic over all data), they potentially run astray of net neutrality rules.

By: Aaron Huslage

Aaron Huslage — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:59:45 +0000

It appears that you might have colluded QoS with other Net Neutrality provisions. Last I worked on this issue, a couple of years ago, it was completely allowable for an operator to prioritize voice traffic over other traffic (standard QoS). It was not, however, allowable for that provider to prioritize voice traffic to/from any one provider (including themselves) and not any other. QoS remained a service differentiator, but one provider was not able to discriminate based on source/destination of the packets.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:04:41 +0000

most of what i have been reading lately is actually saying that it is the back-haul connections between the towers that are limiting the capacity not the radio interface. i often read reports that cell towers in major cities are connected via 1.5 mbps t1 lines. at least for right now faster back haul links should be a priority over spectrum increases.

as far as the long term answer we need lots of very small low power cell all over the place. lately i read a lot about a future where things roam seamlessly between 3g/4g and private funded wifi spots in homes. i do not see this a viable in the long term. as the masses subscribe to mobile broadband they will be expected to be able to cut off there home connections. i think what is needed(and will eventually prevail) is something i used read a lot about but never see written anymore. we need radio transceiver on every lamppost(or on many of them) that are controlled by the carriers not individual users. as the world cuts out its land line phones perhaps much of that wiring can be reused to light up very small hot spots outside of peoples houses. it does not really matter if the technology is wifi or 3g/4g as long as the users do not know the difference. they just want phones, devices, and laptops that work every place they go.