[PLUG-TALK] EFF on Google Fiber policy

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Tue Aug 13 22:01:46 UTC 2013


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 03:52:20PM -0700, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> Seems they agree it is a bad thing.
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber-continues-awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers
> 
> If the DSL crowd could get its act together and offer higher bandwidths further from the CO they
> could grab all of the dissatisfied market.


There's five issues here:  Net neutrality, market segmentation,
control of malware, technological efficiency, and enforcement.

Net neutrality has little to do with restricting home servers.  If
I locate my server in an "industrial" rather than a "residential"
part of the internet, few service providers will prevent their
residential customers from reaching my services.  When they do,
I donate to EFF and ask them to send lawyers.

Market segmentation:  most are reacting as if this is only an
issue of maximizing profits by forcing users with unusual needs
to pay more.  I don't like that either, but I would rather help
the unusual users find better alternatives.

What I don't like is all the zombied machines out there, effectively
acting as servers on consumer networks and turning their hapless
owners into crooks.  A "no server" policy makes it legally easier to
locate and shut down the zombies.  Not that this happens often, sigh.

Hardware tuned for unidirectional service is cheaper than symmetric
bidirectional.  Especially when hardware production volume is a lot
higher in a competitive equipment market.  Gigabit hardware tuned
for high video QOS is different than hardware tuned for rapid server
response.  My servers are virtual, in monster data centers with
enormous bandwidth.  I have provisions in place for extra gigabytes
when I get slashdotted.  That would choke unidirectional hardware
feeding a neighborhood, and make service very unresponsive for my
neighbors.  So who should residential providers optimize for? 

All that said, there is a big difference between policy and
enforcement.  Some ISPs say "no servers", but do nothing to stop
it most of the time.  Some have technological barriers, some add
them over time.  I am more interested in practice than in policies;
what do the local providers actually do?  While you take a risk
offering services over residential fiber, if they block you there
are plenty of data center servers to move to.  It doesn't cost
$10,000 a month, more like $20.  


I am far more annoyed when a location's wifi blocks my VPN tunnel.
I encounter a lot more practical limits in lobbies and coffee 
shops than I do at home.  So, my virtual server has two IP
addresses, with port 8080 on one address being the incoming
VPN port.  I can route around wifi provider blockages.  Harder
to do with a single IP address residential connection that is
also offering web services.

There's an opportunity here;  if you think no-servers rules are
unjust, set up an external reflector in some high bandwidth data
center, offering lots of incoming VPN ports from the servers of
customers like you.  At the other end of the reflector, one or a
few IP addresses supporting lots of virtual URLs.  Perhaps some
local caching in case of slashdotting.  Yes, customers would pay
a few pennies per gigabyte moved;  data centers charge this way
because bandwidth and new equipment has to be paid for.  If the
reflector service is properly tuned, it can probably get a cheaper
bulk data rate and pass it on to customers.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993



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