29 November 2011
by Barry McKeown
On 24th November OFCOM posted a policy statement under the heading of “Improving traffic management transparency: OFCOM sets out steps for ISPs to take”. Well, as an exercise in transparency this leaves a lot to be desired. It is a common tactic of those who want to engage in political correctness to “capture” the language that they use to shape perceptions. What is their policy statement about? If you delve deeper into their web site it is revealed as: “OFCOM’s approach to Net Neutrality”!
So, what is going on here and why has this policy been released just before the Chancellors’ Autumn Statement and the after the Select Committee on CMS report into Spectrum? Needs investigating further - me thinks!
Also posted on the 24th with this policy report are two commissioned technical reports to substantiate their policy; which are based on specific terms of reference supplied to them directly by OFCOM.
These reports are:
a) Consumer information on broadband speeds and net neutrality experiment:
Commissioned from London Economics in association with Steffen Huck and Brian Wallace from May 2011
b) Traffic Management and Quality of Experience
Commissioned from Technologia: Jeremy Klein, Jonathan Freeman, Rob Morland and Stuart Revell from April 2011
I have not yet had the time to go through these two documents “thornily” but I word searched them for: Littles Law, Littles Theorem and got no joy back!
What is OFCOMs policy framework about? Essentially the two approaches identified in section 1.4 of the Executive Summary are:
“1.4 It is possible to identify two broad forms of internet traffic management:
• 'Best-efforts' internet access, under which network operators attempt to convey all traffic on more or less equal terms. This results in an 'open internet' with no specific services being hindered or blocked, although some may need to be managed during times of congestion.
• Managed Services, under which network operators prioritise certain traffic according to the value they ascribe to it. An example may be the prioritisation of a high quality IPTV service over other traffic. This amounts to a form of discrimination, but one that is normally efficiency enhancing.”
Fine!
Essentially their framework needs to be compared not just within the EU framework itself but with the US FCC approach to Net Neutrality.
I shall detail its short comings directly in a future posting but a reference to OFCOMs self regulation approach can be recognised from the CMS Spectrum Report whereby their web introduction states:
“In its new report the Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee says that overall Ofcom has been doing a good job facilitating the next spectrum auction despite the lack of co-operation from the mobile network operators.
The committee believes that, on the whole, Ofcom has handled a contentious and commercially sensitive process well. It agrees in principle with the rules and conditions that Ofcom has laid out for the auction.”
Given that the CMS committee appreciate that the Network Operators are un-cooperative on this aspect it does not auger well for the even more contentious issue of Traffic Management and Net Neutrality. Also the reason as to why the Mobile Network Operators are actually uncooperative in the first place requires appreciation as to the agenda that they are collective operating.
However, given the all of above and the Chancellors statement on its growth agenda I believe that it is appropriate at this stage to seek wisdom from Chairman Julius Genachowski of the FCC delivered at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress, on the 16th November as to where we are at globally in the next posting.
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