BITAG Recommends Differentiated Treatment Practices

BITAG (Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group - see "Plans for a New Forum: Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group"- here) announced the ".. publication of its technical report on the subject of Differentiated Treatment of Internet Traffic ..This report touches on a broad range of questions associated with differentiation, but is not intended to address or analyze the economic, legal, regulatory, or public policy issues that the differentiated treatment of Internet access service traffic may raise, focusing instead on the technical issues.

.. network operators make many exceptions to FIFO, using the packet header information to classify packets into flows and treating those flows differently, for example rearranging the order or the timing with which packets are sent, or sending them along different network paths". 

Among the contributors and reviewers to the report (see full list below), is Sandvine's CTO, Don Bowman - See - "Sandvine, Internet Leaders Achieve Consensus on Traffic Differentiation" - here.
"Observations:

• TCP causes recurring momentary congestion. 
• A nominal level of packet discard is normal. 
• The absence of differentiation does not imply comparable behavior among applications. Differentiated treatment can produce a net improvement in Quality of Experience (QoE). 
• Access technologies differ in their capabilities and characteristics. 
• Security of traffic has at times been downgraded to facilitate differentiation techniques. 

Recommendations:

• Network operators should disclose information on differential treatment of traffic. 
• Network operators and ASPs should be encouraged to implement efficient and adaptive network resource management practices. 
• Quality of Service metrics should be interpreted in the context of Quality of Experience. 
• Network operators should not downgrade, interfere with, or block user selected security in order to apply differentiated treatment". 

See "BITAG Publishes Report: Differentiated Treatment of Internet Traffic" - here.

Document Contributors and Reviewers: - Fred Baker, Cisco - Steven Bauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Richard Bennett, American Enterprise Institute - Don Bowman, Sandvine - Lily Chen, Verizon - kc claffy, University of California, San Diego; Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) - David Clark, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - David Cooper, Level 3 - Amogh Dhamdhere, University of California, San Diego; Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) - Amie Elcan, CenturyLink - Michael Fargano, CenturyLink - Nick Feamster, Princeton University - Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) - Kevin Kleinsmith, Union Wireless - Ken Ko, ADTRAN - Gary Langille, EchoStar - Matt Larsen, Vistabeam - Jason Livingood, Comcast - Patrick McManus, Mozilla - Chris Morrow, Google - Barbara Stark, AT&T - Matthew Tooley, National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) - Jason Weil, Time Warner Cable - Greg White, CableLabs - David Winner, Charter Communication

PCC Deployments [238]: Tango [Luxembourg] Use NSN for Differentiating Services

Nokia Siemens Networks announced that "Tango, Luxembourg’s innovative telco operator, has become the country’s first to offer 4G mobile broadband services and provide personal mobile data service plans .. Nokia Siemens Networks implemented subscriber data management allowing the operator to provide country’s first personalized data tariffs".

At the end of 2012, Tango, part of Belgacom, had 271,000 active mobile customers .

"Nokia Siemens Networks implemented its Liquid Core-based Evolved Packet Core (EPC) platform, including Flexi NS (Network Server) and Flexi NG (Network Gateway) for the operator to replace outdated equipment and launch the LTE services.. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks implemented its subscriber data management system, including the One-NDS real-time subscriber data repository and data-less Home Location Register, and consolidated Tango’s subscriber data from across the network. The company also provided its highly scalable Policy Control Server (PCS 5000) that optimizes traffic based on a set of business rules. Nokia Siemens Networks’ network management system, NetAct, provides one consolidated view on all network elements".

Information on the PCS-5000 - here.

See "Nokia Siemens Networks powers Tango 4G service, first in Luxembourg" - here.

ZTE Announces Smart Pipe Solution

ZTE Corporation announced the "..debut of ezFlow, a national broadband network smart pipe solution.. ezFlow allows operators to operate and manage broadband networks efficiently, increase profits, reduce costs, and improve services for customers .. ezFlow, network capacity can decrease or split increasing traffic to reduce network pressure. The solution meets customer needs and provides differentiated services. In addition, it meets traffic operation requirements for different phases of national broadband development through smart pipe deployment and four-dimension traffic strategy. This aspect features expansion of traffic scale, activation of traffic value, decreases traffic costs and mines traffic content"

"ZTE’s national broadband network solution has been widely applied in global network construction including: Brazil, England, Ethiopia, Italy, Malaysia, South Africa and the Republic of Belarus".

Like in many similar announcements by Chinese and other large vendors, the web site does not have any additional information on the solution.

See "ZTE Debuts Broadband Smart Pipe Solution at Africa Digital Summit" - here.

[Rumors]: Orange France to Use DPI for Differentiated Services

While Bouygues Telecom is sending false invoices (see "Phone company to woman: You owe us $15 quadrillion" - here), Orange France is rumored to take a different approach to increase revenues.

French web sites, based on discovery by La Lettre A, report that Orange (France Telecom) is preparing to launch application-based differentiated service plans for its DSL service.

They speculate that Orange will offer cheaper plans for simple web browsing and a more expensive one for application such as Youtube and Skype (i.e. OTT competitive services). For that, they say, Orange will need to deploy DPI. 

Orange spokesperson denied any intention, in the shorter or longer term, to offer differentiated services using DPI.

See "FT dans le deep packet inspection" - here and "Fin de l’Internet illimité : ça se précise chez Orange, qui dément" - here.

KPN Belgium Enables Differentiated Services with ZTE

 
ZTE Corporation announced that "... KPN Group Belgium .. will deploy ZTE’s packet switched CN equipment which supports unified radio access .. ZTE helps operators to build a smart pipe that supports service differentiation and traffic distribution, and enables a flexible policy mechanism. This will help KPN deliver differentiated services, further enhancing its service innovation capability and network competitive strength".

At the end of Q2 2012, KPN Belgium had 4.4M subscribers and ~19% market share (see chart).

See "ZTE Partners with KPN Group Belgium to Deploy Packet Switched Core Network" - here.

Comcast: "We do not prioritize our video .. we just provision separate, additional bandwidth for it"

 
Does Comcast try to open a new front in Net Neutrality by defining the "managed service" term (and accusing others for prioritizing traffic?

After being slammed by Netflix' CEO for not counting its Xfinity traffic to Xbox in the subscriber's data cap (here), Tony Werner, EVP & CTO tries to explain what Comcast really does in a post to Comcast's blog.

"Your Xbox 360 running Xfinity TV On Demand essentially acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable service .. Rather than delivering this content in the traditional way we deliver our cable services (which is often referred to as video over QAM) or delivering it over the Internet (as, for example, a Netflix or Hulu Plus would do), we are sending that cable service using IP technology to the Xbox over our managed network .. Specifically, we provision a separate, additional bandwidth flow into the home for the use of this service — above and beyond, and distinct from, the bandwidth a customer has for his or her regular Internet access service"
 
"We use Differentiated Services Code Point ("DSCP") markings to mark the Xfinity TV packets to identify these packets so our network knows that these packets must be transmitted over the separate service flow from the CMTS to the customer's cable modem .. It's really important to us that we make crystal clear that, in contrast to some other providers, we are not prioritizing our transmission of Xfinity TV content to the Xbox (as some have speculated). While DSCP markings can be used to assign traffic different priority levels, that is not their only application — and that is not what they are being used for here".

 

See "The Facts about Xfinity TV and Xbox 360: Comcast is Not Prioritizing" - here.

Telstra to Differentiate on Traffic on the Wireline and Wireless Edge

 

Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, report to Light Reading from TMForum Management World 2011, held this week in Dublin, on Telstra's plans for new services and traffic management.

Michael Lowery (picture), Executive Director, Architecture, Online and Media, Telstra Operations said that Telstra will introduce "A cloud-based service offering that is device and network agnostic would be delivered to consumers on the device of their choice, and they could also choose the level of broadband service to deliver content, services and programs .. Telstra would eliminate the multiple B-RAS devices that support broadband wireline services today and move new broadband network gateways as close to its wireline customers and to its wireless customers as well, moving it into the radio access network, if possible to the Node B level .. That will allow us to differentiate on traffic, and to be able to manage differentiated services as close to actual customer as possible .. Peer-to-peer traffic still counts for 40% of Internet bandwidth, and much of that is used to share pirated movies .. Traffic management also would enable Telstra to manage a potential deal with Netflix".

See "Mgmt World: Telstra Sees ASP Future" - here.

Carol assumes that Telstra "..would be using DPI or similar technology within these broadband network gateways, both to offer tiered services starting with best effort and moving up, and to ensure proper treatment of traffic types. Telstra already uses a tiered offering with bandwidth caps, something it has taken heat from in the past, but will make this next transition smoother" (see "Telstra Uses NSN PCS-5000" - here).

FT Orange CEO: "we have to be more efficient in the network management"

   

Paul Rasmussen from Fierce Wireless reports from the LeWeb conference in Paris on FT-Orange CEO, Stephane Richard presentation (See "FT Orange: 10x more data traffic in two years time, says CEO" - here and video below):
 
".. expected 10 times more data traffic in two years time than seen in its network today .. It's good news: it means that there are new users, and there is an area for growth .. we don't have any problems in terms of managing the capacity today. But clearly we have to anticipate the future ..  in the face of a traffic explosion, clearly we have to be more efficient in the network management, and that will lead us to work on specific plans that will give differentiated access according to quality of service, and probably the period of time in the day or week .. this shift wasn't necessarily about consumers paying more, but about managing the "scarce resource" of bandwidth . Nobody can accept the situation where 10% of people are consuming 70% of the resource"

Vodafone Growth Strategy: "transitioning our data pricing plans to tiered plans and differentiated service levels"

   

Vodafone provided today a strategy update, as part of its 2010/11 H1 financial results. The first item on its "Winning Growth Strategy" is "Mobile data: accelerate exploitation of mobile data growth opportunity".  

See the news release "VODAFONE ANNOUNCES H1 2010/11 RESULTS AND STRATEGY UPDATE" - here.

 

Vittorio Colao, the Group's Chief Executive, provided the following statement regarding the mobile data strategy:

• We will pursue a growth strategy focused particularly on Europe, Africa and India (see number of subscribers below)
     
• Transitioning our data pricing plans to tiered plans and differentiated service levels, to encourage data adoption and adjust pricing to usage, thereby giving customers more control and driving better returns on our investment;

See also "Europe Goes to Mobile Data Tiering" - here and "Vodafone Germany LTE tiering plans: No P2P, No VoIP" - here.