This document summarizes a talk given by Professor Chris Marsden about net neutrality. It discusses the challenges of measuring violations of net neutrality principles. Specifically, it notes that prior research has found the only foolproof way to detect violations is if internet access providers (IAPs) admit to the practices themselves or use violations as a marketing tactic. The document also examines different ways to potentially measure violations, including through quality of experience metrics, data across networks, and content delivery networks.

1. Net Neutrality
If you can’t measure it,
you can’t violate it?
Prof Chris Marsden, University of Sussex
@ChrisTMarsden
www.chrismarsden.blogspot.com
11/13/2018

2. 11/13/2018
Is there a problem to solve?

3. Prior art....
11/13/2018

4. 11/13/2018

5. 11/13/2018
Jan 2017

6. 11/13/2018
There was once consensus on NN

7.  Mainly in Chapter 3:
 http://www.oapen.org/view?docId=622853.xhtml;query=network%20neutrality
 P210: A Paris conference in 2005 of the most senior IAPs and
academics concluded that the only foolproof method of
discovering violations is
 when IAPs not only admit to the practice but use it as marketing
 to sell their services as superior to ‘neutral’ competitors.
 Research into detection of violation in Europe has been
deliberately blocked by potential funders,
 whether or not under pressure from corporate interests,
 while research building the technical and economic case for
violation has been richly rewarded
11/13/2018
Measurement discussed 26x in book

8.  Quality of Experience – SamKnows, Wehe, Neubot #DCNN
 Data across networks – is CISCO data enough?
 ARCEP on Tier 1 competition issues
 Proxies: NetFlix, Akamai
 Content Delivery Networks: Akamai, Google, Facebook
 We should stop GUESSING how traffic is flowing
 See BEREC/OECD work, Ofcom ‘Connected nations’ &
 FCC Open Internet Committee (deceased)
11/13/2018
What should we measure?

9. 11/13/2018
Zero rating…if it’s free, I’ll have 2

10.  I’m too cheap to qualify for zero rating…
 I have a 500MB monthly limit (€9/mth)
I use WiFi for 80% of my handset data
 Roam EU til 29March 2019 #zombieapocalypse day
 When I reach 250MB, I get text reminders
 2am every morning, upselling me to more data
 Remember network constantly monitoring us!
 Isn’t that nice of them? Even when told not to11/13/2018
3 is my network: 5th UK entrant

11. 11/13/2018

12.  Internet growing at historic slower rates
 Mobile Internet costs should fall fast
 Regulators can adopt a relatively light touch
 BUT
 Measure speed,
 prevent abuse,
 Don’t be evil 11/13/2018
Don’t panic!

13. By Region (TB per Month)
North
America
557,237 831,457 1,199,309 1,700,159 2,327,596 3,208,203
42%
Western
Europe
432,322 707,537 1,045,171 1,477,156 2,060,788 2,795,362
45%
Asia Pacific 1,578,865 2,676,873 4,422,785 6,725,446 9,771,677 13,712,874
54%
Latin
America
276,416 447,991 714,540 1,065,744 1,521,312 2,091,703
50%
Central and
Eastern
Europe
545,750 946,263 1,510,630 2,242,669 3,249,449 4,442,281
52%
Middle East
and Africa
294,476 569,895 1,038,661 1,723,221 2,777,550 4,313,794
71%
Cisco VNI Mobile Forecast to 2020
11/13/2018

14. It’s not Zettabytes!

15. Alissa may have later data inc. 5G?

16.  Dominant platform providers
 Facebook, Microsoft, Google,
Amazon, Apple
 With dominant access providers
 social network + mobile operator
 Diagram ©ARCEP (French regulator)
 Are content providers a problem?
Wikipedia, NetFlix, Spotify?
11/13/2018
Telcos collude
with platforms?

17. OONI website <https://ooni.torproject.org/> and mailing list <https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/ooni-dev/>
Ritzo, Chris, et al. "ISP Interconnection and its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance: Introducing A New
M-Lab Consortium Technical Report". 2014 http://www.measurementlab.net/blog/2014_interconnection_report
Naylor, David, et al. "The Cost of the S in HTTPS." Proceedings of the 10th ACM International on Conference on
emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies. ACM, 2014: http://conferences2.sigcomm.org/co-
next/2014/CoNEXT_papers/p133.pdf
Anderson, Collin. "Dimming the Internet: Detecting Throttling as a Mechanism of Censorship in Iran." arXiv
preprint arXiv:1306.4361 (2013).: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1306.4361.pdf
 - "A Business Case for Peering in 2010": http://drpeering.net/white-papers/A-Business-Case-For-Peering.php
 - "The Euro-IX video": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuBde4Sn3f0
Faggiani, Adriano, et al. "When Traceroute Met BGP... How to Reveal Hidden Internet AS-level Connectivity with
Portolan and Isolario.“ INFOCOM'2014 Demo/Poster Session: http://portolan.iet.unipi.it/wp-
content/uploads/2014/12/when.pdf
de Donato, Walter, Alessio Botta, and Antonio Pescapé. "HoBBIT: A Platform for Monitoring Broadband
Performance from the User Network.“ Traffic Monitoring and Analysis. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014.65-77:
http://wpage.unina.it/walter.dedonato/pubs/bb_tma14.pdf
Maillé, Patrick, et al. "How Neutral is a CDN? An Economic Approach." 10th International Conference on Network
and Service Management (CNSM). IEEE.: http://www.cnsm-conf.org/2014/proceedings/pdf/54.pdf
Marco d'Itri, "An introduction to peering in Italy - Interconnections among the Italian networks":
http://www.linux.it/~md/text/peering-italy2014linx.pdf
Basso, Simone "Neubot: The network neutrality bot", poster session of Nexa Conference 2013:
http://neubot.org/neubotfiles/neubot-poster_2013-11-30.pdf
11/13/2018
Final reading list of NNTools2015:

18.  Is mobile Internet a free user’s choice?
 How much does your data cost?
 Apple iOS + iTunes
 Google Android + Google Play Store
Problem goes back a decade
 First iPhone was exclusive to AT&T – same in other markets
 Permitting Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp mergers
 Made Microsoft/LinkedIn/SlideShare inevitable?
11/13/2018
Mobile universe particularly
problematic

19.  Regulation, enforcement and implementation,
 focussing on EU Regulation 2015/2120
 BEREC Guidelines 2016 enforcement consultation June 2017
 http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/p
ublic_consultations/7093-draft-net-neutrality-regulatory-assessment-
methodology
 Guidelines/enforcement success dependent on
 actions of 28 national regulators & 9 observer regulators
 (one of whom actually wrote the majority of the Guidelines).
 Comparison with other parts of the world
 Examples: India, US and Chile
 http://chrismarsden.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/berec-publishes-study-
on-net-neutrality.html
11/13/2018
Past, present, future
of net neutrality

20.  Net neutrality implementation
 EU/EEA/UK, USA & Canada, BRICs & Mexico
 Regulating Code Part II
 AI and disinformation: regulating ‘Platforms’?
 Openness and mandated interoperability
 Social network ‘platform’ regulation
Privacy of data transfer/personal data stores
 Co-regulation & NGO/civil society debate
NN produced 4m US/2m India/500k EU responses
11/13/2018
My current work

21.  Will Donald Trump the Internet?
https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-could-be-
about-to-end-net-neutrality-71732
 Mobile in Latin America/‘zero washing’ (in Spanish)
http://m.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/novedades-
tecnologia/como-funciona-el-zero-rating-129586
 European net neutrality, at last?
https://www.opendemocracy.net/luca-belli-
christopher-t-marsden/european-net-neutrality-at-last
11/13/2018
Some light reading?

22. 11/13/2018
Law professor’s talk without blockchain