Randy- I don't think your bank analogy is very strong, but never mind that. I agree with what you're saying in principle, that if a user/customer buys bit delivery at a fixed rate then we should deliver it. But as ISPs we don't sell this. As a network operator, I do sell various kinds of point-to-point connections with fixed/guaranteed rates. But when I sell "Internet", or L3VPN, etc., I'm selling end-to-end packet-switched full-mesh connectivity. In this service, not all endpoints are equal and traffic patterns are not fixed. I.e., the service is flexible. "QoS" is about giving the customer control over what/how traffic gets treated/dropped. It's not false advertising. That said, if QoS controls are used to enforce the provider's preferences and not the customers' then I might agree with the false advertising label. If the result is to have anti-competitive effects then I might have some harsher labels for it, too. Cheers, -Benson -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Randy Bush Sent: Wednesday, 14 December, 2005 22:32 To: Hannigan, Martin Cc: Fergie; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: The Qos PipeDream [Was: RE: Two Tiered Internet]

Can we build, pay for, and sustain an Internet that never has congestion or is never "busy".

s/never/when there are not multiple serious cuts/ would we build a bank where only some of the customers can get their money back? we're selling delivery of packets at some bandwidth. we should deliver it. otherwise, it's called false advertising. randy