FTTH Council to FCC: Make open net regulations 'well-defined and reasonable'

JANUARY 15, 2010 -- Should the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decide to adopt net neutrality rules, it is essential that broadband Internet service providers be permitted to engage in reasonable network management practices so that they can maintain the highest level of service quality, reads a brief the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council filed with the FCC yesterday.

The council suggested in the brief that any open Internet rules should include "well-defined, reasonable management practices that are used today in the normal course of business and that will provide network managers with sufficient certainty so they can continue to manage their networks in the face of congestion, constantly evolving threats to the network, and legal requirements."

The council also submitted as an addendum to the filing a primer on network management “developed by network engineers.” Entitled A Network Engineer's Primer on Broadband Internet Access Services and Reasonable Network Management Practices for Wireline Networks, the addendum includes a series of proposals to define “network management.” These include:

applying any new network roles solely to the provision of Internet service and not to the offering, operation, or management of any other services, including managed or specialized services
allowing Internet service providers to offer differently-priced tiers of service based on bandwidth and consumption.

In addition, the council urged that Internet providers, when meeting certain conditions, be allowed to offer quality of service guarantees, throttle and shape Internet access traffic pursuant to reasonable limitations, permit CDNs or others to install and have traffic directed towards local caching equipment, and restrict spam, malware, and similar traffic harmful to the network, as well as provide priorities for emergency traffic and secure transmissions.

The primer represents the combined recommendations of a number of experienced network managers from a variety of types of service provider organizations, the council asserts. (Download a copy of the filing and the addendum).

The council sugared its brief with praise for the FCC’s existing open Internet principles. The brief noted that these principles have helped prevent "systematic and significant anti-competitive acts that might harm users and content and applications providers."

However, the council added that "despite a few isolated events that have been promptly caught and addressed, there is still no proof of widespread anti-competitive practices to justify codification of the principles or extension of them by inclusion of rules regarding non-discrimination and transparency."

Nevertheless, if the FCC proceeds to codify its net neutrality principles, it should ensure that allowable network management practices are well defined and that network operators are given ample guidance on how to comply with any new regulations.

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