Technical, Commercial and Regulatory Challenges of QoS

Technical, Commercial and Regulatory Challenges of QoS

by XiPeng Xiao
Released October 2008
Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 9780080920313

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Book description

Technical, Commerical and Regulatory Challenges of QoS provides a comprehensive examination of Internet QoS theory, standards, vendor implementation and network deployment from the practitioner's point of view, including extensive discussion of related economic and regulatory issues. Written in a technology-light way so that a variety of professionals and researchers in the information and networking industries can easily grasp the material. Includes case studies based on real-world experiences from industry.

The author starts by discussing the economic, regulatory and technical challenges of the existing QoS model. Key coverage includes defining a clear business model for selling and buying QoS in relation to current and future direction of government regulation and QoS interoperability (or lack thereof) between carriers and networking devices. The author then demonstrates how to improve the current QoS model to create a clear selling point, less regulation uncertainty, and higher chance of deployment success. This includes discussion of QoS re-packaging to end-users; economic and regulatory benefits of the re-packaging; and the overall benefits of an improved technical approach. Finally, the author discusses the future evolution of QoS from an Internet philosophy perspective and lets the reader draw the conclusions.

This book is the first QoS book to provide in depth coverage on the commercial and regulatory aspects of QoS, in addition to the technical aspect. From that, readers can grasp the commercial and regulatory issues of QoS and their implications on the overall QoS business model. This book is also the first QoS book to provide case studies of real world QoS deployments, contributed by the people who did the actual deployments. From that, readers can grasp the practical issues of QoS in real world. This book is also the first QoS book to cover both wireline QoS and wireless QoS. Readers can grasp the QoS issues in the wireless world. The book was reviewed and endorsed by a long list of prominent industrial and academic figures.

  • Discusses QoS technology in relation to economic and regulatory issues
  • Includes case studies based on real-world examples from industry practitioners
  • Provides unique insight into how to improve the current QoS model to create a clear selling point, less regulatory uncertainty, and higher chance of deployment success

Table of contents

  1. Brief Table of Contents
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Preface
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. About the Author
  6. Part I. The Status Quo
    1. Chapter 2. What Is QoS?
      1. QoS Is Good User Perception
      2. What Factors Determine the End Users’ QoS Perception?
        1. Delay
        2. Delay Variation
        3. Packet Loss Ratio
        4. The Bandwidth Factor
      3. QoS Requirements of Voice, Video, and Data Applications
        1. End-to-End Requirements of Voice
        2. End-to-End Requirements of Interactive Video
        3. End-to-End Requirements of Non-Interactive Video
        4. End-to-End Requirements of Interactive and Non-Interactive Data
      4. Performance of IP Networks
        1. An Optimistic View
        2. A Conservative View
        3. A Realistic View
        4. A Seeming Contradiction in Performance Perception
      5. Summary
    2. Chapter 3. Historic Evolution of QoS Solutions
      1. PSTN Solution
      2. Layer-2 Qos Solutions
        1. ATM QoS
        2. Frame Relay QoS
        3. Ethernet QoS
      3. IP QoS Solutions
        1. Integrated Services
        2. Differentiated Services
        3. Hybrid IntservDiffserv
        4. Over Provisioning
      4. Transport-Layer and Application-Layer Solutions
      5. ITU/ETSI QoS Approach, RACS
      6. Final Observations
      7. Summary
    3. Chapter 4. Contemporary QoS Wisdom
      1. Business Model
        1. Soft Assurance vs. Hard Assurance
        2. On-Demand QoS vs. Subscription-Based QoS
      2. Technical Solution
        1. A Common Technical Solution
        2. Some Observations about the Technical Solution
      3. Summary
    4. Chapter 5. QoS Reality
      1. Network Performance Reality
      2. Commercial Reality
        1. SLA Is in Place
        2. SLA is Loose
        3. There Is No QoS Agreement among NSPs
        4. There Are Few Commercial Successes
      3. Summary
  7. Part II. The Challenges
    1. Chapter 6. Commercial Challenges
      1. The “Who Should Get” Challenge
      2. The “How to Sell” Challenge
        1. The “Double Selling” Difficulty
        2. The “Evidence of Poor Quality” Difficulty
        3. The “What Assurance to Provide” Difficulty
      3. The “Who Should Pay” Challenge
        1. Business Pay or Consumer Pay?
        2. Calling Consumers Pay or Receiving Consumers Pay?
      4. The “Lack of Interprovider Settlement” Challenge
      5. Summary
    2. Chapter 7. Regulatory Challenges
      1. The Net Neutrality Debate
        1. Arising of Net Neutrality
        2. The Interest Conflict between the “Hosts” and the “Parasites”
        3. The Net Neutrality Proponent's View
        4. The Opponent's View
        5. The General Public and the Network Industry's View
        6. Clarifying Some Common Misconceptions about Net Neutrality
        7. The Gist of Net Neutrality
        8. Can Structural Separation Be an Alternative to Net Neutrality?
      2. The Consequences of the Net Neutrality Debate
        1. Government Regulation Uncertainty
      3. The Impact of Net Neutrality on QoS
      4. Regulatory Environment in Other Countries
      5. Summary
    3. Chapter 8. Technical Challenges
      1. Integration Challenge
        1. Traffic Management
        2. Routing
        3. Traffic Engineering and MPLS
        4. CDN
        5. Integration Challenge
      2. Complexity Challenge
        1. Complexity/Control Spiral
        2. Complexity Comparison between Internet and PSTN
        3. Impact of Complexity on Network Reliability and QoS
      3. Interoperability Challenge
        1. Inter-Provider Interoperability Challenge
        2. Inter-Vendor Interoperability Challenge
      4. Accounting Challenge
      5. Differentiation Challenge
        1. Differentiation Difficulty under Normal Network Condition
        2. Differentiation Difficulty under Abnormal Network Conditions
        3. Poor Performance Happens but CoS Won't Be the Solution
      6. Summary
    4. Chapter 9. The Lessons
      1. QoS is More than CoS and Traffic Management
      2. It is Difficult to Differentiate Multiple CoS's
      3. Lack of Differentiation Causes Commercial and Regulatory Challenges
      4. Putting Things Together: Discussion on QoS on Demand and Bandwidth on Demand
        1. QoS on Demand
        2. Bandwidth on Demand
      5. Summary
  8. Part III. The Next Step
    1. Chapter 10. The New Business Model
      1. The New Baseline
        1. Price QoS into the Services; Don't Sell QoS Explicitly
      2. How the proposed Model Deals with the Commercial, Regulatory, and Technical Challenges
        1. Meeting the Commercial Challenges
        2. Meeting the Regulatory Challenges
        3. Meeting the Technical Challenges
      3. The Possible Concerns
        1. Are We Giving up QoS?
        2. Without Explicit Selling of QoS, will Network Services Become Commodity?
        3. Will this Model Turn NSPs into Dumb Pipers?
        4. Are NSPs Forcing Their Customers to Subsidize the ICPs?
      4. The Historic Pricing Trend of Communications Services
        1. Postal Service Pricing Became Simpler over Time
        2. Telephone Service Pricing Became Simpler over Time
      5. The Correlation between Pricing Scheme and Usage Growth
        1. Evolution of Postal Service Usage
        2. Evolution of Telephone Service Usage
      6. How Comparable Are Postal and Telephone Services to Internet Service?
      7. Why the Proposed Model Is Good for the Industry
        1. Fewer Commercial, Regulatory, and Technical Challenges
        2. Better Stimulus for Usage Growth
        3. Better Focus on Real Revenue Opportunities
      8. The Early Evidence
      9. The Possible Customizations
      10. Summary
    2. Chapter 11. The New Technical Approach
      1. Network Planning
        1. Derive Traffic Matrix, Analyze Traffic Trend
        2. Plan Network Capacity
        3. Plan Routing Policies
        4. Plan for the Most Catastrophic Events
        5. Security Consideration
      2. Network Auditing
        1. Check for Misconfigurations
        2. Check for Sudden Changes
        3. Check for Security Loopholes
      3. Traffic Control
        1. Traffic Engineering
        2. Traffic Protection and Restoration
        3. Traffic Management
      4. Traffic Optimization
        1. CDN
        2. Route Control
      5. Performance Measurement
        1. Statistics Collection
        2. Statistics Analysis
      6. Control Schemes That Are Not Recommended
        1. RACS
        2. Diffserv-aware TE
      7. Differences from the Traditional QoS Approach
      8. Benefits of the Proposed Approach
        1. Simplified Network Operations
        2. Simplified Network Equipment
      9. The Early Evidence
      10. Summary
    3. Chapter 12. Case Studies
      1. Case Study 1: Delivering QoS at Internet2 (by Ben Teitelbaum and Stanislav Shalunov)
        1. Introduction to Internet2
        2. Original QoS Deployment Plan of Internet2
        3. Actual Deployment Experience
        4. Lessons Learned
        5. Conclusion
        6. About the Contributors
      2. Case Study 2: Delivering QoS at Internap (by Ricky Duman)
        1. Introduction to Internap
        2. Internet Performance Problems
        3. Internap's Performance Solutions
        4. Results
        5. Conclusion
        6. About the Contributor
      3. Summary
    4. Chapter 13. QoS in Wireless Networks
      1. How QoS Differs in Wireless and Wireline Networks
        1. Transmission Constraint
        2. Spectrum Constraint
        3. Energy Constraint
      2. QoS in Wi-Fi Networks
        1. Wi-Fi Operation
        2. Wi-Fi QoS Model
        3. Summary of Wi-Fi QoS
      3. QoS in WiMAX Networks
        1. WiMAX Operation
        2. WiMAX QoS model
        3. Summary of WiMAX QoS
      4. Wi-Fi QoS versus WiMAX QoS
      5. Summary
      6. About the Contributors
    5. Chapter 14. Conclusion
  9. Appendix A. List of Acronyms
  10. Appendix B. Sample Peering Contract
  11. Appendix C. U.S. Senate Bill S215, Internet Freedom Preservation Act
    1. Section 1. Short Title.
    2. Sec. 2. Internet Neutrality.
    3. Sec. 12. Internet Neutrality.
    4. Sec. 3. Report On Delivery Of Content, Applications, And Services.
  12. Bibliography
    1. References

Product information

  • Title: Technical, Commercial and Regulatory Challenges of QoS
  • Author(s): XiPeng Xiao
  • Release date: October 2008
  • Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
  • ISBN: 9780080920313