Abstract

The transition of telecommunications services from the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to the broadband Internet does not alleviate the needs of consumers for basic services. The Internet universe, however, is mostly unregulated. As broadband becomes the new PSTN, how do we ensure that services are delivered appropriately, and how can this be measured? Doctors Lehr, Bauer, and Clark propose an updated set of measurements and address the policy considerations they raise, in order to ensure that broadband services indeed serve the public interest.

The text of this article is only available as a PDF.

Bibliography

“AFNIC Publishes Its Reply to the Public Consultation by ARCEP.”
AFNIC
, Feb. 27,
2012
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.afnic.fr/en/about-afnic/news/general-news/5711/show/afnic-publishes-its-reply-to-the-public-consultation-by-arcep.html.
Bauer, Steven and Robert Beverly.
“Measuring the Current State of ECN Support in Servers, Clients, and Routers.”
Workshop presentation,
The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis
, Feb. 3,
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/1102/slides/aims1102_sbauer.pdf.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
“Broadband Micro Foundations: The Need for Traffic Data.”
Paper presented at the workshop Beyond Broadband Access, Washington DC, Sept.
2009
. Accessed Aug. 11, 2013, http://people.csail.mit.edu/wlehr/Lehr-Papers_files/Bauer_Clark_Lehr_Traffic.pdf.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
“Understanding Broadband Speed Measurements.”
Working paper,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
, June
2010
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://mitas.csail.mit.edu/papers/Bauer_Clark_Lehr_Broadband_Speed_Measurements.pdf.
Braeutigam, Ronald R. and John C. Panzar.
“Effects of the Change from Rate-of-Return to Price-Cap Regulation.”
The American Economic Review
83
,
no. 2
(May
1993
):
191
198
.
Briscoe, Bob.
“Congestion Exposure (Conex), Re-Feedback & Re-ECN.”
Mar. 8,
2012
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.bobbriscoe.net/projects/refb/.
Brooks, John.
Telephone: The First Hundred Years
.
New York
:
Harper & Row
,
1976
.
Buyya, Rajkumar, Chee Shin Yeo, Srikumar Venugopal, James Broberg, and Ivona Brandic.
“Cloud Computing and Emerging IT Platforms: Vision, Hype, and Reality for Delivering Computing as the 5th Utility.”
Future Generation Computer Systems
25
,
no. 6
(June
2009
):
599
616
.
Carr, Nicholas.
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google
.
New York
:
W.W. Norton and Co.
:
2013
.
claffy, kc
.
“CAIDA Research Overview.”
White paper (
2013
). Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.caida.org/publications/presentations/2013/caida_research_overview/caida_research_overview.pdf.
Clark, David D.
“The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols.”
Computer Communication Review
18
,
no. 4
(
1988
):
106
114
.
Clark, David, William Lehr, and Steven Bauer.
“Interconnection in the Internet: The Policy Challenge.”
Paper presented at the Research Conference on Communications,
Information and Internet Policy
,
Arlington, VA
, Sept.
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://people.csail.mit.edu/wlehr/Lehr-Papers_files/clark%20lehr%20bauer%20TRPC2011%20%20Interconnection%20RC2.pdf.
Davidson, Jonathan, Brian Gracely, and James Peters.
“Overview of the PSTN and Comparisons to Voice over IP.”
White paper,
Cisco Systems
, Jan 1.
2001
. Accessed Aug. 3, 2013, http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/chap01_1578701686/elementLinks/1578701686CH01.pdf.
DeGraba, Patrick.
“Bill and Keep at the Central Office as the Efficient Interconnection Regime.”
OPP Working Paper No. 33,
Federal Communications Commission
, Dec.
2000
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OPP/working_papers/oppwp33.pdf.
Elerath, Jon G. and Michael Pecht.
“IEEE 1413: A Standard for Reliability Predictions.”
IEEE Transactions on Reliability
61
,
no. 1
(Mar.
2012
):
125
129
.
Faratin, Peyman, David Clark, Steven Bauer, William Lehr, Patrick Gilmore, and Arthur Berger.
“The Growing Complexity of Internet Interconnection.”
Communications & Strategies
72
(
2008
):
51
71
.
Federal Communications Commission
.
Comments of David Clark, William Lehr, and Steven Bauer, In the Matter of Preserving the Open Internet and Broadband Industry Practices
, GN Docket No. 09–91 and WC Docket No. 07–52, Jan.
2010
. Accessed Aug. 11, 2013, http://cfp.mit.edu/publications/CFP_Papers/FCC%20comments%20submission%201_14_2009.pdf.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan
, Mar. 16,
2010
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.broadband.gov/plan/.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
“FCC Requires Outage Reporting from Interconnected VoIP to Improve 911.”
News release
, Feb. 15,
2012
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-requires-outage-reporting-interconnected-voip-improve-911.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
In the Matter of Connect America Fund et al
. Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, GC Docket No. 10–90 et al., Nov. 18,
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0206/FCC-11–161A1.pdf.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
In the Matter of Reliability and Continuity of Communications Networks, Including Broadband Technologies et al
. Notice of Inquiry, PS Docket No. 11–60 et al., Apr. 7,
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11–55A1.pdf.
Bauer, Steven, David Clark, and William Lehr.
Network Outage Reporting System (NORS)
. Accessed Aug. 5,
2013
, http://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/services/cip/nors/nors.html.
Federal Communications Commission, Next-Generation Measurement Architecture Standardization and Outreach Group
.
Untitled mission document
, unknown date. Accessed Aug. 5,
2013
, http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7021915250.
Federal Communications Commission, Office of Engineering and Technology and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau
.
“Measuring Broadband America: A Report on Consumer Wireline Broadband Performance in the U.S.”
Report (
2011
). Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/measuringbroadbandreport/Measuring_U.S._-_Main_Report_Full.pdf.
Flamm, Kenneth, Amy Friedlander, John Horrigan, and William Lehr.
“Measuring Broadband: Improving Communications Policymaking through Better Data Collection.”
Report,
Pew Internet & American Life Project
, Nov.
2007
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.pewinternet.org/∼/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIP_Measuring%20Broadband.pdf.pdf.
Hafner, Katie and Matthew Lyon.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
.
New York
:
Simon & Schuster
,
1996
.
Hurwitz, Judith. Marcia Kaufman, Fern Halper, and Dan Kirsch.
Hybrid Cloud for Dummies
.
Hoboken, NJ
:
John Wiley & Sons
,
2012
.
International Telecommunication Union
.
“Distributed Computing: Utilities, Grids & Clouds.”
ITU-T Technology Watch Report 9 (
2009
). Accessed Aug. 3, 2013, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itut/oth/23/01/T23010000090001PDFE.pdf.
Internet Engineering Task Force
.
“Large-Scale Measurement of Broadband Performance (lmap): Charter for Working Group.”
June 28,
2013
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/lmap/charter/.
Internet Society
.
“The Internet and the Public Switched Telephone Network: Disparities, Differences, and Distinctions.”
White paper, June 1,
2012
. Accessed Aug. 3, 2013, http://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/The%20Internet%20and%20the%20Public%20Switched%20Telephone%20Network.pdf.
Kende, Michael.
“The Digital Handshake: Connecting Internet Backbones.”
OPP Working Paper No. 32,
Federal Communications Commission
, Sept.
2000
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OPP/working_papers/oppwp32.pdf.
Lehr, William.
“Reliability and the Internet Cloud.”
MITAS working paper, May
2012
. Accessed Aug. 11, 2013, http://people.csail.mit.edu/wlehr/Lehr-Papers_files/Reliability%20and%20the%20Internet%20Cloud%206_26_2012.pdf.
Lehr, William, Steven Bauer, Mikko Heikkinen, and David Clark.
“Assessing Broadband Reliability: Measurement and Policy Challenges.”
Paper presented at the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy, Arlington, VA, Sept.
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://people.csail.mit.edu/wlehr/Lehr-Papers_files/Lehr%20et%20al%20TPRC2011%20Assessing%20Broadband%20Reliability.pdf.
Mueller, Milton L.
Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System
.
Cambridge, MA
:
MIT Press
,
1997
.
Nuechterlein, Jonathan E. and Philip J. Weiser.
Digital Crossroads: Telecommunications Law and Policy in the Internet Age
, 2nd ed.
Cambridge, MA
:
MIT Press
,
2013
.
Ryan, Johnny.
A History of the Internet and the Digital Future
.
London
:
Reaktion Books
,
2010
.
SamKnows Unlimited
,
“Test Methodology White Paper.”
White paper, Dec. 6,
2011
. Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.samknows.com/broadband/uploads/Methodology_White_Paper_20111206.pdf.
Schofield, Jack.
“What are Intranets and Extranets?”
BBC
, Sept. 9,
2010
. Accessed Aug. 3, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/intranets-and-extranets.
Sibley, David.
“Asymmetric Information, Incentives and Price-Cap Regulation.”
The RAND Journal of Economics
20
,
no. 3
(
1989
):
392
404
.
Sicker, Douglas C.
“Applying a Layered Policy Model to IP Based Voice Services.”
Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (
2003
). Accessed Aug. 5, 2013, http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2003/1874/05/187450151.pdf.
Sieh, Kaleb August and Dale N. Hatfield.
“The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) and Its Role in Internet Governance.”
Paper presented at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Arlington, VA, Sept.
2012
. Accessed Aug. 11, 2013, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2032233.
Subramanian, Mani.
Network Management: An Introduction to Principles and Practice
.
Reading, MA
:
Addison-Wesley
,
2000
.
Sundaresan, Srikanth, Nick Feamster, Renata Teixeira, Anthony Tang, W. Keith Edwards, Rebecca E. Grinter, Marshini Chetty, and Walter de Donato.
“Helping Users Shop for ISPs with Internet Nutrition Labels.”
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Home Networks (
2011
):
13
18
.
Whitt, Richard S.
“A Horizontal Leap Forward: Formulating a New Communications Public Policy Framework Based on the Network Layers Model.”
Federal Communications Law Journal
56
,
no. 3
(
2004
):
587
672
.

Author notes

*

Research scientist, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research affiliate, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Senior research scientist, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.