Broadband Populism or Broadband Pragmatism

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:28:00 GMT

In his recent OPEC 2.0 op-ed, Columbia University law professor Tim Wu offered his vision of a broadband policy by declaring the broadband market a “bandwidth cartel” that has gouged the public like the energy market. While this bash-the-corporation rhetoric may have some populist appeal, Wu’s analysis is both factually and logically flawed. See rest of post here

Fairness is the ultimate end-game in network management

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Update 8/12/2008 - Robb Topolski has graciously apologized for the personal attacks.

I have to admit that I was surprised at the speed at which I've been attacked on my latest FCC filing "Guide to protocol agnostic network management schemes". Within hours of my filing, Robb Topolski who now works for Public Knowledge wrote an attack blog "George Ou: Protocol Agnostic doesn't mean Protocol Agnostic" which,

Innovation 08 panel on Net Neutrality at Santa Clara University

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:54:00 GMT

Thursday morning I sat on a panel at the Innovation 08 Net Neutrality event at Santa Clara University. This came right at the heals of my Brussels trip where I gave a presentation on Net Neutrality to the some members of European Parliament and various industry folks. The jet lag wasn't so bad but the bigger problem for me was missing my 6 year old daughter's first big singing solo at her school which had to be at the same time as my panel. I spent a lot of time training her so it was certainly a big disappointment for me. The jet lag certainly did have a lot to do with why this blog wasn't posted earlier yesterday.

More deceptions from Free Press about Comcast "blocking"

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:37:00 GMT

The whole Comcast issue is being kicked around in the press in recent days because the Max Planck Institute released a study showing the rates of TCP resets happening throughout the world. But this whole issue is being mischaracterized as the "blocking" of BitTorrent and it's being portrayed as a free speech issue when it is nothing of a sort. Richard Bennett explained why this shouldn’t be considered blocking and Andrew Orlowski wrote a pretty good editorial raising the concern that this is trivializing real free spe

Revived Net Neutrality bill cripples Internet for real-time applications

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:39:00 GMT

Congressman John Conyers and Zoe Lofgren have reintroduced a Net Neutrality Bill that prohibits charges for "prioritization or enhanced quality of service" in the name of stopping discrimination. Unfortunately, it stops a lot more than discrimination; it flat out bans tiered pricing for different levels of QoS (Quality of Service) which cripples the Internet under the justification of banning "discrimination". Here's the text of the bill from the first time this bill was introduced that Richard Bennett dug up.

How Comcast customers can seed 100 times faster and bypass TCP resets

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:46:00 GMT

Comcast has been disconnecting a certain percentage of TCP streams emanating from BitTorrent and other P2P (peer-to-peer) seeders. This effectively delays and degrades the ability of Comcast customers to seed files using P2P applications. Now there's a way to force Comcast to give you a free 100 fold boost in performance, alleviate your upstream bandwidth as well as your neighbor's upstream bandwidth, and get much more reliability in the Torrent that you can seed and forget! Read on and learn how!

Comments on inaccurate testimony at the FCC Stanford hearing

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:56:00 GMT

The FCC hearing at Stanford University on April 17th 2008 was filled with inaccurate testimony from various witnesses. Since that testimony seems to be carrying significant weight both on Capitol Hill and in the media, I feel compelled to set the record straight. I have filed a copy of this letter on FCC docket 07-52.

Jon Peha testified that BitTorrent was like a telephone and implied that if a TCP reset is used by Comcast to stop a TCP stream, then that constituted a blockage of BitTorrent. Furthermore, Professor Peha implied through his telephone analogy that if BitTorrent is blocked, then the user must manually redial to reestablish the connection. These assertions are highly inaccurate ...

On Capitol Hill today at Georgetown

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:51:00 GMT

I am on a panel this morning at the Center for Business and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center titled "Spectrum Policy: From the Foundations to the Future."

Exact location:
Georgetown University Law Center on 600 New Jersey Ave in the Gewirz Building 12th floor and my panel starts at 9:00AM.

FCC hearings at Stanford

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:16:00 GMT

Here are the slides I presented at the FCC hearing in Stanford and here’s a letter version I sent to the FCC which gives a much fuller explanation. While the letter is a long read (3000+ words), I really hope you take the time to read it since it gives you the full picture of what I was trying to present. Vontv.net has the event on video

Update on George Ou's status

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:16:00 GMT

I will be presenting a keynote in front of at least 700 Verizon managers plus additional industry partners at the Verizon Technology Forum this Friday on 4/11/2008 starting at 8:20 AM. Note that my title was written before news of my ZDNet departure so it's not updated yet. Here's an excerpt from EarthTimes.org:

"PALATINE, Ill. - (Business Wire) Verizon and OSP® Magazine today announced a stellar speaker lineup that will participate at the second annual exclusive Technology Forum to be held April 10-11, 2008, at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Speakers include: Day One Keyno

Technology policy