All packets are equal, but some are more equal than others Javier Bustos-Jiménez
Camila Fuenzalida
NIC Chile Research Labs Blanco Encalada 1975 Santiago de Chile
NIC Chile Research Labs Blanco Encalada 1975 Santiago de Chile
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT In this article we present Adkintun, the national infrastructure demanded by the Chilean National Secretary of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) in order to monitor the fulfilling of the Net Neutrality Law. The infrastructure consists in a set of probes located next to the users’ devices. These probes gather and process the data in our servers to finally presenting it in an understandable way to the users. We show three examples of how Adkintun has been a useful tool for empowering users in order to protect their rights. First, using this tool to study the provisioning of Chilean Internet Provider compared with what they offer. Second, how Adkintun has been used as a tool for complaints against the poor quality of service provided by ISPs. Third, how Adkintun was used as evidence in a lawsuit presented against SUBTEL for not taking actions against the Chilean ISPs, despite the data presented by the infrastructure in our studies. Finally, we conclude that our infrastructure generated an impact on both government and empowering users to protect their rights.
Keywords Broadband, QoS, SLA, Monitoring, ISP
Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.5 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Local and Wide-Area Networks—Internet; K.5.2 [Governmental Issues]: [Regulation]
General Terms Measurement,Legal Aspects
1.
INTRODUCTION
“Net Neutrality Laws” is the name of efforts made by governments to maintain Internet’s original principles: a Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from
[email protected]. LANC’14, September 18-19, 2014, Montevideo, Uruguay. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-3280-4/14/09 ...$15.00. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2684083.2684088.
decentralized, reliable and non-discriminatory network of networks. Therefore, initiatives for characterization and monitoring of service offerings by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) [21, 12, 26], governments [24, 25, 10], researchers [9, 6, 7, 8] and independent entities [1, 2, 3, 4] have grown in popularity in the last few years, as a way to provide consumer protection and information, as well as a means to regulate the behavior of broadband providers. Chile was the first country that amended its law in order to preserve network neutrality (August 2010) , adding three new articles to its telecommunications law [15]: 1. ISPs “may not arbitrarily block, interfere with, discriminate, hinder or restrict the right of any Internet user to use, send , receive or offer any content, application or service over the Internet legal and any other activity or use legal performed through the network ”, nor limit users to add hardware to use Internet, provide to users with parental controls, and publish their QoS parameters in a website. 2. “The Transport and Telecommunications Ministry (TTM) will protect the user against bad practices of ISPs, fining ISPs that doesn’t comply consumers contracts”. 3. “A regulation will establish the minimum QoS parameters to be met by ISPs as to the obligation to maintain published and updated on its website information about Service Level Agreements (SLA)”; such as routing criteria, access speeds available, or oversold level link aggregation, link availability in time and reset time of service, use of management tools or traffic management, as well as those elements of the type of service offered and that meet international quality standards. To fulfill the law, and specially to check that the first and third articles are accomplished by ISPs, it was requested by the National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) to our lab to build a complete infrastructure for monitoring broadband offers. The project, called Adkintun1 [10] is actually being used by more than 10,000 users. In simple words, our approach gathers monitoring data from two type of probes: • Residential routers provided to selected users and upgraded with a specialized monitoring firmware developed by us based on the OpenWRT platform, 1 Meaning observer in mapudungun, the Mapuche native language
• A software tool freely available to be installed in user’s personal computers, in order to monitor quality from the end-client point of view. Both type of probes can perform multiple quality tests: availability, throughput, latency, packet loss, port blocking, etc. These tests are evaluated against multiple end-points, as requested remotely from a central server which gathers and compiles the data to relay the results back to the user, through a Web portal, as aggregate information over time in the context of their service provider, their hired service level and the quality of similar users. Our approach was able to accurately characterize the quality of a broadband service over time, both at the individual (end-user) level, as well as at the ISP level, in an easily deployable, flexible and scalable way by using Open Source tools and consumer level hardware. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 we present similar approaches by public and private enterprises. We begin in Section 3 we describe in depth our infrastructure. In Section 4 we present the main results in the use of our infrastructure. Finally we conclude in Section 5 presenting our future work.
2.
RELATED WORK
Broadband characterization initiatives like Adkintun have been performed in different countries and by different organizations. Notable examples are the OFCOM and SamKnows research [24] for the UK, the FCC and SamKnows [25] in the US, with their tool ‘Test My ISP’; and CEPTRO [4] in Brazil. Our approach is quite similar to these works, but ours improves over the former by allowing dynamic tests configured by a control server, similar to how OFCOM used routers pre-programmed with the test suite. Also, we share monitoring methodology (but applied to Chile) with SamKnows and project objectives with CEPTRO. In more independent research initiatives, the MeasurementLab [2] and Grenouille [1] projects can be mentioned. The former offers a set of tools for performing individual measurements for bandwidth, port blocking or traffic shaping, however it provides individual measurements and not a sustained evaluation over time as our tool. The latter (Grenouille) is a French research/industry collaboration, with similar objectives to the ones presented here, however their methodology only uses software probes. At a larger scale, the RIPE Atlas project [3] performs availability, DNS and topology characterizations (amongst others) at the European level. They perform these measurement through hardware probes that are connected to an Ethernet port of a home router. However, they have different objectives than our work, e.g. they do not measure bandwidth, and tests are defined in a static way, as with the OFCOM work above. A couple of academic research works are also worth mentioning. The first attempt for a QoS monitoring, mostly oriented to IP services (streaming, web services, APS), was presented in 2001 by John Bufford [9]. Ten years after, Bischof et al. studied in depth this subject focusing on the characterization of ISP behavior when network intensive applications are used (video, file transfer, etc.) [7, 8]. As the broadband prices have dropped, these applications have become more popular and it is important to identify if
service contracts are being respected under these conditions. Our work, however does not take into account this side yet. Other interesting (and more recent) work is described in [13], where a similar measurement platform is described, focused more closely around network performance for the Web and Web applications. This makes sense, since the Web is the most popular application of the Internet, however this also requires that measurements are performed while the device is actively being used, which makes it difficult to obtain a characterization at regular intervals of time, as it can be done by our hardware probes. In the other hand, the work of Bauer et al. presents a deep study about how Internet speed has to be measured given the difference between the offered by ISPs and the obtained by users, taking in account that bottlenecks can be produced in several parts of the path: locally at users side, at the ISPs, at the destination server, or elsewhere in the network beyond the ISPs control [5]. Simulation and estimation of real bandwidth has been studied on this subject. For instance, a Hidden Markov Model-based has been proposed by Guerrero and Labrador [17]. Goga and Teixeira studied and compared the accuracy and overhead of state-of-the-art available bandwidth estimation tools from hosts connected to commercial ADSL and cable networks [16]. Lakshminarayanan et. al proposed the Probe-Gap model [20], which is based in non-FIFO scheduling and idle time estimation. Using passive monitoring there are some interesting works to be mentioned, for instance the work of Calvert et al. [11] which is the first work in passive measurements made in home gateways using tcpdump; H¨ at¨ onen et al. studied 34 home gateways in terms of binding timeouts, maximum throughput, and number of concurrent bindings, again using tcp traces [18]; and DiCioccio et al. uses the data of 120, 000 home probes to explore the usability of UPnP as a means to measure and characterize home networks [14]. Also, some studies done by ISPs themselves to characterize access networks from DSL providers have been made in Europe [21], France [26] and Japan [12].
3.
ADKINTUN
In this section we will describe the main architecture of Adkintun, the main indicators of interest for the characterization of the Internet quality in Chile defined with the National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL), and the methodology used to measure and estimate those indicators. In order to characterize broadband Internet offer in Chile and following the recommendations from the communication network metrology science [22] we proposed a set of key indicators about the dynamics of the Internet connection based on the requirements established by the regulation from the Chilean neutrality law, as follows: (I1) Latency: Latency behavior in time. (I2) Jitter: Latency variance in time. (I3) Bandwidth: Changes of upload and download speed in time. (I4) IP Changes: Number of changes of IP address. (I5) Availability: Number of times the service is unavailable and duration of this period.
(I6) Packet Loss: Rate of packet loss in time.
2. in the infrastructure of an ISP different from the user’s,
In order to construct the indicators presented before, each probe performed three periodical measurements against an external server: Bandwidth (Bw), KeepAlive (KA) and Ping. By combining the results of these measurements we built the metrics defined before as presented on Table 1.
3. or in an international server.
Table 1: Indicators and metric composition Metric / Measure Bw KA Ping Latency X Jitter X Bandwidth X IP Changes X Availability X X Packet Loss X Measurements were grouped by ISP, geographical area, assigned bandwidth (according to contracted Internet capacity), etc.
3.1
Architecture
Figure 1: Adkintun architecture. The architecture for our system is shown in Figure 1. The measurement approach works as follows. A test controller module periodically assigns tests (measurements defined previously) to each user’s probe and passes them to the messaging module for handling. The messaging module handles general communication with the probes, including authentication, performed using basic HTTP authentication against a user database, and relaying the test data from the probes to our Test Server. Internally, the messaging module uses the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) model2 . This model allows for good scalability, providing the possibility of separating and distributing the load in multiple queues as the number of users grows. The probes, either software or hardware, perform periodical requests to the control server which provides them with the next test in the probe’s queue. The test is performed against one or more remote servers, that can be located in one of three locations, depending on the measurement required: 1. within the user’s ISP infrastructure, 2 http://www.amqp.org/specification/0-9-1/ amqp-org-download
Once the test is finished, the results are transmitted back to the server for storage and data compilation.
3.2
Deployment
The hardware probes are Linksys WRT-160NL routers, upgraded with a custom firmware containing our client tool, based on the OpenWRT platform. The software probes support Linux, Windows and Mac OS X as operating systems. Linux clients were implemented in C (a modification of the monitor implemented for the hardware probe), and Windows and Mac OS X clients were implemented in Java. The control server has been implemented using the Java programming language and the AMQP queue management is handled by a RabbitMQ server to which messages are passed using the RabbitMQ API. Both the instruction to the probes and the results from the measurement are encoded using the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and communication is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The databases are managed by a PostgreSQL server. Table 2: Software probes by region, compared by population Region Population Probes XV de Arica y Parinacota 189,644 82 I de Tarapac´ a 238,950 104 II de Antofagasta 493,984 230 III de Atacama 254,336 94 IV de Coquimbo 603,210 218 V de Valparas´ıso 1,539,852 893 XIII Metropolitana 6,061,185 3,256 VI de O´Higgins 780,627 190 VII del Maule 908,097 249 VIII del Biob´ıo 1,861,562 753 IX de La Araucan´ıa 869,535 300 XIV de Los R´ıos 356,396 112 X de Los Lagos 716,739 225 XI de Ays´en 91,492 17 XII de Magallanes 150,826 46 Adkintun was fully deployed and has been gathering data since September 2011. Users can download the software monitor from the website http://www.adkintun.cl and create an account that allows them to track the statistics of their connection. For instance, in September 2012 the system has over 6, 500 users and at the end of that year the number increased to over 10, 000. The probes are distributed along the whole country, with the majority concentrated in the Metropolitan region, as shown by Table 2.
4.
EMPOWERING USERS WITH ADKINTUN
In this section we will present three cases about the use of Adkintun. First, a study requested by the National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) about the behavior of the most prominent Chilean Internet service providers: VTR and Movistar. Then, we will show how Adkintun helped users to defend their net neutrality rights
(a) 2 Mbps
(b) 6 Mbps
(c) 10 Mbps
(d) 15 Mbps
Figure 2: Download speed of Movistar Chile ISP obtained downloading web pages via HTTP (blue), random files from different ports (red) against what is on the contract (green), weekly aggregation.
(a) 2 Mbps
(b) 6 Mbps
(c) 10 Mbps
(d) 15 Mbps
Figure 3: Download speed of VTR Chile ISP obtained downloading web pages via HTTP (blue), random files from different ports (red) against what is on the contract (green), weekly aggregation.
since 2011. Finally, we will present an use that we did not expect: Adkintun was used as a probatory in a lawsuit
against SUBTEL for not protecting the users’ rights.
4.1
The case of VTR and Movistar
(a) October 2011
(b) December 2011
(c) February2012
(d) April 2012
Figure 4: Relative speed of the two main Chilean ISPs. Monthly aggregation for all Internet plans
In mid 2012, we prepared a study for the National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) a study about the two main Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Chile: Movistar and VTR (both control around 80% of fixed broadband services). The study aimed to verify if both ISPs fulfilled the Chilean neutrality law. In order to be representative, and given that measured download speed doesn’t follow a normal law distribution (because the download speed is artificially forced to be under the speed offered) we used the Bootstrap resampling technique [23] for finding confidence intervals working with the observations made by our probes. We focused our study in the Internet download speed using the data collected by our Adkintun probes between October 2011 and April 2012, comparing them against the speed offered on the ISPs users contracts (Figures 2 and 3). We defined then the relative speed as the ratio between the download speed a user obtain from an ISP and the contracted one. Therefore, contracts that fulfill the neutrality law are those with a relative speed value equal
or over 1.0. By analyzing the data in a monthly visualization, we noted that for all plans there is a very recognizable pattern: the relative speed goes over and under the threshold periodically. Sadly, we noted in our study that most of the Internet plans were clearly under that threshold; for instance, in December 2011 (Figure 4) both companies presented the same behavior. By analyzing the data in a day-by-day visualization (Figure 5), we finally noticed that during the night the Internet download speed decreased well under the contracted plan for all Internet plans. Therefore it is clearly not an infrastructure problem, it is a political decision, given that by night is when most of home broadband Internet connections are for watching movies, sharing files and playing games. Also, given that both companies (having more than 80% of the home Internet market) share this kind of network traffic policy, most of the users are doomed to get a poor-quality Internet service even considering the Chilean net neutrality law. All our conclusions were transferred to SUBTEL which,
as the reader will notice later, seems were not taken into account.
Figure 5: Mean of daily relative speed of the two main Chilean ISPs in December 2011 for Movistar and VTR plans
4.2
Defending the users rights
As we stated before, Adkintun started monitoring and gathering data since September 2011, but it was in January 2012 when we presented the data to the users and started to publish it via social media and Internet forums.
Figure 6: Number of complaints by month received and processed by SUBTEL since 2011
Figure 7: Number of complaints by month received by the portal reclamos.cl since 2011 In September 11, 2012, the National Public TV channel broadcasted a feature story that used our infrastructure to reveal the problems with Broadband Internet Chilean Providers3 . The TV show presented how much Chilean ISPs fulfilled their service contracts. In the show, Adkintun 3
http://bit.ly/adkintun_press(inspanish)
was presented as “a third party system for measuring Internet speed, requested by the National Secretariat of Telecommunications” and it was used to test the ISPs contracts. Analyzing the number of complaints processed by SUBTEL and those published in the Chilean website http: //www.reclamos.cl, an online retail/services complaints portal, we noted that the number of complaints increased after Adkintun user’s interface was released and notoriously increased after the infrastructure was presented in national TV (Figures 6 and 7). We believe then that Adkintun has been a helpful tool for users empowerment in terms of Internet quality of service and net neutrality rights since 2012.
4.3
The boomerang effect of Adkintun
In June 18, 2013, the NGO C´ıvico filed a lawsuit against National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) for dereliction of duty, presenting public reports based on our data as evidence that SUBTEL has not sued nor initiated auditing actions against the Chilean ISPs despite the fact that our infrastructure were publicly available since 2012. Then, the Secretary was invited to the Commission for the Defense of citizens of the House of Representatives to raise its defense on the lawsuit filed against him, as recorded in the minutes of meeting of July 17, 20134 . The defense of SUBTEL in this appeal presented new data on the use of our infrastructure: in 2011 the secretariat had conducted 66 enforcement actions, officiating and conducting 34 instructional appeals and 8 fines. In 2012, when Adkintun started operating, there was less controls in the field (53) but the Secretariat made 37 appeals and 26 fines. The first half of 2013, the numbers had grown to 31 offices and 17 fines in half a year. Nevertheless, the NGO C´ıvico claimed that SUBTEL was aware of the report presented in Section 4.1 and it never took actions against the two main Internet service providers. Therefore, the House of Representatives opened a commission to study this case and the scope of the neutrality law as is stated in the minutes of meeting of August 7, 20135 . Also, the House of representatives decided: • to send a trade imperative, in the sense that the Commission agreed to request SUBTEL to take all appropriate measures to enforce the law and carry out a deep process control on that item, and also to report on the audit plan and the measures to be adopted by their distribution. • to officiate the director of the National Bureau of Citizen Defense (SERNAC), because this institution might call the suppliers of services, given that there is a difference between the services offered and provided and also the neutrality law has been violated. • to prepare in conjunction with the Library of Congress and and given that NGO C´ıvico claimed, an agreement proposal to be signed by all the members of this Committee and from Transportation and Telecommunications ones, to request all the 4 http://www.camara.cl/pdf.aspx?prmID= 15742&prmtipo=ACTACOMISION 5 http://www.camara.cl/pdf.aspx?prmID= 15832&prmtipo=ACTACOMISION
procedures in order to ensure the proper enforcement of the Chilean net neutrality law. This is the first case about an infrastructure demanded by a governmental institution in order to preserve the rights of a net neutrality law that it is used against the same institution.
5.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this article, we presented Adkintun, the Chilean infrastructure for measuring Quality of Service parameters requested by the National Secretariat of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) for being used by them and for Chilean citizens in order to fulfill the Chilean net neutrality law. Also, we show three examples of how Adkintun has been an useful tool for citizen empowering: using it to study the provisioning of Chilean ISPs, using it as a users tool to complaint against poor quality of service provided by ISPs, and finally used as an evidence in a lawsuit presented against SUBTEL for not taking actions against Chilean ISPs despite the data presented by the infrastructure. Based on the examples presented above, we showed that our infrastructure generated an impact on both government and empowering users to protect their rights. As Future Work, we plan to extend our studies to mobile internet starting from a crowd-sourcing paradigm in citizens empowerment that we called Crowd-Measuring [19]. In the meantime we will continue serving as an independent observer in protecting the citizens net neutrality rights.
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
[6]
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[8]
[9]
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