The new generation of users needs boundaries and the discipline of the free market

Policy management

Nathan Pearce, F5 Networks

We all use services differently, so why should light users subsidise the hogs?

The days of free love are over. A new generation of users needs boundaries. But we don’t want to stifle them. So sensitive policy management is needed, to create services they will want to pay for. Nathan Pearce, who runs data virtualisation for F5 Networks, says service providers risk losing competitiveness if they give the users everything.

Users need to get the idea of free unlimited bandwidth out of their heads.

“If Internet Access becomes a state funded service it will lose the competitiveness that drives innovation,” says Pearce.

Innovation is led by staying ahead of competitors, but this costs money. Who's going to pick up the bill?

Granted, a public service might solve the issue with regional coverage that is less attractive to private providers.

What do you tell the users then?

One size fits all doesn't work. It prevents providers from being competitive and kills creativity. Some consumers want email and light web browsing while others might be bandwidth hungry video consumers.

How do you come up with a single service for all when customer requirements are so vastly different? Delivering a 20Mbps for £20 to the light user is hardly fair as they are covering the costs of the heavier users. “Cut the Fair usage policies and replace them with a get what you pay for policy,” says Pearce.

What tools should they use? How? What do they need to achieve?
An in band technology that can understand the bits and bytes traversing it and then apply change without interruption. An out of band device might be able to perform classification but it will not be able to apply policy: prioritising voice over email, for example. The technology must be able to scale and transform its own behaviour without service interruption.

How can they measure the class of service used by users? How can they ensure that the users get the choice and ‘social mobility’ to move to better classes of service when they need to?

The tools used for service classification must recognize that different devices support different services. People often consume services in different ways so the process of classification itself must be truly dynamic.

How do they ensure that they manage this complicated infrastructure efficiently?

The tool must be able to differentiate between services dynamically and then apply the appropriate service delivery policies on demand to avoid human error through complexity. As well as this poor customer experience through delay in waiting for services to be manually applied to the providers infrastructure.

Service classification provides a means for service level agreements with consumers, which brings accountability. Classification brings clarity. To the provider, granular classification of consumer traffic means visibility and the opportunity to deliver more services.