[Iccrg] Why don't we stop treating ECN and loss similarly?

[ken carlberg]

On Oct 29, 2012, at 4:56 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

> Perhaps it would be valuable to write some text about the state of ECN support right now, and then a plan to increase value for ECN so we can get it adopted. Current state of affairs is that few care about ECN because nobody is asking for it (same as with IPv6), so there is little commercial incentive to get it implemented. I feel most talk about ECN is from academia with little current real world implications. I'd like to see this changed, but I don't really know how. Changing the standards to implementing ECN actually brings improvement to both ISP and end user might be a good first step towards a world where ECN is actually used.

this topic has come up before on this list.  about 2.5 years ago, an engineer in my office did some tests and found that IP service providers do one of three things with the ToS field (that have some combination of non-zero markings): (a) they let them pass through unchanged, (b) they clear out the diff-serv field, but leave the ECN field untouched, and (c) they clear the entire ToS byte.

Tony Li made the good suggestion that if folks are concerned about (c), they should go to places like NANOG and talk to the operators about this.

as for interest in ECN, it exists in some planned deployments of LTE for the toll-quality VoIP applications/services. 

-ken