Paper Title
Flow Rate Fairness: Dismantling a Religion
Author(s)
Bob Briscoe
Date
March 2007. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 37 Issue 2.
DOI/Authoritative Link to Paper
Novel Idea / Main Result(s)
The main claim of the paper is that flow rate as a metric for fairness is completely bogus and a better metric for the same should be the cost.
Impact
Not completely sure how fairness criterion has/has not changed in the past 10 years since this paper was published. But my takeaway from this paper is that long-established norms should not be taken for granted and there is value in evaluating the truth for each established view from time to time.
It’s fair to say though that I did not find any rebuttal paper in the defense of flow rate fairness as the author of this paper demands. However, RFC 5290 presents some alternate views on the topic.
Evidence
I did not find the argument very convincing given the lack of analytical or empirical analysis. The reasoning is based on arguments from philosophy, social science and “real life” for a more accurate definition of fairness.
Reproducibility
No, the description is not sufficient to reproduce the work.
Question
I was reminded of thinking about the Internet as a utility (from the net neutrality debate outside of this paper) and how another utility – electricity – is well distributed across the grid system fairly. I wonder if there are lessons to be learned from this analogy given the complexities and non-uniform nature of the global Internet.
Criticism
My main concern with this paper is that it tries to make such a big claim about the futility of a fairness metric that has been working for a couple of decades but fails to provide enough persuasive evidence to substantiate the claims.
Ideas for further work
See the Question section above.
Review Template Credits: Prof. Rodrigo Fonseca