4 ms·

If I'm reading it right, basically the courts said that the FCC doesn't have the right to regulate internet providers like they do common carriers (like phone n

If I'm reading it right, basically the courts said that the FCC doesn't have the right to regulate internet providers like they do common carriers (like phone networks), so they're just going to reclassify them as common carriers, then regulate them. IMHO this is probably huge for net neutrality, but I wonder where their (generally accepted) efforts at traffic shaping will end up in all of this? I'm not sure anyone wants broadband that can't throttle its bittorrent users a little.

swombat 16y ago
I'm not sure anyone wants broadband that can't throttle its bittorrent users a little. Why would your 24MBit/s work slower for bit-torrent than other uses? The whole point of this net neutrality debate is that ISPs have no business deciding which traffic they prefer, much like your phone company has no business deciding which one of your friends you're allowed to call.
- tedunangst 16y ago
  If my neighbor is downloading a torrent for 3 hours, it hardly matters whether it arrives in 3:04 or 3:05. But if I'm browsing HN or email, the difference between 0.1 seconds and 1.0 seconds is quite perceptible.
  - gte910h 16y ago
    They don't throttle those guys a little. They throttle them a lot.
- gte910h 16y ago
  The issue is that network advertisers don't have the bandwidth they say they do. So they really can't give everyone 24 sustained, only burst.
  - lukev 16y ago
    God forbid they actually advertise their real and burst rates instead of picking a completely unrealistic, sky-high number.
  - randallsquared 16y ago
    And the reason most heavy users do not complain very loudly about this false advertising is that we are benefactors, since our heavy internet usage is subsidized by those that only browse the web a bit and get email, but still want 25 Mbps because it's "more" than 2 Mbps.
westbywest 16y ago
I'm not sure anyone wants broadband that can't throttle its bittorrent users a little. I comment in agreement with the need to maintain QoS for reasons of network health, especially if you need to maintain minimum guaranteed bandwidth in the presence of misbehaving clients (e.g. botnets, ping floods, not just abusive torrenters). However, the carriers in questions have often not been using QoS for reasons of improving service, but rather to penalize the percentage of broadband users who actually use a large portion of the bandwidth they're paying for. For example, say you buy 1.5Mbit DSL and then carefully set up your torrent client to use a consistent 1.0Mbit during nighttime. A month later you get a disconnect notice from your ISP claiming that you were hogging bandwidth, probably leaving you SOL since that's the only viable ISP in your area. This is the sort of business practice the FCC is trying to address.
- fnid2 16y ago
  You aren't SOL, you can stop using so much bandwidth. You can be a conscientious user of shared resources. Using a constant stream like that is almost always a bit lacking in legitimacy. It usually means you are using the service in ways that your service plan wasn't designed to be used, either you're downloading and/or sharing large, perhaps copyrighted videos, music, or software, or you are running a server for gaming or something like that. Those 1.5Mbit DSL is "maximum capacity." Not what you should try to consume. Ultimately, all the customers go through one pipe, or a shared few pipes, so those hogging the lines negatively affect others. In my opinion, it's the users of the bandwidth that are greedy. Do they really need 1,000 movies on their hard drives? Many bit torrenters have more content than they could ever watch in their entire lives...
  - lutorm 16y ago
    Strawman argument. If I break the law, charge me. Otherwise you have no business second-guessing what I transfer over the line I pay for. If they don't want people to use the bandwith they pay to get, they should say so by advertising their monthly cap or whatever. The idea that I can only transfer the particular types of bits across the wire that my ISP thinks I should is exactly the point of net neutrality rules. If that's not an infringement of free speech, I don't know what is.

swombat 16y ago

I'm not sure anyone wants broadband that can't throttle its bittorrent users a little. Why would your 24MBit/s work slower for bit-torrent than other uses? The whole point of this net neutrality debate is that ISPs have no business deciding which traffic they prefer, much like your phone company has no business deciding which one of your friends you're allowed to call.

tedunangst 16y ago
If my neighbor is downloading a torrent for 3 hours, it hardly matters whether it arrives in 3:04 or 3:05. But if I'm browsing HN or email, the difference between 0.1 seconds and 1.0 seconds is quite perceptible.
- gte910h 16y ago
  They don't throttle those guys a little. They throttle them a lot.
gte910h 16y ago
The issue is that network advertisers don't have the bandwidth they say they do. So they really can't give everyone 24 sustained, only burst.
- lukev 16y ago
  God forbid they actually advertise their real and burst rates instead of picking a completely unrealistic, sky-high number.
- randallsquared 16y ago
  And the reason most heavy users do not complain very loudly about this false advertising is that we are benefactors, since our heavy internet usage is subsidized by those that only browse the web a bit and get email, but still want 25 Mbps because it's "more" than 2 Mbps.

westbywest 16y ago

I'm not sure anyone wants broadband that can't throttle its bittorrent users a little. I comment in agreement with the need to maintain QoS for reasons of network health, especially if you need to maintain minimum guaranteed bandwidth in the presence of misbehaving clients (e.g. botnets, ping floods, not just abusive torrenters). However, the carriers in questions have often not been using QoS for reasons of improving service, but rather to penalize the percentage of broadband users who actually use a large portion of the bandwidth they're paying for. For example, say you buy 1.5Mbit DSL and then carefully set up your torrent client to use a consistent 1.0Mbit during nighttime. A month later you get a disconnect notice from your ISP claiming that you were hogging bandwidth, probably leaving you SOL since that's the only viable ISP in your area. This is the sort of business practice the FCC is trying to address.

fnid2 16y ago
You aren't SOL, you can stop using so much bandwidth. You can be a conscientious user of shared resources. Using a constant stream like that is almost always a bit lacking in legitimacy. It usually means you are using the service in ways that your service plan wasn't designed to be used, either you're downloading and/or sharing large, perhaps copyrighted videos, music, or software, or you are running a server for gaming or something like that. Those 1.5Mbit DSL is "maximum capacity." Not what you should try to consume. Ultimately, all the customers go through one pipe, or a shared few pipes, so those hogging the lines negatively affect others. In my opinion, it's the users of the bandwidth that are greedy. Do they really need 1,000 movies on their hard drives? Many bit torrenters have more content than they could ever watch in their entire lives...
- lutorm 16y ago
  Strawman argument. If I break the law, charge me. Otherwise you have no business second-guessing what I transfer over the line I pay for. If they don't want people to use the bandwith they pay to get, they should say so by advertising their monthly cap or whatever. The idea that I can only transfer the particular types of bits across the wire that my ISP thinks I should is exactly the point of net neutrality rules. If that's not an infringement of free speech, I don't know what is.