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Well, then you are misinformed? Yes, net neutrality prevents your ISP from making one service artificially appear slower than another ... but "artificially" sim

Well, then you are misinformed? Yes, net neutrality prevents your ISP from making one service artificially appear slower than another ... but "artificially" simply means "based on their own interests". They are not allowed to consider what traffic they prefer when prioritizing packets or when setting prices, that's it. Just as the postal service cannot refuse to deliver letters from a specific sender, say, but that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to reject letters to you on your explicit request.

TallGuyShort 9y ago
So I'm reading through FCC 15-24 A-16, and I don't see language that supports what you're saying. Their definition of throttling is effectively banning any kind of prioritization. The fact that blocking P2P file sharing is the biggest of the few examples of violating this principle that seem to be out there is not doing much to assuage my concern about deprioritizing traffic that has a tendency to hog resources. P.S. I've also confirmed that my contract with my ISP is loaded with caveats about things that may limit my uplink speed, and it sounds to me like my whole neighborhood going to town on P2P file sharing can interfere with that and I can't hold them to it.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  Now, are we talking about deprioritizing traffic on the backbone or on a specific customer's link?
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Anywhere. I doubt the backbone is going to get saturated, and we can ignore what happens on my specific link because that's my business (although given how someone can get fined for not being licensed to do a certain job even if I explicitly accept the risks of them not being licensed, I'm not hopeful Net Neutrality will never get used to prevent ISPs from offering me more individualized service). But let's say the links from my local infrastructure to larger backbones is getting saturated by everyone in my town using P2P software (most likely for illegal purposes). I'd like my VoIP system to keep functioning reasonably well. And it seems like the P2P users are propped up as the victims in this discussion. All-traffic created equally sounds great, but all traffic is not equal. And I don't like the idea of my ISP making that call, and I don't have a lot of options of ISP, but I don't feel like the government saying the ISP is never allowed to make that call is really solving any of my problems, and I'm not convinced it's not going to cause other issues. I kinda support it but I just can't see why everyone is so solid about it when there are tons of other caveats in the situation not addressed by the FCC. Will likely be going to bed before HN lets me reply again...
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
      But that's completely backwards, isn't it? The ISP decided to make a contract with you that they would provide you with an n Mb/s pipe. And they made a contract with your neighbour to provide you with an m Mb/s pipe. How would it be even remotely reasonable to then give the ISP the option to not fulfill their contract with your neighbour in order to fullfill an additional contract with you that would allow you to make a reliable phone call? Or even if you don't pay extra for the privilege: Why is the fact that you think your phone call is more important than your neighbour's bittorrent in any way a sensible reason for the ISP to then throttle your neighbour? If the neighbour thinks their torrent is more important, shouldn't they rather throttle your phone call? Why do you get to make the decision whose traffic is more important? When a link is saturated, bandwidth simply should be allocated equally to all customers (or rather, proportionally to their respective link capacity, I guess), don't you think? Why should it matter that you are trying to make a phone call? If the equally divided bandwidth is sufficient to make a phone call, you can make a phone call, if it's not, well, that's not a reason to tell your neighbour that they can't do what they would prefer to do, is it? But much more importantly, shouldn't it be the responsibility of the ISP to build a network that doesn't normally get saturated? After all, they are selling both you and your neigbour a specific link capacity, so how aren't they responsible for actually providing the bandwidth that they sold you? How is it even remotely reasonable to suggest that they should be allowed to not fulfill one contract in order to fulfill another (while also still charging both of you)? The whole concept of other customers "hogging resources" is just bullshit IMO. When I order ten books and you order one book from Amazon ... am I "hogging recources"? Should amazon simply just send me only nine books, charge me for all ten, and then send the tenth book to you, and charge you for it as well? People aren't hogging anything, they are simply using a service that the ISP volunarily agreed to provide, and that they are paying for, and it's the ISP's fricking job to make sure that them using what they paid for does not prevent you from using what you paid for, nor the other way around. If your neighbour is ordering tons of stuff from the internet, are they "hogging UPS"? Is that a reason for UPS to throw away some of their packages that they deem unimportant to free some capacity to deliver yours instead? Or isn't it rather UPS's frickin job to deliver all packages that they made contracts to deliver? All in all, I don't see how any of that justifies prioritizing based on packet contents. (BTW, consider one other area that is well-known for overbooking: Airlines. Do they just leave you stranded at the airport if too many people actually turn up for the flight, and still get to keep the money ... or isn't it rather completely their own risk, and they have to pay for your hotel stay, and move you to your destination ASAP, and potentially also pay compensation for your lost time? How is it that actually turning up for a flight that you paid for is not considered "hogging the airline"?)

TallGuyShort 9y ago

So I'm reading through FCC 15-24 A-16, and I don't see language that supports what you're saying. Their definition of throttling is effectively banning any kind of prioritization. The fact that blocking P2P file sharing is the biggest of the few examples of violating this principle that seem to be out there is not doing much to assuage my concern about deprioritizing traffic that has a tendency to hog resources. P.S. I've also confirmed that my contract with my ISP is loaded with caveats about things that may limit my uplink speed, and it sounds to me like my whole neighborhood going to town on P2P file sharing can interfere with that and I can't hold them to it.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
Now, are we talking about deprioritizing traffic on the backbone or on a specific customer's link?
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Anywhere. I doubt the backbone is going to get saturated, and we can ignore what happens on my specific link because that's my business (although given how someone can get fined for not being licensed to do a certain job even if I explicitly accept the risks of them not being licensed, I'm not hopeful Net Neutrality will never get used to prevent ISPs from offering me more individualized service). But let's say the links from my local infrastructure to larger backbones is getting saturated by everyone in my town using P2P software (most likely for illegal purposes). I'd like my VoIP system to keep functioning reasonably well. And it seems like the P2P users are propped up as the victims in this discussion. All-traffic created equally sounds great, but all traffic is not equal. And I don't like the idea of my ISP making that call, and I don't have a lot of options of ISP, but I don't feel like the government saying the ISP is never allowed to make that call is really solving any of my problems, and I'm not convinced it's not going to cause other issues. I kinda support it but I just can't see why everyone is so solid about it when there are tons of other caveats in the situation not addressed by the FCC. Will likely be going to bed before HN lets me reply again...
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    But that's completely backwards, isn't it? The ISP decided to make a contract with you that they would provide you with an n Mb/s pipe. And they made a contract with your neighbour to provide you with an m Mb/s pipe. How would it be even remotely reasonable to then give the ISP the option to not fulfill their contract with your neighbour in order to fullfill an additional contract with you that would allow you to make a reliable phone call? Or even if you don't pay extra for the privilege: Why is the fact that you think your phone call is more important than your neighbour's bittorrent in any way a sensible reason for the ISP to then throttle your neighbour? If the neighbour thinks their torrent is more important, shouldn't they rather throttle your phone call? Why do you get to make the decision whose traffic is more important? When a link is saturated, bandwidth simply should be allocated equally to all customers (or rather, proportionally to their respective link capacity, I guess), don't you think? Why should it matter that you are trying to make a phone call? If the equally divided bandwidth is sufficient to make a phone call, you can make a phone call, if it's not, well, that's not a reason to tell your neighbour that they can't do what they would prefer to do, is it? But much more importantly, shouldn't it be the responsibility of the ISP to build a network that doesn't normally get saturated? After all, they are selling both you and your neigbour a specific link capacity, so how aren't they responsible for actually providing the bandwidth that they sold you? How is it even remotely reasonable to suggest that they should be allowed to not fulfill one contract in order to fulfill another (while also still charging both of you)? The whole concept of other customers "hogging resources" is just bullshit IMO. When I order ten books and you order one book from Amazon ... am I "hogging recources"? Should amazon simply just send me only nine books, charge me for all ten, and then send the tenth book to you, and charge you for it as well? People aren't hogging anything, they are simply using a service that the ISP volunarily agreed to provide, and that they are paying for, and it's the ISP's fricking job to make sure that them using what they paid for does not prevent you from using what you paid for, nor the other way around. If your neighbour is ordering tons of stuff from the internet, are they "hogging UPS"? Is that a reason for UPS to throw away some of their packages that they deem unimportant to free some capacity to deliver yours instead? Or isn't it rather UPS's frickin job to deliver all packages that they made contracts to deliver? All in all, I don't see how any of that justifies prioritizing based on packet contents. (BTW, consider one other area that is well-known for overbooking: Airlines. Do they just leave you stranded at the airport if too many people actually turn up for the flight, and still get to keep the money ... or isn't it rather completely their own risk, and they have to pay for your hotel stay, and move you to your destination ASAP, and potentially also pay compensation for your lost time? How is it that actually turning up for a flight that you paid for is not considered "hogging the airline"?)