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Step 1) Rate limit high bandwidth use sites to discourage use Step 2) Block VPNs to prevent circumvention of your rate limts Step 3) Profit? I don't see this
by ac29 9y ago
Step 1) Rate limit high bandwidth use sites to discourage use
Step 2) Block VPNs to prevent circumvention of your rate limts
Step 3) Profit?
I don't see this happening, but I think that's what the comment you were responding to is suggesting.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoWhy not just rate limit VPNs?
- toyg 9y agoYou are not thinking politically enough. If I rate-limit VPN outright, I'm an ugly dictator bent on destroying privacy. If I rate-limit popular bandwidth-intensive traffic, I'm just a guy trying to keep network usage fair for every user. If that involves limiting VPNs as well, they are simply collateral damage, the end justifies the means, and I'm still a good guy.
- derefr 9y agoThey're using the wrong terminology, then; "ISP rate limits" refers to artificial bandwidth restrictions placed—at the data-link layer—on the last mile of a connection, to either upsell better plans or as proactive, aggressive form of QoS traffic-shaping to prevent oversubscribed head-end nodes from actually having to deal with multiple saturated downstream links they don't have the capacity to multiplex. You're talking here more about avoiding the preferential site-by-site traffic-class-based shaping that goes on when Net Neutrality is not enforced. Which doesn't really happen, because it's far easier to just have a thinner peerage link between the ISP and the content-provider in the first place, and then do regular QoSing on that thin pipe with priority to the people on better plans. (The result is exactly like telephone service on New Year's Eve: local calls go through just fine, but long-distance calls mostly fail because the POTS peerage links are saturated.)