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It is entirely appropriate to limit the speed and size of large trucks (high bandwidth users) on roadways or charge them more. This has nothing to do with net

It is entirely appropriate to limit the speed and size of large trucks (high bandwidth users) on roadways or charge them more. This has nothing to do with net neutrality. ISPs already get to sell their users as much or as little bandwidth as they choose to. If the ISP's users are sending a lot of traffic to one web site, that's only possible because the ISP's users are sending a lot of traffic. They can't stream movies unless they're already paying for a connection fast enough to stream movies. Which web site streams those movies doesn't matter.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
By high bandwidth users I am referring more to companies like Netflix or a bloated news site than to end users. It would be easier for everyone if ISP and Netflix negotiated ``oversize'' rates than having individual consumer throttling. It doesn't have to be discriminatory, oversize rates could be triggered when traffic from a corporate entity exceeded some threshold rate.
- argv_empty 9y ago
  Those are not the ISP's users, and the ISP has already been paid for the traffic going there.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    Actually this is a good thread of thought that I need to think about more. My first inclination is that an ISP is like the taxman. If and end user transacts with netflix, then a tax is collected by the entity that provided the facilitating infrastructure. The tax is on the economic transaction, not one party xor the other. Just as government funds roads by a variety of taxes on different entities, individuals and companies.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Eh. As an ISP you can't give your customers (the very vast majority, I realize that a small minority have symmetric connections) vastly asymmetric pipes (usually in the order of 10:1, if not 20:1), and then "complain" about how your inbound upstream traffic is asymmetric and thus "unfair" to the peering arrangements. It is as it was designed. Give users symmetric pipes and they'll use them differently. Far more uptake of offsite backup, other services from users with a lot of outbound bandwidth. Will ISPs scream about how unfair it is if Dropbox, Crashplan, BackBlaze, Carbonite and the like start charging THEM more because "oh gosh, look, your users are sending far more data to us than we are to them, so you're abusing our peering relationship"? It's a bunch of willfully ignorant BS. Design a traffic model and then complain that the usage pattern dictated by the traffic model is unfair to you, and therefore you need to double dip your billing.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    Exactly, let the ISPs design their traffic and billing model. The market has effects. Now, you probably want the ISPs to be operated or regulated by your local government so that the marketplace they encourage is favorable to the citizens. But please no more federal regulations on the pipes of communication between citizens.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      But Netflix already pays for their bandwidth! Everybody already has incentives to minimize it!
      - benlorenzetti 9y ago
        I love Netflix. Back when they paid for their bandwidth via the postal service, they paid for distribution and I paid them correspondingly. Then they switched to streaming and it was good for all, despite the immediate purchaser of distribution changing. My point is that the cost of distribution is going to be paid one way or the other. I don't see why we should make federal rules about it. You really want a society where the national government is not in charge of communications.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        The government is not in charge of communications anyway. It's just saying "treat everyone equally" and leaves it at that. Net neutrality (or the lack thereof) isn't about paying for what you use (your argument about trucks is incorrect because of this). It's about paying based on who you are, so your ISP can discriminate based on who the data is coming from. The original analogy was correct, it's about toll roads where cars of the same size and build pay different prices depending on their brand. "You have a BMW, so you must have more money, so pay more, even though you use the same as a Toyota."
        benlorenzetti 9y ago
        With the truck argument I was just flushing out the analogy, which is a good one. Then, addressing the net neutrality part of the analogy and stating why I opposed the FCC's net neutrality rules: I disagree that it should be regulated at the federal level. It does not take a genius mayor or governor to say that a toll road should not be restricted to one brand of car.
- maushu 9y ago
  But the users and Netflix already paid for this bandwidth? This is like double dipping from the ISP.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    The exact same argument is used by republicans when they want to do away with capital gains tax xor corporate tax. Or one of income, property, and sales taxes. The tax is gonna get collected, but whoever is the primary check writer can have market effects on the system. If Netflix had to write some of the check, we may see more investment in compression technologies and towards-the-edges network distribution.
    - argv_empty 9y ago
      If Netflix had to write some of the check You say this like you think Netflix is somehow using the internet for free.
      - benlorenzetti 9y ago
        Correction: some more of the check
- wvenable 9y ago
  > By high bandwidth users I am referring more to companies like Netflix or a bloated news site than to end users. I'm not sure I understand. Netflix pays for it's high bandwidth to deliver data to users. And you pay for your bandwidth to receive that data. You could have 10 services that are using bandwidth equally or 1 service using (and paying for) 10x the bandwidth -- what is the significant difference here? The total data is the same. Net Neutrality isn't about the "what" it's about the "who". Netflix is a big popular service so your ISP wants to extract more money from them -- not because of what they do, but who they are. 1 big service vs. 10 smaller ones.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    As a thought experiment, imagine a world where household customers were provided internet for free and ISPs earned all their money from the outbound traffic on servers. Want a particular cable channel? Pay the company operating that server. Want the news? The news company earns money from advertising so they deliver it to you. Like you point out total data is the same. The premise that the ISP payment should be born by only one side of the transaction should not be codified into law. Also I do agree we should regulate protections for the ``who''. I just think these should come from the cities under whose streets the fiber is laid, not the FCC. There is even a strong case to be made for municipal ISPs.
    - wvenable 9y ago
      ISP have peering agreements with other networks -- everybody pays for their connections on both sides. Big ISP #1 pays big ISP #2 to carry their data and vice-versa but often the traffic just cancels out. If household customers were provided internet for free and ISPs earned all their money from servers the cost would be distributed through this network. ISP #1 with the customers would charge ISP #2 with the servers for the traffic and it would somewhat balance out (as ISP #2 can make no money if it can't get to customers). Netflix is, for example, already paying your ISP indirectly to deliver content to you when it pays its ISP. I think you're confused about what net neutrality means. ISPs can still charge whatever they want how they want as long as they don't discriminate on the content of the data (who it's from and what it is). The quantity of data, the physical location of the data, and whatever else is free game. In your thought experiment, the net neutrality has no impact one way or the other.
benlorenzetti 9y ago
Furthermore I am not proposing that ISPs not be regulated. They should be to prevent abuse. I think cities and regional entities should be aggressively in this space, but not the FCC. Chattanooga TN is a good example.

benlorenzetti 9y ago

By high bandwidth users I am referring more to companies like Netflix or a bloated news site than to end users. It would be easier for everyone if ISP and Netflix negotiated ``oversize'' rates than having individual consumer throttling. It doesn't have to be discriminatory, oversize rates could be triggered when traffic from a corporate entity exceeded some threshold rate.

argv_empty 9y ago
Those are not the ISP's users, and the ISP has already been paid for the traffic going there.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Actually this is a good thread of thought that I need to think about more. My first inclination is that an ISP is like the taxman. If and end user transacts with netflix, then a tax is collected by the entity that provided the facilitating infrastructure. The tax is on the economic transaction, not one party xor the other. Just as government funds roads by a variety of taxes on different entities, individuals and companies.
FireBeyond 9y ago
Eh. As an ISP you can't give your customers (the very vast majority, I realize that a small minority have symmetric connections) vastly asymmetric pipes (usually in the order of 10:1, if not 20:1), and then "complain" about how your inbound upstream traffic is asymmetric and thus "unfair" to the peering arrangements. It is as it was designed. Give users symmetric pipes and they'll use them differently. Far more uptake of offsite backup, other services from users with a lot of outbound bandwidth. Will ISPs scream about how unfair it is if Dropbox, Crashplan, BackBlaze, Carbonite and the like start charging THEM more because "oh gosh, look, your users are sending far more data to us than we are to them, so you're abusing our peering relationship"? It's a bunch of willfully ignorant BS. Design a traffic model and then complain that the usage pattern dictated by the traffic model is unfair to you, and therefore you need to double dip your billing.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Exactly, let the ISPs design their traffic and billing model. The market has effects. Now, you probably want the ISPs to be operated or regulated by your local government so that the marketplace they encourage is favorable to the citizens. But please no more federal regulations on the pipes of communication between citizens.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    But Netflix already pays for their bandwidth! Everybody already has incentives to minimize it!
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago
      I love Netflix. Back when they paid for their bandwidth via the postal service, they paid for distribution and I paid them correspondingly. Then they switched to streaming and it was good for all, despite the immediate purchaser of distribution changing. My point is that the cost of distribution is going to be paid one way or the other. I don't see why we should make federal rules about it. You really want a society where the national government is not in charge of communications.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        The government is not in charge of communications anyway. It's just saying "treat everyone equally" and leaves it at that. Net neutrality (or the lack thereof) isn't about paying for what you use (your argument about trucks is incorrect because of this). It's about paying based on who you are, so your ISP can discriminate based on who the data is coming from. The original analogy was correct, it's about toll roads where cars of the same size and build pay different prices depending on their brand. "You have a BMW, so you must have more money, so pay more, even though you use the same as a Toyota."
        benlorenzetti 9y ago
        With the truck argument I was just flushing out the analogy, which is a good one. Then, addressing the net neutrality part of the analogy and stating why I opposed the FCC's net neutrality rules: I disagree that it should be regulated at the federal level. It does not take a genius mayor or governor to say that a toll road should not be restricted to one brand of car.
maushu 9y ago
But the users and Netflix already paid for this bandwidth? This is like double dipping from the ISP.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  The exact same argument is used by republicans when they want to do away with capital gains tax xor corporate tax. Or one of income, property, and sales taxes. The tax is gonna get collected, but whoever is the primary check writer can have market effects on the system. If Netflix had to write some of the check, we may see more investment in compression technologies and towards-the-edges network distribution.
  - argv_empty 9y ago
    If Netflix had to write some of the check You say this like you think Netflix is somehow using the internet for free.
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago
      Correction: some more of the check
wvenable 9y ago
> By high bandwidth users I am referring more to companies like Netflix or a bloated news site than to end users. I'm not sure I understand. Netflix pays for it's high bandwidth to deliver data to users. And you pay for your bandwidth to receive that data. You could have 10 services that are using bandwidth equally or 1 service using (and paying for) 10x the bandwidth -- what is the significant difference here? The total data is the same. Net Neutrality isn't about the "what" it's about the "who". Netflix is a big popular service so your ISP wants to extract more money from them -- not because of what they do, but who they are. 1 big service vs. 10 smaller ones.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  As a thought experiment, imagine a world where household customers were provided internet for free and ISPs earned all their money from the outbound traffic on servers. Want a particular cable channel? Pay the company operating that server. Want the news? The news company earns money from advertising so they deliver it to you. Like you point out total data is the same. The premise that the ISP payment should be born by only one side of the transaction should not be codified into law. Also I do agree we should regulate protections for the ``who''. I just think these should come from the cities under whose streets the fiber is laid, not the FCC. There is even a strong case to be made for municipal ISPs.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    ISP have peering agreements with other networks -- everybody pays for their connections on both sides. Big ISP #1 pays big ISP #2 to carry their data and vice-versa but often the traffic just cancels out. If household customers were provided internet for free and ISPs earned all their money from servers the cost would be distributed through this network. ISP #1 with the customers would charge ISP #2 with the servers for the traffic and it would somewhat balance out (as ISP #2 can make no money if it can't get to customers). Netflix is, for example, already paying your ISP indirectly to deliver content to you when it pays its ISP. I think you're confused about what net neutrality means. ISPs can still charge whatever they want how they want as long as they don't discriminate on the content of the data (who it's from and what it is). The quantity of data, the physical location of the data, and whatever else is free game. In your thought experiment, the net neutrality has no impact one way or the other.

benlorenzetti 9y ago

Furthermore I am not proposing that ISPs not be regulated. They should be to prevent abuse. I think cities and regional entities should be aggressively in this space, but not the FCC. Chattanooga TN is a good example.