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From a technical standpoint it’s far easier to be net neutral than throttle traffic which takes processing power, energy, and programmer time to do so. This is

From a technical standpoint it’s far easier to be net neutral than throttle traffic which takes processing power, energy, and programmer time to do so. This is entirely about the ISPs making yet more money.

jws 9y ago
Just imagining life as an ISP in a network neutral world… What do you need to have in place if someone alleges you are not neutral? Your accuser might present well collected evidence that Hulu performance to your customers is worse than Netflix's performance. You will then claim "but we didn't do it, it is just the luck of the draw on how we choose to buy interconnect bandwidth". Is that good enough to protect you? How can you prove you didn't choose the interconnects to screw Hulu? So there is a burden. If there is no requirement, even if you never take money to slow down someone's competitor, you are relieved of this burden.
- mindslight 9y ago
  It's generally hard to prove a negative, but for this topic simply not having a DPI machine on your network resolves most of the question - route the packet and be done. The remaining constructive hazard is easily analyzed by whether specific links are habitually overwhelmed or not - private peering and edge cache boxen are optimizations, with the service yardstick still being the generic full Internet routes.
- wmf 9y ago
  You could try not letting your network get consistently congested.
- X86BSD 9y ago
  The packet passes through so many gateways and networks between Hulu and the end client good luck proving anything.
Johnny555 9y ago
From a technical standpoint, it's far easier to provide no connectivity at all, but there's not much revenue in doing nothing. There's a lot of revenue in charging both sides for connectivity, so it doesn't matter which is "easier", only what is more profitable.
cabaalis 9y ago
I think the problem stems from ISPs also in large part being the telecommunications platforms. The internet is impeding their ability to sell TV channels and telephone subscriptions, so they are trying to wring that money from their internet businesses.

jws 9y ago

Just imagining life as an ISP in a network neutral world… What do you need to have in place if someone alleges you are not neutral? Your accuser might present well collected evidence that Hulu performance to your customers is worse than Netflix's performance. You will then claim "but we didn't do it, it is just the luck of the draw on how we choose to buy interconnect bandwidth". Is that good enough to protect you? How can you prove you didn't choose the interconnects to screw Hulu? So there is a burden. If there is no requirement, even if you never take money to slow down someone's competitor, you are relieved of this burden.

mindslight 9y ago
It's generally hard to prove a negative, but for this topic simply not having a DPI machine on your network resolves most of the question - route the packet and be done. The remaining constructive hazard is easily analyzed by whether specific links are habitually overwhelmed or not - private peering and edge cache boxen are optimizations, with the service yardstick still being the generic full Internet routes.
wmf 9y ago
You could try not letting your network get consistently congested.
X86BSD 9y ago
The packet passes through so many gateways and networks between Hulu and the end client good luck proving anything.

Johnny555 9y ago

From a technical standpoint, it's far easier to provide no connectivity at all, but there's not much revenue in doing nothing. There's a lot of revenue in charging both sides for connectivity, so it doesn't matter which is "easier", only what is more profitable.

cabaalis 9y ago

I think the problem stems from ISPs also in large part being the telecommunications platforms. The internet is impeding their ability to sell TV channels and telephone subscriptions, so they are trying to wring that money from their internet businesses.