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All of those things are possible consequences of repealing net neutrality. Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply r

by bbatha 9y ago

All of those things are possible consequences of repealing net neutrality. Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination. Repealing net neutrality would allow ISPs to more interesting traffic shaping based on the contents of the packets, e.g. allow unlimited data caps if the user pays for the ISP for unlimited netflix. The pros for net neutrality are that the ISPs have historically done all of the practices that you mention. And actively practice them in countries like Portugal which have no net neutrality. The con is that some sites are much heavier bandwidth than others, and do represent a much higher cost to the ISPs. For instance I've read that netflix takes more than 50% of North American bandwidth during peak hours. Repealing net neutrality would allow ISPs to have more flexible pricing models that in theory could allow the consumer cheaper broadband by choosing different traffic shaping options. In my opinion, this is unrealistic because ISPs are a natural monopoly in most places and thus the incentive is to skew pricing for what costs their routing infrastructure the least rather than be competitive with other ISPs.

mehrdadn 9y ago
> Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination. That doesn't make sense. ISPs have long blocked "dangerous" or "premium" ports, like 445 (SMB) or 25 (SMTP). Those are parts of the contents of your internet packets and yet even the net neutrality regulation didn't prohibit doing that. And you can't argue those are "headers" rather than "contents" because then throttling packets based on IP addresses would not require looking at packet contents. So I think your definition is incorrect?
- wickawic 9y ago
  What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain.
  - mehrdadn 9y ago
    > What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain. That seems orthogonal to my comment. I was responding to the parent comment on what net neutrality even is, not trying to debate its merits.
- tpxl 9y ago
  Ports are destinations really, not contents. They can block mail from everyone, or they can allow it for everyone, but they cannot block or throttle a single provider.
SilasX 9y ago
>Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination. So then, concretely: say I have an expensive, faster link in my network. I don't look inside the packets, but I allow them to specify some flag in the header that indicates they want to use the fast link (and I keep track of which peer is requesting it to compare to how many such usages they've paid for). Is that a NN violation? Is that harmful to the internet? Do current or proposed regulations allow it?
- MAGZine 9y ago
  Yes, because it means treating packets different based on their contents. In this case, the contents are some header flag. Is it harmful to the internet? Yes, because it promotes winners and losers. Not just from the consumer perspective. Maybe corporations can pay to have faster downlink to your customers using the same technology. Current regulations do not allow it. Or, at the minimum, it's a grey area. You might have seen your argument branded as an "internet fast lane," which I'd suspect would be so much of a fast lane as a slow lane for everyone else.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    How is that any different from allowing someone to pay more to use more of a plane (e.g. first class seats)? Is this just a general argument that everyone should pay the same and get the same?
    - icebraining 9y ago
      The analogy of the planes is not very helpful, because each flight is paid for individually. The idea is that traffic to certain peers (not the ISP customers, but whoever they are communicating with) should not be discriminated against. So you can pay for faster service, but all packets coming from or to you would get flagged, not just those going to certain servers.
- openasocket 9y ago
  If the ISP customer is able to specify which link to use and be charged accordingly, that's not necessarily a violation of the spirit of net neutrality. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, well then you just always use the fast link and it's the equivalent of the ISP just charging you more. It's not harmful to the Internet, and I believe current regulations allow it. If the server the customer is connecting to is able to specify which link to use and the server pays the bill for that usage, that's a different matter. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, servers would be forced to use the fast link in order to access the ISPs' customers, and now the ISP is forcing Netflix et. al. to fork over money just to be able to access their customers. That will hurt the Internet, and current regulations do not allow it.
openasocket 9y ago
I was right with you until you brought up Netflix. I'm unclear on why Netflix being a big source of traffic is a problem. It's not like people are having trouble accessing Netflix now. And Netflix makes extensive use of CDNs and co-locates caching servers in the ISPs' own data centers, so it's not like the fact that everyone's using Netflix is really burdening the ISP.
- gknoy 9y ago
  Do you want your ISP to charge you extra for the "privilege" of being able to get access to Netflix ("Streaming media package!"), or Twitch ("Esports!"), __in addition__ to any subscriptions you would already pay to Netflix?
  - openasocket 9y ago
    You're misunderstanding me. My point is that a common anti-NN argument is "but Netflix generates so much traffic..." and I'm saying that argument is without merit.
    - lurr 9y ago
      The argument that video streaming results in tremendously one way traffic, making peering agreements unfair, seems worth considering.
      - openasocket 9y ago
        I don't understand how traffic directionality affects peering. The path of routers between the client and the server handle all packets. The fact that the source is mostly from one size doesn't affect the load on the routers, they're still handling the same number of packets whether the traffic is symmetric or not.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        Unfair to Netflix. They could send back a whole bunch of zero bytes to make the traffic symmetrical. They save everyone's resources by not doing that, yet somehow that means they should be charged... The direction of the traffic is meaningless. What matters is the endpoint of the connection. ISPs should be happy to peer with anyone for traffic that has their users as an endpoint.
vilmosi 9y ago
Portugal has NN...

by bbatha 9y ago

mehrdadn 9y ago

> Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination. That doesn't make sense. ISPs have long blocked "dangerous" or "premium" ports, like 445 (SMB) or 25 (SMTP). Those are parts of the contents of your internet packets and yet even the net neutrality regulation didn't prohibit doing that. And you can't argue those are "headers" rather than "contents" because then throttling packets based on IP addresses would not require looking at packet contents. So I think your definition is incorrect?

wickawic 9y ago
What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain.
- mehrdadn 9y ago
  > What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain. That seems orthogonal to my comment. I was responding to the parent comment on what net neutrality even is, not trying to debate its merits.
tpxl 9y ago
Ports are destinations really, not contents. They can block mail from everyone, or they can allow it for everyone, but they cannot block or throttle a single provider.

SilasX 9y ago

>Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination. So then, concretely: say I have an expensive, faster link in my network. I don't look inside the packets, but I allow them to specify some flag in the header that indicates they want to use the fast link (and I keep track of which peer is requesting it to compare to how many such usages they've paid for). Is that a NN violation? Is that harmful to the internet? Do current or proposed regulations allow it?

MAGZine 9y ago
Yes, because it means treating packets different based on their contents. In this case, the contents are some header flag. Is it harmful to the internet? Yes, because it promotes winners and losers. Not just from the consumer perspective. Maybe corporations can pay to have faster downlink to your customers using the same technology. Current regulations do not allow it. Or, at the minimum, it's a grey area. You might have seen your argument branded as an "internet fast lane," which I'd suspect would be so much of a fast lane as a slow lane for everyone else.
- SilasX 9y ago
  How is that any different from allowing someone to pay more to use more of a plane (e.g. first class seats)? Is this just a general argument that everyone should pay the same and get the same?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The analogy of the planes is not very helpful, because each flight is paid for individually. The idea is that traffic to certain peers (not the ISP customers, but whoever they are communicating with) should not be discriminated against. So you can pay for faster service, but all packets coming from or to you would get flagged, not just those going to certain servers.
openasocket 9y ago
If the ISP customer is able to specify which link to use and be charged accordingly, that's not necessarily a violation of the spirit of net neutrality. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, well then you just always use the fast link and it's the equivalent of the ISP just charging you more. It's not harmful to the Internet, and I believe current regulations allow it. If the server the customer is connecting to is able to specify which link to use and the server pays the bill for that usage, that's a different matter. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, servers would be forced to use the fast link in order to access the ISPs' customers, and now the ISP is forcing Netflix et. al. to fork over money just to be able to access their customers. That will hurt the Internet, and current regulations do not allow it.

openasocket 9y ago

I was right with you until you brought up Netflix. I'm unclear on why Netflix being a big source of traffic is a problem. It's not like people are having trouble accessing Netflix now. And Netflix makes extensive use of CDNs and co-locates caching servers in the ISPs' own data centers, so it's not like the fact that everyone's using Netflix is really burdening the ISP.

gknoy 9y ago
Do you want your ISP to charge you extra for the "privilege" of being able to get access to Netflix ("Streaming media package!"), or Twitch ("Esports!"), __in addition__ to any subscriptions you would already pay to Netflix?
- openasocket 9y ago
  You're misunderstanding me. My point is that a common anti-NN argument is "but Netflix generates so much traffic..." and I'm saying that argument is without merit.
  - lurr 9y ago
    The argument that video streaming results in tremendously one way traffic, making peering agreements unfair, seems worth considering.
    - openasocket 9y ago
      I don't understand how traffic directionality affects peering. The path of routers between the client and the server handle all packets. The fact that the source is mostly from one size doesn't affect the load on the routers, they're still handling the same number of packets whether the traffic is symmetric or not.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      Unfair to Netflix. They could send back a whole bunch of zero bytes to make the traffic symmetrical. They save everyone's resources by not doing that, yet somehow that means they should be charged... The direction of the traffic is meaningless. What matters is the endpoint of the connection. ISPs should be happy to peer with anyone for traffic that has their users as an endpoint.

vilmosi 9y ago

Portugal has NN...