2 ms·
> it never meant your ISP would never throttle data based on content type [...] Accurately classifying traffic as video streaming vs bulk downloads, or gaming
by wtallis 6y ago
> it never meant your ISP would never throttle data based on content type [...]
Accurately classifying traffic as video streaming vs bulk downloads, or gaming vs VoIP, etc. is a technological impossibility. Any scheme to do so is trivially defeated by things like VPNs and at best devolves to a cat and mouse game with ever-more draconian deep packet inspection. A good Net Neutrality regulatory regime must prohibit ISPs from being lazy and only prioritizing the most popular VoIP protocols and services they know about, which means in practice that Net Neutrality has to go all the way to prohibiting discrimination based on content type.
If ISPs want to throttle, they have to do it on the basis of actual traffic patterns. If you want to deprioritize heavy traffic flows, you have to identify them based on the observed pattern of sending lots of large packets, rather than classifying it based on the notion that a certain port number means a certain kind of traffic.
- bregma 6y agoDiscriminating on the origin of the packet does not require any kind of deep inspection since the originator is in IP metadata. Net neutrality means not discriminating on the originator of the packet, not the content.
- wtallis 6y agoRepeating your assertion does not make it true. Net Neutrality has always included an aspect of not discriminating for or against certain protocols, because giving preference to specific protocols has the effect of giving preference to the incumbent services that are using those protocols and dissuading innovation and the development of alternatives. Net Neutrality is about ISPs being neutral and not influencing the market for services offered over the net. Since ISPs can unfairly influence the market using techniques beyond just inspecting packet origins and destinations, Net Neutrality has to cover those techniques too.