3 ms·

If they had said only 256 or 128 mb/sec of your 1024 mb/sec is allowed for home server traffic, I'd be ok with that. Yeah, it's a residential connection, so th

by chiph 13y ago

If they had said only 256 or 128 mb/sec of your 1024 mb/sec is allowed for home server traffic, I'd be ok with that. Yeah, it's a residential connection, so the TOS would surely be different. But as it stands, I now have no compelling reason to choose them over the competition (who will also be offering fast transfer speeds once Google Fiber comes to Austin)

ajross 13y ago
The competition will have the same terms. None of the broadband providers in the US offer restriction-free upstream traffic on their consumer lines. You have to pay more for a different kind of account for that. This is called price discrimination, and it's a good thing for the consumer as it reduces prices. No one could afford to offer 1Gbps for $70/mo or whatever it costs given a typical service provision load of ~50% utilization. Now, I will agree that as written the terms are inflexible and would appear to apply to things like an inbound ssh port or personal web server, which are certainly things many technical readers would want to use and which clearly won't impact the network. Also: since when is this about "network neutrality", which has always been about backbone traffic. Consumer lines have always been subject to price discrimination like this.
- chiph 13y ago
  Ultimately, it may come down to how they enforce this. I know that TimeWarner will start rotating your IP address as soon as they detect a responsive port 80 on your connection.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Also: since when is this about "network neutrality" The reason that this is even in the news is that this is Google's response to a complaint to the FCC that Google is violating the neutrality provisions of the FCC Open Internet Report and Order. So, its an issue precisely because its about net neutrality. > which has always been about backbone traffic. No, net neutrality has not always been (at least, not exclusively) about backbone traffic.
gonzo 13y ago
I'm not sure which ISP you think is going to compete with Google Fiber here in ATX. I'm currently on Grande at 110Mbps over FTTH, and it's OK, but it's not 1Gbps, either.
- chiph 13y ago
  Anything above 512 mb/sec, as a practical matter, is irrelevant at the present time. Why? Because you're constrained by how fast the remote server can send bits your way and how fast the internet as a whole can route packets to you. So yes, you could torrent the heck out of stuff because the incoming traffic is spread amongst many computers, but you're still going to have delays from sites that do traditional http stuff.

by chiph 13y ago

ajross 13y ago

The competition will have the same terms. None of the broadband providers in the US offer restriction-free upstream traffic on their consumer lines. You have to pay more for a different kind of account for that. This is called price discrimination, and it's a good thing for the consumer as it reduces prices. No one could afford to offer 1Gbps for $70/mo or whatever it costs given a typical service provision load of ~50% utilization. Now, I will agree that as written the terms are inflexible and would appear to apply to things like an inbound ssh port or personal web server, which are certainly things many technical readers would want to use and which clearly won't impact the network. Also: since when is this about "network neutrality", which has always been about backbone traffic. Consumer lines have always been subject to price discrimination like this.

chiph 13y ago
Ultimately, it may come down to how they enforce this. I know that TimeWarner will start rotating your IP address as soon as they detect a responsive port 80 on your connection.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Also: since when is this about "network neutrality" The reason that this is even in the news is that this is Google's response to a complaint to the FCC that Google is violating the neutrality provisions of the FCC Open Internet Report and Order. So, its an issue precisely because its about net neutrality. > which has always been about backbone traffic. No, net neutrality has not always been (at least, not exclusively) about backbone traffic.

gonzo 13y ago

I'm not sure which ISP you think is going to compete with Google Fiber here in ATX. I'm currently on Grande at 110Mbps over FTTH, and it's OK, but it's not 1Gbps, either.

chiph 13y ago
Anything above 512 mb/sec, as a practical matter, is irrelevant at the present time. Why? Because you're constrained by how fast the remote server can send bits your way and how fast the internet as a whole can route packets to you. So yes, you could torrent the heck out of stuff because the incoming traffic is spread amongst many computers, but you're still going to have delays from sites that do traditional http stuff.