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Net neutrality and QoS are different things. I have never understand why they are both mashed together. Neutrality means non discrimination on who sends the pa

Net neutrality and QoS are different things. I have never understand why they are both mashed together. Neutrality means non discrimination on who sends the packet and who receives is. QoS means that the provider have obligation to deliver a packet with strict timing. So you buy 100-mbit slow lane and 1Mbit fast. They can even give you 2 IPs for that. If you are a call center you buy 100 of the fast lane and so on.

darkmighty 13y ago
I think this is a great solution to this discussion. Customers should be charged transparently for a given QoS, and not secretly manipulated for a good average QoS for the network. The only problem is complexity for both users and applications. Ideally you would have a set of pipes with different parameters and assign each application the right to use some pipes -- e.g. voip gets a slow and stable while torrent gets a fast but unstable one (but the assignment is your choice). Of course, those should be regionally consistent so that companies can't extort money from users of known traffic types (e.g. I know a priori Joe uses voip a lot so I'll raise his voip-optimal cost). Consumers may also not be very happy with an inconsistent pricing, though. Some misconfigured app could use ton of expensive bandwidth. But this has to be worked out, it's essential for the future of the net; we can't be completely at the mercy of ISPs as the gatekeepers of content.
danielweber 13y ago
It seems many people think any kind of QoS means we no longer have a completely dumb pipe and ergo we have now lost network neutrality. I agree with you that the ISP should not care about who is on the other end of my connection. VoIP packets for Skype or for Vonage or for my ISP's phone service should all get the VoIP bit set and all be treated the same. These are more complicated rules than the water company has, but the Internet is more complicated that the water company. Water usage in a household doesn't double every N years.
Terr_ 13y ago
IMO the word "discrimination" is useful here, because certain kinds are justified while other kinds are not. I'd draw the line as "semantic" discrimination. (This includes if ISPs are using other things, like DNS names, as heuristics.) So while VoIP should be given priority over the text of a blog post, two blog-posts should be coequal regardless of the opinions inside them.

darkmighty 13y ago

I think this is a great solution to this discussion. Customers should be charged transparently for a given QoS, and not secretly manipulated for a good average QoS for the network. The only problem is complexity for both users and applications. Ideally you would have a set of pipes with different parameters and assign each application the right to use some pipes -- e.g. voip gets a slow and stable while torrent gets a fast but unstable one (but the assignment is your choice). Of course, those should be regionally consistent so that companies can't extort money from users of known traffic types (e.g. I know a priori Joe uses voip a lot so I'll raise his voip-optimal cost). Consumers may also not be very happy with an inconsistent pricing, though. Some misconfigured app could use ton of expensive bandwidth. But this has to be worked out, it's essential for the future of the net; we can't be completely at the mercy of ISPs as the gatekeepers of content.

danielweber 13y ago

It seems many people think any kind of QoS means we no longer have a completely dumb pipe and ergo we have now lost network neutrality. I agree with you that the ISP should not care about who is on the other end of my connection. VoIP packets for Skype or for Vonage or for my ISP's phone service should all get the VoIP bit set and all be treated the same. These are more complicated rules than the water company has, but the Internet is more complicated that the water company. Water usage in a household doesn't double every N years.

Terr_ 13y ago

IMO the word "discrimination" is useful here, because certain kinds are justified while other kinds are not. I'd draw the line as "semantic" discrimination. (This includes if ISPs are using other things, like DNS names, as heuristics.) So while VoIP should be given priority over the text of a blog post, two blog-posts should be coequal regardless of the opinions inside them.