AT&T Proposes Net Neutrality Compromise 243
An anonymous reader writes: The net neutrality debate has been pretty binary: ISPs want the ability to create so-called "fast lanes," and consumers want all traffic to be treated equally. Now, AT&T is proposing an alternative: fast lanes under consumer control. Their idea would "allow individual consumers to ask that some applications, such as Netflix, receive priority treatment over other services, such as e-mail or online video games. That's different from the FCC's current proposal, which tacitly allows Internet providers to charge content companies for priority access to consumers but doesn't give the consumers a choice in the matter."
AT&T said, "Such an approach would preserve the ability of Internet service providers to engage in individualized negotiations with [content companies] for a host of services, while prohibiting the precise practice that has raised 'fast lane' concerns." It's not perfect, but it's probably the first earnest attempt at a compromise we've seen from either side, and it suggests the discussion can move forward without completely rejecting one group's wishes.
AT&T said, "Such an approach would preserve the ability of Internet service providers to engage in individualized negotiations with [content companies] for a host of services, while prohibiting the precise practice that has raised 'fast lane' concerns." It's not perfect, but it's probably the first earnest attempt at a compromise we've seen from either side, and it suggests the discussion can move forward without completely rejecting one group's wishes.
You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean just like we can do now assuming our ISP treats all traffic equally? Isn't QoS supported by most home type routers, even without having to flash it with dd-wrt or tomato or whatever?
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Re:You mean... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're using a "home type router," my guess is you have no other internal hops. And, your ISP isn't going to pay any attention to how you mark QoS in what you send out.
So, exactly what do you expect that QoS support to do? QoS provides very little benefit unless it is end-to-end.
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But that's all you need. User have control over their own bandwidth, you can't ask to prioritize your traffic over someone else's traffic. ISPs should provide a pipe with a fixed bandwidth the user pays for. And user can decide what traffic to prioritize inside his own network. That's it.
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Interactive vs. bulk QoS (Score:2)
I would like for them to prioritize whatever I am accessing at the time I am accessing it.
Then mark "whatever [you are] accessing at the time [you are] accessing it" (HTTP, VoIP, etc.) as interactive, and mark your torrenting as bulk.
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And exactly how does your hypothetical user control incoming bandwidth with their "home router?"
I have no problem with prefere
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason for having QoS on a network is when there's congestion. If there is congestion on an ISP's network, the ISP is not doing its job, the job that the customers already paid for. You can't sell 50Mbps internet connections if your network can't deliver 50Mbps to the customer (with exceptions only for unusual circumstances, unusual meaning not predictably recurring). ISPs can use statistics to their advantage and underprovision network bandwidth, because not everybody needs full bandwidth at the same time, but whatever bandwidth is regularly used must be available.
This is AT&T trying to shift blame to the consumer. Your data isn't trickling because the ISP failed to build out the network. It's slow because other consumers wanted their traffic fast-laned. Don't forget that "fast lane" means someone else's data is throttled.
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, what AT&T brought up is already solved.
What they are really asking for is another billing mechanism to charge people more for their traffic to be higher priority... or at least not choked out to death-by-dropped-packets.
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you mean 4Mb down is not enough for you video and voice streaming for the whole family?
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what they're asking for is "exactly what we wanted before, only we'll cloak it by requiring a shill^Wcustomer to ask us to do it first"
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Lets assume a customer is to be given three tiers default (PHB), EF ( voice/video etc), BLK (bulk torrents etc dropped first)
The ISPs router should be configured to accept X bandwidth at priority EF from any given customer. Packets that exceed that rate are simply be demoted to EF. That is fair to everybody. All of us get a little media priority that can cut in line ahead of someone else's PHB or BLK traffic. All of the EF is aggregated into one fair queue, all the PHB traffic fair queues, finally all t
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That's congestion control, not QoS. Many of the protocols where QoS is most desirable run over UDP, not TCP.
Your whole "defaults to EF, demote to EF" thing is confused. I think you mean DSCPs DF, EF and AF13, where EF is the extra-cost premium service.
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They can't simply trust users to appropriately mark packets - you'd have some who simply marked everything as high priority.
Then run the meter only for packets marked high priority. "You get 50 GB/mo for high priority, after which point we start demoting all your packets to bulk." That's similar to the shaping that cellular ISPs perform on "unlimited" data plans: the first few GB at "blazing 4G speed" (actually LTE which is 4G-Lite) and the rest at near dial-up speed.
This might require rearchitecting applications to split their communication into interactive and bulk streams. For example, Netflix could encrypt each shot* in a
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The throttling due to bandwidth constraints occurs when it hits the last leg of the connection-- as it is sent to your router. What your router does at that point doesnt change the limitations on bandwidth upstream of it.
ISPs should provide a pipe with a fixed bandwidth the user pays for.
They do.
And user can decide what traffic to prioritize inside his own network.
You can, but prioritization doesnt help very much after the chokepoint.
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ISPs should provide a pipe with a fixed bandwidth the user pays for.
If that's what you want, most ISPs will gladly sell you guaranteed bandwidth. It just might cost a bit more than $50/month for 10 Mbps.
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This is a "standard" residential connection around here. They don't differentiate between business and home users. Everyone gets the same packages offered and the same support. Min
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For IPv4, QoS simply means reordering packets so achieve low latency for applications that need it (VoIP, ssh), moderate priority for applications commonly used but transfer a lot of data (http, ftp), and low priority for packets used for stuff that could saturate both ends and cause issues with other applications (e.g., bittorrent, p2p)..
On IPv6, there is a QoS field, and you can bet once the switchover starts happening
Re:You mean... (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no. Do some reading on diffserv. There are mechanisms to accommodate a range of bandwidth (assurance) and latency (expediency) needs. QoS is much more than simply reordering packets, and includes things like classification, marking, queue management (strict vs. RED/WRED vs. WFQ), policing, shaping, trust relationships, etc.
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but you see this way AT&T can get payments for "fast lane access" while blaming consumers for picking the sites. No heat over "abuse of monopoly/duopoly" and more money. It's a win-win (for AT&T)!
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This. Basically the same thing with different wording and the blame shifted to the consumer. Sadly some may fall for this.
Re:You mean... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: You mean... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just more greed.
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Isn't QoS supported by most home type routers, even
The difference between QoS and AT&T's proposal, is that QoS gives ALL video traffic the same special treatment.
AT&T wants companies to pay them for special treatment on a 1-to-1 basis.
It's a bad idea and they are bad people for suggesting it.
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QOS doesn't give any stream preferential treatment. QOS guarantees certain level of bandwidth at all times for certain streams. Typically, it is reserved for things like VOIP where buffering causes issues. I don't think Netflix is deserving of QOS, but rather it deserves better guaranteed base because it can adjust with larger buffers, taking care of intermittent studdering due to temporary spikes in bandwidth usage.
The problem here, is that total aggregate bandwidth is simply being manipulated at peering p
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the idea is that you pay the ISP for a "Netflix booster", and then your Netflix traffic gets un-humped into the fast lane. Meanwhile everyone else's Netflix is slow, and they're griping at Netflix about why they have to pay this extra fee, and Netflix eventually gives up and pays AT&T to un-hump all of its customers' traffic.
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the idea is that you pay the ISP for a "Netflix booster", and then your Netflix traffic gets un-humped into the fast lane.
That's how I interpretted it... and with this model ISPs could bundle website traffic into packages just like cable TV. No thank you.
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does anyone else see the foolishness in one of the highest volume uses of the Internet also being one of the highest priority? That people are thinking of the huge transfers of pre-produced video as being something other than the dead last, lowest priority cheapest-per-byte traffic there is, is totally ridiculous.
The only things that should be "fast laned" (low latency) are VoIP, videoconferencing, interactive terminals, etc: most of which is either low-bandwidth or else niche. If "high priority" is what many peoples' connections are doing several hours per day, then our very sense of "priorities" is fucked up.
I can't say I'm a fan of the ISPs that Netflix is fighting with, but at the same time: Fuck Netflix. Netflix is a case study in how to do video technologically wrong and it seems like they're just totally ignoring common sense. Why shouldn't doing things like a luddite, be relatively expensive? (Really, having storage in your box is still considered prohibitively expensive? It sure wasn't expensive in 2000 with Tivo series 1. Things got worse since then?!?) If the pampered princess insists that her cake be delivered from the kitchen a bite at a time and the commoner just puts a whole slice on his plate and takes a bite at the table whenever he wants it, we expect the princess' servants to be rolling their eyes when she's not looking, embezzeling, etc.
When we have broken up the monopolies and our streets have conduits under them containing a dozen competing fibers, we can re-evaluate the tech from our position of abundance. Maybe video streaming won't be on-the-face-of-it-stupid, then. But that's the future, not today.
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I also interpret it as allowing AT&T to offer their own streaming service at cheap introductory prices (perhaps free for 6 months), then shape traffic to prefer that ser
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You mean just like we can do now assuming our ISP treats all traffic equally? Isn't QoS supported by most home type routers, even without having to flash it with dd-wrt or tomato or whatever?
But isn't QoS pretty much limited to upload. Here's a quote from http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html [nmhoy.net]: QoS as found on any consumer router running on a standard Internet Service Provider will ONLY work on upstream/outbound data (data going from you to your ISP). You cannot realistically control the priority of data coming TO you FROM your ISP, since you can only control the data on your side of the modem.
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So, the OP was being clueless. Unle
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For most ISPs, that would be traffic policing, although some may use traffic shaping. Look it up, you'll learn something new.
You clearly don't understand the difference between QoS and congestion control, or between TCP and UDP, or that some protocols cannot degrade gracefully. Congestion control in no way replaces proper QoS.
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TCP allows for congestion control and windows. This is a two-way communication in which either side can slow down the connection.
Otherwise, accessing a website over 33.6k would have the server send data at the same 50mb/s like FIOS and bits spilling all over the floor.
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That is pretty much because the router you are using is weak sauce. Its partly true. Protocols without congestion control UDP/ICMP for example could saturate your connection. The Internet as it exists today though is mostly a TCP affair. TCP has congestion control. To manage the incoming priority what you do is have your local router queue the ACK responses and delay them for the TCP flows you have at lower priority. The remote side will slow down its send rate until the ACK response rate falls inside
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QoS at your end of the pipe is quite a bit different from QoS at the ISP's end.
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The router you are required to use with AT&T Uverse does not support QoS.
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But the router you attach to the router you are required to use can do it just fine.
QoS at home vs network (Score:2)
If you think that the latency issues are on your h
Bastard ATT. let's make this real simple for them (Score:2)
so they can understand. MONEY CANNOT AFFECT THE PRIORITY BIT. you can sell Netflix all the 10-gigabit ports you want. but the priority bit stays at 1 or 2, just like all the other basic internet traffic on your network. just like the packets you send to the home customers.
understand it now?
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck you AT&T.
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And while we're at it:
Fuck Slashdot Beta
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this a compromise? You hire a thousand people to vote the way you like, net neutrality on their terms. again.
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Us : "Can you please just shoot me in the foot?"
AT&T : "OK"
Us : "Yay! Compromise!"
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And our response (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
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fine fine, we will sell you a dumb pipe. 640Kb is enough for every one right? WHAT you want more.... ok fine but 4Mb is where we draw the line
It would all depend on the unit of time. If I got 4Mb per pico second I'd be one happy fish.
No dice (Score:2, Insightful)
Consumers pay extra (Score:5, Insightful)
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I did not RTA, but from the summary it sounds as if AT&T's proposal would allow AT&T to instead charge customers extra based on the applications they wish to use. No, thank you.
[s]
Why not? It worked well enough when they were charging individually for sms messages.
[/sarcasm]
Consumers pay extra (Score:2)
AT&T can charge Netflix extra money for making a "Fast Lane" available on its network. Then, it can turn around and let the customer "choose" to pay an extra $20 a month to actually USE this "Fast Lane". Rinse and Repeat with every type of service you can think of: YouTube, Twitch, online gaming, Skype, etc. Soon the customer could have an extra $50-100
Approved Lists? (Score:5, Insightful)
So would AT&T's proposal let you "fast lane" any site? Or just a select group of major sites that AT&T has "approved"?
Oh, I see. So it's not really "I want X to be fast-laned" and then it is. It's "I want X to be fast-laned", therefore AT&T might possible approach X and demand fast lane payments. This way AT&T can pass the blame for the fast lane charges to the customers (who will also pay for those charges via increased fees for those sites) and can still pocket the money. Also, they are guaranteed that Netflix and the other Internet video companies would top the lists. Just the sites that they themselves would have targeted for extortion... I mean, fast lane payments.
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That's the problem when the ISP is also the TV provider and content producer. That's why we have such pathetic bandwidth quotas here in QC province. both Bell and Videotron own TV stations and are TV providers, so yes they're afraid of Netflix and such.
Let's compromise... (Score:2)
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It's worse than that.
It's "I'll punch everyone in the face just as strong as before, but everyone votes to decide which side I'll hit."
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Tolchock the starry dedoochka AT&T!
This is not a compromise (Score:5, Insightful)
If the consumer can call for some content to be provided faster, the beginning state has to be that all traffic is slowed down; you can't go faster than "fastest". If all traffic is slowed down, you're already violating net neutrality. In other words, this proposal assumes a state in which net neutrality advocates have already lost and gotten nothing.
This. (Score:3)
This is a pretty transparent proposal to immediately cap speeds, then approach platforms for extortion money based on user demand.
In short, it's exactly the same thing. The words have changed, but the idea about what to do with the cables is the same.
AT&T..compromise? (Score:5, Interesting)
hahahahaha
No, what we're seeing is one of two things:
1) They've already figured out how to milk this suggestion for every dime ( and given enough time, they'll figure out how to milk even MORE out of it )
2) They see which way the wind is (hopefully) blowing, and realize a compromise NOW might let them salvage some of the situation.
In either case, telling them to go "pound sand" is still the correct response. AT&T and their ilk have screwed over customers for years. There is no reason to suddenly adopt an attitude of cooperation with them, knowing full fucking well the only reason they're doing so is to find a place to stick the knife.
AT&T..compromise? (Score:2)
Easy (Score:2)
Even better! (Score:5, Insightful)
Old plan:
1. Make all internet slow lane.
2. Require content providers to pay for fast lane.
New plan:
1. Make all internet slow lane.
2. Require content providers to pay for fast lane.
3. Require customers to pay in order to access fast lane.
let's get Swiftian on their asses! (Score:2)
Internet is FREE (as in beer and as in born) and you jugheads pay US for the privilege of presenting advertisements for our consideration.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Here's another idea... (Score:5, Informative)
How about the ISP's spend a little money to give Americans a first world infrastructure?
I live in Japan and have 200Mps fiber with no caps for about the price of two pizzas per month. I've had at least 100Mps fiber (or 45Mps ADSL) for over ten years. I had 50 Mps fiber in 2000.
No, I don't live in the middle of a big city. I've lived in the suburbs no different than any suburban area or small city in the US, I've lived in the countryside for a year with no fiber, but had 45Mps about eight years ago.
And don't come back with the "US is too biiiiig!" excuse. You have electricity, water and gas, don't you? How did you get that if the area you live in is "Too biiiig!" The density where I live is no more than a place like Nashville, or Arlington Heights, or Jacksonville, or Albuquerque, or Portland, or Anytown, USA.
How did I get reasonable cost, high-speed fiber? Competition. There are no exclusive franchises or politicians controlling the internet business. Companies invested in infrastructure and competed to win customers with better and faster service with lower pricing. Most areas are now wired for 1Gps, and will be opened when the time comes to fill that bandwidth.
Your politicians and unelected regulatory gangs, er, agencies have hoodwinked you into forgetting that investment into infrastructure is amortized and not a fixed cost forever. Price should be going down and service should be better and faster... and ISP's would still be making mountains of money.
I doubt it's going to change, but I do wish you had options and at least 2nd-world service.
Re: (Score:3)
I live in Japan [...]
And don't come back with the "US is too biiiiig!" excuse. You have electricity, water and gas, don't you? How did you get that if the area you live in is "Too biiiig!" The density where I live is no more than a place like Nashville, or Arlington Heights, or Jacksonville, or Albuquerque, or Portland, or Anytown, USA.
You're making several wildly inappropriate assumptions:
1. Despite being the size of Minnesota, Japan has the world's third largest GDP
2. Japan has a very high population density
3. Many Americans in low density rural States don't have water and gas, they have wells and a wood stove.
4. Japan and America (and each individual State) have completely different regulatory environments and philosophies. No shit we have different outcomes.
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I used to live in a city with about 80,000 people. My choices were cruddy comcast service or slower DSL. Netflix was always buffering.
I moved into the countryside about 10 miles out of town. Comcast doesn't provide service here but there is a small regional cable company. As a result, my service 2-3x faster, and costs 60% of what I used to pay Comcast.
The real issue is that cable companies are not considered common carriers. In the UK they do the common carrier thing and there is massive competition, b
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You have electricity, water and gas, don't you?
FYI: In the U.S., lots of people don't have gas lines. It's common to either have no gas line, or to have your own oil tank. Water is commonly done through either a well on your own land, or a shared well amongst the community.
Your point still stands, but perhaps avoid that example.
Re:Here's another idea... (Score:4, Informative)
And don't come back with the "US is too biiiiig!" excuse. You have electricity, water and gas, don't you?
No, no I don't. I have electricity, but I get water out of the ground and have gas brought in on a truck.
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Well, there's your answer...have your internet brought in by truck.
The latency might suck, but the bandwidth would be fantastic!
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And don't come back with the "US is too biiiiig!" excuse. You have electricity, water and gas, don't you? How did you get that if the area you live in is "Too biiiig!" The density where I live is no more than a place like Nashville, or Arlington Heights, or Jacksonville, or Albuquerque, or Portland, or Anytown, USA.
I largely agree with your post, but I wanted to quibble on this point, since you've overlooked an important fundamental difference between those utilities and the Internet: connectedness. The water line for the suburban-without-a-nearby-urban area where I live (pop: ~210K) is managed by my local municipality. They draw its supply from the river that runs through this area. We don't have to run a pipe a hundred miles to the nearest major city to get water. Likewise, we have power plants in our immediate vici
We enable AT&T's shakedown? (Score:4, Funny)
Will Directv VOD get the fast lane no caps for it (Score:2)
Will Directv VOD get the fast lane no caps for it after they merge? they are also talking about useing fixed wireless internet as well. So maybe they can have lower cap on that but say that Directv data / VOD is free and does not court as part of your cap.
Clarity is required (Score:5, Insightful)
This proposal just serves to muddy the clear definition of the role of an ISP, and they can then use that ambiguity to create problems and extract more revenue by charging to fix their problems. It's critical that there be a clear definition of an ISPs role in the network, and the IETF has maintained those clear distinctions for decades now. Let's not let the business deal-makers muck things up!
Fine ... (Score:5, Informative)
I would like everything to be on the fast lane all the time... just like you promised when I paid you far too much for my connection ....
Yay! (Score:2)
The Most Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Just the fact that AT&T proposed it is enough to poison the entire proposal. Anything out of AT&T is going to be an attempt to fuck somebody because that's what they truly excel at. After all the taxpayers have done to provide money to build these guys networks and the subsidies they've gotten over the decades it's time for it to end.
Negotiation (Score:2)
I'd didn't see anyone looking for negotiation as an accepted outcome of this process.
What a joke! (Score:2)
Gotta give them credit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even most of the posts here seem to miss the point that they are trying to keep the argument framed in terms of particular sites like Netflix. I think if they had said something like "allow individual consumers to ask that some applications, such as streaming video , receive priority treatment over other services", then it might be a reasonable attempt at a compromise. As it is, it's a sly bit of marketing to mask the desire to extract money from direct competitors. The last thing they want is the focus to be where it should be--content providers and service providers should not be the same companies.
I have a compromise for you... (Score:2)
How about laws that force internet providers to not be owned by, or produce content at all. Better yet, make it so that the company that owns the infrastructure doesn't even provide internet access, but instead sell their access to homes to other companies.
What's the compromise? (Score:2)
I'm not sure I'm understanding this, because I have no idea what the difference is supposed to be. People are saying, "We don't want you to throttle Netflix, trying to extort extra money out of both Netflix and the consumers for faster access." And then AT&T says, "But what if we throttle Netflix first, then wait for consumers to complain, and *then* extort money out of Netflix and consumers for faster access?"
Isn't that exactly the same thing?
No. No. And HELL FUCKING NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
This assumes that the large telecoms (like AT&T) are going to bargain on an equal basis with their customers.
Anyone with even a shred of sanity will laugh themselves silly over the notion.
The Net Neutrality movement is a collective bargaining tool. Because individuals have exactly ZERO power to influence their telcom provider. And AT&T KNOWS this. Keeping people as individuals in this instance allows them to hide their malfeasance.
Moreover, even if they had any intention of playing the prioritization straight, they're going to try to put a per-MB/GB price structure into place.
This offer should be given the "fuck off" it deserves.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Unfortunately they're my only even remotely viable option.
I'll have to move if I want anything else.
A couple years back, my landlord booted Comcast and brought in some fly-by-night Satellite/DSL reseller (Suite Solutions).
Comcast kept them tied up in court for about a year but ultimately lost.
So I jumped to Clearwire. It was okay for web browsing and light gaming. But I also need my connection for an IP phone and the connection quality just wasn't there. (The nearest tower to me is north and east,
Fastlanes my backside (Score:3)
Negotiate unless illegal or immoral (Score:2)
If it's immoral or illegal, don't negotiate.
This looks like smoke and mirrors. It looks like they're proposing a compromise to dazzle the American people with fancy words that amount to the same thing. That's an immoral strategy--they've been told no, so they're rephrasing the same proposal to sound like something else so as to deceive everyone--and such behavior should bring a prompt end to negotiations.
"We didn't really mean it ... (Score:2)
Act like common carriers or be sued for content. (Score:2)
The basic problem here is that ISPs should either act like common carriers and not discriminate based on content, or be held fully accountable for all content they carry and be subject to lawsuits.
They are thieves, but the idea has merit (Score:2)
But it could be re-worked to act like this:
1) Build out infrastructure to give all customers speeds of 500 MBPS
2) Sell service to customers for speeds upto 300 MBPS. Make it clear that is what you are offering, at that price. You never advertise any speeds higher than 300 MBPS.
3) If however people are using content from approved fast lanes, you enable speeds upto 500 MBPS for content from those people.
4) Make a rule that if they ever choose to adverise s
Cue evil (Score:2)
Such crap ... (Score:2)
See, the problem with this is AT&T is the network. That's it.
It's none of their damned business what content companies and services I use. Their job is to give me a network pipe to access the internet.
This is just propping up a business model where they can say "Nice Netflix you have there, it would be a shame if something happened to it". T
ROFL - Bad example (Score:2)
How about they just deliver what they sell? F*ck "up to", they need to get r
Compromise? (Score:2)
Translation-"eh, can we talk this over...?" (Score:3)
"AT&T said, "Such an approach would preserve the ability of Internet service providers to engage in individualized negotiations with [content companies] for a host of services, while prohibiting the precise practice that has raised 'fast lane' concerns." It's not perfect, but it's probably the first earnest attempt at a compromise we've seen from either side, and it suggests the discussion can move forward without completely rejecting one group's wishes."
Nice try.
First, the ability to "enter into individual negotiations" for your IP packages to be treated one way (slow) or another way (fast) is ENORMOUSLY deceptive language for killing net neutrality.
To deconstruct this twaddle , the word "ability" is used so that rejecting this "offer" (snort) makes it seem like you';re turning down an ability in favor of what? a disability? Being forced to "negotiate" for your packet's speed is not an "ability" . It's the threat that, unless you pay or if you oppose us politically, we'll kneecap your packets.
Secondly, it is NOTHING but fast lane / slow lane practices repackaged into doublespeak. What are the
"individualized" (another gratuitously positive-sounding word) "negotiations" (if you call being strong armed by non- value producing, rent seeking monopolists "negotiations" ) except demands for payment for delivery of your packets at prices other than the price "negotiated" for the same delivery of other companies and individuals packets?
You know what this piece of corporate press release dressed up as a Slashdot article REALLY says? We're winning, and not by some small measure either. ATT is looking over the battle field and they see they're being completely routed. The writing is on the wall for them nad they're desperately trying to "negotiate" and "compromise" their way to a victory over a free as in freedom internet, because they're not going to carry the day using the normal mechanism of Congressional campaign bribes , er I mean support, and astroturfed "citizens movements"
Your letters to your Congressional representatives are totally and completely one sided, as was the public response to the FCC. Congress has NO WAY to give them what they want without shredding whatever credibility that institution has left as the People's House. The cost of defying the repeatedly expressed will of the American people on this issue would not just be toxic for generations to any party who gives in, it would also threaten the legitimacy of the institution itself. How much more can the American people take? No one wants to find out.
Takeaway from this piece of corporate PR trash?
KEEP WRITING CONGRESS. IT"S WORKING.
So the fast lane slow lane has been broken out into "individual
Re:Request fastlane for games (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you request a fastlane for Netflix? As you can just buffer the video. If it's not fast enough you need a better internet connection.
Current internet connections are fast enough, future ones may not be.
Video file size will continue to increase. Connection bandwidth will not increase if ISP's can earn money from not increasing it.
For fast paced multiplayer games you would request a fast lane, or any multiplayer game really.
For games you mostly need low latency, not necessarily high bandwidth (which is what the fast lanes are about).
But what connections can be fastlaned? If Netflix or Valve have to negotiate for users to have fastlanes, then it will still cause the same problems.
That basically sums up the entire problem. Content providers will all pay extra for the fast lanes, as a result all content providers' traffic will be equally fast.
Internet will be just as fast as it would be with true net neutrality but ISP are raking in a lot of money for doing effectively nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you request a fastlane for Netflix?
For cell-based broadband at least, it's usually the difference between a fast-lane and a zero-speed lane.
On T-Mobile for instance, once you exceed your initial quota, your device is supposed to slow down to 3G speed, but it actually doesn't do that. It keeps its 4G speed for Facebook (because Facebook pays for the privilege), and it slows down the rest of the traffic to zero for everything else (even for low speed things like email).
Re: Why compromise (Score:3, Interesting)
This. The post was considered so important by the Founders that a national utility - the post office - was enshrined in the constitution. Email is the new post. Instead of letting pirates like AT&T hold our copper and fiber, often largely paid for by public funds, hostage, we should treat the internet as a vital public service and resource like the postal network.
Re: (Score:2)