http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1334202020080213

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation designed to prevent broadband Internet providers from unreasonable interference with subscribers' access to content was introduced on Wednesday by a senior U.S. lawmaker.


Good if it passes through.

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if the intent is to prevent broadband companies from limiting super bandwidth users for using, say, bit torrent, then yes, its a good idea. if its not bit torrent, its gonna be something else.

if broadband companies are so concerned, then they should structure pricing tiers for these super bandwitdh users and not punish the majority of their 'regular' users.

Your view is exactly backwards. It is the Bittorrent users that are punishing you, not the broadband supplier. Users of P2P file sharing software consume huge quantities of network bandwidth, blocking your ability to retrieve email, watch youtube, and yes, surf Mercedesshop. If net neutrality becomes law, expect two things to happen: 1) The quality of service you receive on your broadband connection will go to hell. With net neutrality the service provider cannot throttle back your nethog neighbor, and you suffer as a result. 2) Expect your flat rate, unlimited monthly volume broadband connection to either become much more expensive (to pay for the network upgrades required by your neighbor) or to become ala carte, with limited usage before you incur overage charges (like cellphones).

Recent studies show that ~2% of Internet users generate >50% of Internet traffic, mostly via file sharing. If net neutrality passes, broadband service providers are prevented from controlling their usage so that you can have a decent $50/month internet connection.

My $.02. BTW, I design packet network equipment for a living, so I know a bit about the business, though I do not work directly within it.

- JimY

I don't mind service providers limiting your overall bandwidth - that's standard operating practice. It's when Comcast limits bandwidth on particular video rich data streams and to particular video sites that otherwise compete with their own traditional cable services that bugs me. And yes - that means a slowdown to Google videos and YouTube.

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Aren't' paying customers allowed the full bandwidth of their plan. So if a customer gets on a 8mbps plan and turns on torrent, he or she would be using the share of allocated bandwidth. I don't see anything wrong in that.

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Well, yes, they are allowed full bandwidth at their point of service, but each person's bandwidth is combined as the signal gets closer to the ISP's central distribution point and if there are enough high bandwidth users in a given part of town the result can be painful when trying to watch a choppy news clip, etc.

I work with networks as well, and I believe that the ISPs must prioritize the traffic types in order to give good service.


Here is an example.

Many people receive their phone service over their Internet connection. A real-time voice conversation will not tolerate delayed or lost packets but a file download doesn't care if the data comes in bursts as bandwidth becomes available. They can (and I'm sure do) invoke QOS (Quality of Service) rules that allow the full bandwidth to everyone IF it is available. These rules will slow down the less important traffic to preserve the time sensitive traffic, but when there is no time sensitive traffic, the traffic that was slowed down earlier can be allowed the full available speed. It is a necessary prioritization. Without it, things like your Vonage service would be useless.

Now, if an ISP is picking and choosing content from a competing service that they want to purposely limit or restrict, I am heartily against such restrictions.

Unfortunately, law makers aren't computer engineers and over-simplify things as they make the rules causing undue complexity on the part of companies attempting to comply.

The idea of taxing e-mails is a good example. Many companies don't use the ISP's mail services. What would I do if they invoke such a tax? Count my e-mails and send in the tax since I operate MY OWN mail server? That would be unmanageable and costly to try and quantify the usage for tax purposes.

So, yes, prioritize by traffic type, but don't prefer one vendor's content over another...

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In layman's terms, if I have paid for 20mbps then I expect to get that speed and use it for any purpose be it regular downloads via http or via torrent protocol. Why would anyone wish to throttle that? Isn't that a breach of contract?

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I see where you are coming from, but it isn't that cut and dry. If you contract for a dedicated line between your two offices, yes, they are not living up to the agreement if full bandwidth isn't available to you, but the Internet spans multiple vendor's areas of responsibilities and has bottlenecks along the way that are beyond the control of an individual ISP. They generally allow you to have full bandwidth access to their network, but congestion limits the ability for data to be transported across thae various ISP's networks to your destination. Remember, nobody really OWNS the Internet...

Think of it like automobile traffic. We all have a RIGHT to drive at the speed limit. We pay our road taxes and expect there to be enough roads to carry the traffic, but our rights aren't being violated when there is a traffic jam on the freeway and we can't drive the speed limit. We allow priority to emergency service vehicles on the road, and we even create HOV lanes to give priority to commuters! Sometimes we even plan our trips during off-peak times!

If we do the math and add up every Internet user's maximum bandwidth the number would be so high that it would be (and is) impossible for an ISP to make the maximum bandwidth available to everyone at the same time. The best they can do is guarantee that you can connect to their network at full speed, but not guarantee full speed all the way through from point A to point B.

Oh, and in my description in my previous post of how things should be throttled, you CAN use your full 20 meg IF congestion doesn't slow you down, but when congestion is present, things have to be prioritized to let the phone calls (ambulances) through, etc.

The ISPs constantly monitor for bottlenecks and are always adding more bandwidth, but these projects take time and coordination between ISPs. Also, the revenues collected have to be able to FUND the expansions which will NEVER stop, so, they have to figure out how to offer the best possible service with what they have and for the fees they charge as they grow.

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So in other words, if my torrent client uses 20mpbs on a 20mbps connection, ISP should have no issues with it. From what I understand, bandwidth costs have come down considerably over the years and to think of strategies like throttling kind of defeats the purpose of advertised high bandwidths. Instead of throttling, why not limit the connection max speeds to the good old days of 2mbps. That way the ISPs would have enough bandwidth to allocate all and they don't have to worry about someone using torrent client. Point is many buy high bandwidth with sole purpose of only one thing and that thing is download so throttling these very customers is not a good idea.

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You misunderstand the product supplied by residential broadband service providers. What you have purchased is intermittent bursts of 8Mb service, not 8Mb 24/7/365. If you read the fine print on a broadband service contract it includes a "reasonable use" clause. Reasonable use may or may not be well defined. In general it includes reading your email, surfing the web, and watching streaming video. It generally does not include running a web server, mail server, video server, or P2P file sharing.

Here's a price comparison. If you want unrestricted 24/7/365 bandwidth to the Internet you can buy a T1 line. A T1 is 1.5Mbs, both up and down. It comes with an SLA guaranteeding bandwidth and uptime. Current going rate for a T1 is about $500/month.

So for your $50/month you may get a peak rate of 8Mbs, but there isn't enough bandwidth in that network equipment for you and everybody else to send 8Mbs all day long. There isn't enough equipment for more than a few percent of the subscribers to send 8Mbs all day long.

I'm in favor of neutrality to prevent my ISP from restricting access to competing products. For example, my ISP is also the local phone company, but they don't restrict my ability to use VOIP on my broadband service. But I want my ISP to throttle back the traffic of unreasonable users on the network, because I want to get my full 5Mbs on the occasions when I use the web. My understanding is the proposed law would restrict this ability, and hence I cannot support it. As written, it would be bad for about 98% of Internet users, but very good for the remaining 2%.

'Nuff said,

- JimY

Our local internet provider tried to block VPN's for people not paying the business fee...it didn't work out . I'm all for the private sector doing what they want with the bandwidth they sell but as long as they have cables crossing my property which I pay tax on and competition is limited the consumer needs to be protected because the domino effect will effect gaming, streaming movies and other legal activities.

You know what I dislike, is when I try to watch events on my computer and they're blacked out because I'm in the wrong region! I mean, wtf? Wasn't the internet supposed to be access for everyone? Al Gore? Paging Al Gore?

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