

Net Neutrality Rules published. - BIackSwan
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/net-neutrality-rules/

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drdaeman
> discriminate in transmitting

So, QoS is now banned in US?

There's another side to this. Consider an ISP, which policies traffic in 3
queues: realtime (VoIP, games), normal (ordinary browsing) and bulk (file
sharing, big downloads). No per-queue packet shaping or dropping, just putting
packets in different queues, with different priorities - but some still could
consider this "discriminating", even though such policing is done to improve
the experience, not worsen it.

Gaming traffic is relatively low, compared to file sharing. Obviously, if
there are enough file sharers on the network, the latency will rise and gamers
may experience "lags". On the other hand, BitTorrent users do not care about
latency, but only about steady downloads (and uploads), so they won't lose
anything if their packets would be put somehow further in the output queues.

Sure, users themselves could put wanted policy in DSCP field of the packet,
but sometimes they're too incompetent (rude, but true) to put the proper value
(and wrong values will screw the idea, making it worse, not better, than not
having any traffic priorities). Sorry to say, but things won't work this way.

Obviously, if there's not just a latency increase, but packet loss - it's a
sign that hardware upgrades are required. On the other side, even when
hardware is operating normally, and uplink channels are not saturated, latency
still matters.

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flip12
I think the solution to networks throttling certain traffic isn't regulation,
but competition. Rather than have a lot of rules governing what kind of
traffic ISP's can and can't throttle, make federal regulations that require
the last mile of cable be public property, lease-able to everybody. If the
barrier to entry to becoming an ISP goes down, then the problem should solve
itself.

~~~
MichaelSalib
The last time the government tried that, we got the Telecom Deformation Act of
1996. Given the spectacular success that was, what exactly makes you think
that trying to do the exact same thing now would lead to a better outcome? Is
the idea that Comcast and Verizon will, out of the goodness of their hearts,
abandon all lobbying efforts and fire all their lawyers instead of lobbying
and suing like crazy? Do you think that large corporations LOVE competition?

