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Water companies do charge different rates depending on type of usage. Look up your local company's page to see the commercial rate. It could be higher or lower. They all seem to have different priorities based on a quick search of different cities.



Because water is a tangible, physical natural resource, unlike bandwidth, and billing by zoning helps prevent environmental tragedy of the commons.


I'm not sure what your definition of tangible, physical resource is but bandwidth is limited and measurable.


Remember the good old days when a few people on your street maxing out their connections could saturate the cable node? Even better if they figured out how to uncap their connection temporarily. They still could, but usage limits with charges past that at least discourage the behavior.

People get the idea that internet is some magic, ephemeral source of endless data transfer. But it's very much a physical thing with limits set by the quality of the lines and the hardware at each end. Improving last-mile connections only push the limit upstream.


Most usage for a residential ISP will be during the evening. It should be possible to incentive moving bulk transfers to other times.


How does being measurable make it the same as a natural resource?


maybe I didn't choose the best example but they don't throttle your water supplies.


But water usage is absolutely throttled based on usage when there's a drought. I mean the police rather than the pipes is the enforcement mechanism but you will definitely be fined for using more water than necessary to water your lawn.

I think we can all imagine examples where this would get scummy but using network management to in good-faith give a better experience to everyone isn't really what people should be worried about.

I feel like the ISP throttling debate needs to be taken out of the realm of hackers where the mentality is "being allowed to do X is logically equivalent to being allowed to do X unrestricted for any purpose whatsoever" and into human territory where intent matters.


> the ISP throttling debate needs to be taken out of the realm of hackers where the mentality is "being allowed to do X is logically equivalent to being allowed to do X unrestricted for any purpose whatsoever" and into human territory where intent matters.

When an ISP offers “unlimited” usage that does not allow 100% usage all month long, that is exactly what they are attempting to do: take the debate out of the realm of consistency, and into human territory where how someone feels about it is what matters, rather than what was apparently agreed.


100% usage of what though? I feel like it's like complaining to the city because I can't drive the speed limit 100% of the time.

Look, I agree with you that the marketing for internet packages desperately needs to be changed from "X Mbps" to "Capped at X Mbps bandwidth" but we're in a technical forum where we all ought to know better.

And any ISP that uses their ability to throttle for a competitive advantage for competing services deserve to be raked over the coals but there are situations where throttling specific services makes everyone better off. The example I always use is throttling HBO traffic when GoT episodes are released -- watchers buffer a little longer but otherwise it's largely imperceptible and then non-GoT traffic isn't crowded out and you can livetweet the episode.

I know that technical people here can do their own traffic shaping and probably don't want their ISP doing it for them but for people who just want working internet it's a huge improvement. Gone are the days of people's internet being slow because someone's hogging all the bandwidth watching YouTube.


I don’t think we disagree on specifics.


> ... using network management to in good-faith give a better experience to everyone ...

But that's very much NOT what is going on these days (in the US at least). Providers advertise a plan at a certain speed with "unlimited" usage. By any reasonable interpretation, that would mean I could use up to that rate of transfer 24/7. If they can't provide that rate of transfer to everyone who purchases it, then they have no business offering it!

And that's not even beginning to touch on any of the issues surrounding net neutrality.

I suspect what happens is that due to competitive pressures (ie advertising a larger number to get more customers) they either oversell the network's capacity or they sell at prices that aren't actually profitable for them in the event that people actually use all of what was sold to them.

To get back to the original analogy:

> Example - your water supplier doesn't make a big deal if you use more water because you have a swimming pool but you ISP does and I find that very weird.

In reality, your water supplier generally doesn't oversell their capacity - utilities go to great lengths to be able to meet peak demand. Charging more to, or placing time restrictions on, certain classes of customers who consume large quantities is a key part of that strategy. They also (typically) charge per gallon, which would be equivalent to charging per Gigabyte or whatever, but the rates are very reasonable. This is in addition to charging a low, again reasonable, fixed fee for your connection to their "network".

Your water utility also doesn't charge a different rate depending on whether you're using the kitchen vs bathroom sink (net neutrality), and most certainly doesn't attempt to collect and then sell such data to third parties!

tl;dr - ISPs in the US often engage in false advertising, resulting in outrage when promises aren't met. If they behaved more like actual utilities, we likely wouldn't have these issues.


> then they have no business offering it!

Okay so the advertising changes to be from "X speed" to "best effort capped at X speed" -- nothing about internet service actually changes -- you're probably still mad. I feel like in a technical forum we should know better that such guarantees are impossible on any shared medium, not just oversubscribed ones.

> Charging more to, or placing time restrictions on, certain classes of customers who consume large quantities is a key part of that strategy.

You mean like how large ISPs want to throttle and charge video services more?

> water utility also doesn't charge a different rate depending on whether you're using the kitchen vs bathroom

Your water utility might not but your electric company does in certain areas buy putting special meters on your large appliances. It's typically done for a discount to incentivize running them off-peak but the idea is the same.

> doesn't attempt to collect and then sell such data to third parties

Careful with that assumption, that's exactly what the smart meters are for that are currently being rolled out.


> such guarantees are impossible on any shared medium

Nonsense! My ISP could most certainly sell me a guaranteed minimum speed on their portion of the network at all times of day! In fact, this is precisely how commercial provisioning often works.

Obviously they can't control what happens once traffic leaves their network, but that was never the issue and no one is complaining about that (at least that I'm aware).

They might also offer higher off peak speeds, or charge per unit of data (like water and electric utilities), offer lower off peak pricing, or whatever. That's largely orthogonal to the current issue of rampant false advertising though.

> > Charging more to, or placing time restrictions on, certain classes of customers who consume large quantities is a key part of that strategy.

> You mean like how large ISPs want to throttle and charge video services more?

No, that would be analogous to the electric utility charging you more if you're using the TV vs the dishwasher. I'm not aware of any that do this, and to head off any counter examples I most definitely do not think that such practices should EVER be legal.

Discriminating against customers based on aggregate usage, rate of usage, usage versus time of day, or similar, is completely different than discriminating based on what is done with the service. The first is reasonable, and the second ought to be illegal in all cases as far as I'm concerned.

> It's typically done for a discount... Careful with that assumption, that's exactly what the smart meters are for ...

And I don't think such smart meter usage should be legal - as with this Maine law, it should NEVER be legal to incentivize data collection and sale via promotional offers.


> My ISP could most certainly sell me a guaranteed minimum speed on their portion of the network at all times of day!

I feel like this is stretching the definition of 'could' a bit, it's not like the residential arm of most ISPs are equipped to just flip a switch and give you a dedicated connection but yes, it is technically possible. It's also ludicrously expensive, a 100M dedicated point-to-point connection in my area costs about $1k/mo. and you have to foot the bill to dig the trenches and get the wire to your building. Should be noted that this doesn't include the costs to access the wider internet.

My point still stands though, minimum bandwidth guarantees aren't really possible on shared systems.

I'm more than happy to make ISPs change their wording but when it comes to residential internet "X Mbps" has never not meant "Best Effort capped at X Mbps." Regardless, changing how ISPs advertise themselves suddenly won't change the reality of this class of internet. Among this group of people that already know how it works and don't need the pamphlet the advertising doesn't really matter -- it's not like it will suddenly cause ISPs to change how their network is run.

> No, that would be analogous to the electric utility charging you more if you're using the TV vs the dishwasher.

I feel like the mistake here is making it sound like the person who's consuming the video content is the only party that matters. Presumably you're okay with your water company charging more for industrial use. But here's the thing, the factory is only using all that water because consumers want to buy the products made at the factory. And by charging more to the factory they're essentially charging more to consumers for using water for that specific purpose.

A good analogy for video content would be PCB manufacturing (especially since it uses a lot of water). In this case consumers are buying their made-to-order boards on-demand and their purchase directly triggers the water usage required. Yet the PCB manufacturer (and you by proxy) are still charged the industrial rate.

The same with video content, just because you as a consumer request the video doesn't make the company delivering it not a different class of customer, a high-volume bulk-sender.


I don't think we actually disagree on any of the basic facts or technical details here. (Well actually I do disagree with your general claim about minimum bandwidth guarantees not being possible on shared systems, but that's probably getting a bit far afield.)

I don't object to very limited, neutral, and above all good faith traffic shaping taking place in order to mitigate sudden spikes in usage that would otherwise cause problems for the network. I also wouldn't object to peak (ie time of day) or usage (ie quantity) based pricing, a practice already engaged in by the vast majority of public utilities.

I do object to any sort of throttling targeted at specific applications, protocols, or use cases. Utility services need to be neutral, and to the extent possible blind. They deliver a service and nothing more.

Directly related, I also object to the collection and sale of usage data. I don't want any of my utilities collecting unnecessary usage data or selling information about me.

I also object to false advertising. The fact that it's currently the status quo only serves to illustrate a systemic failure of the current regulatory system.

> I feel like the mistake here is making it sound like the person who's consuming the video content is the only party that matters.

... yes? That wasn't a mistake. I purchase bandwidth from them. To the extent physically possible, it is absolutely none of their business how I use the bandwidth that I purchased.

> Presumably you're okay with your water company charging more for industrial use.

> The same with video content, just because you as a consumer request the video doesn't make the company delivering it not a different class of customer, a high-volume bulk-sender.

Actually my understanding is that utilities often charge less for industrial use, albeit with other more complicated conditions attached to the service. Water or electric utilities having special contracts for particularly high volume customers isn't an issue, but charging residential customers different rates depending on whether they were taking a shower or doing the dishes wouldn't be acceptable. Equivalently, on the commercial side of things charging office buildings different rates based on whether they were hosting insurance agents or software developers wouldn't be reasonable.

Relating this to our ISP analogy, isn't it roughly equivalent to peering agreements and other commercial provisioning options that currently exist (versus residential subscriptions)?

Rereading the comment chain, it seems a misunderstanding occurred between us earlier. I wasn't claiming (and never meant to imply) that commercial and residential customers need to be given the exact same contract terms. I only objected to discrimination based on how the provided service is used. Charging a residential customer different rates (or providing different speeds, or etc) based on the content or source of their streaming or downloading isn't okay. Equivalently, discriminating against commercial entities based on what their business does with the bandwidth they purchase isn't okay.


Well, until they run out entirely.

https://time.com/4017476/a-town-without-water/




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