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Game Developers Note Net Neutrality Concerns To FCC
eldavojohn writes "A list of notes from game developers (PDF) was sent in a letter to the FCC which represented a net neutrality discussion between the developers and FCC representatives. Game Politics sums it up nicely, but the surprise is that developers are concerned with latency, not bandwidth, unlike the members of many other net neutrality discussions. One concern is that each and every game developer will need to negotiate with each and every ISP to ensure their traffic achieves acceptable levels of latency for users. 'Mr. Dyl of Turbine stated that ISPs sometimes block traffic from online gaming providers, for reasons that are not clear, but they do not necessarily continue those blocks if they are contacted. He recalled Turbine having to call ISPs that had detected the high UDP traffic from Turbine, and had apparently decided to block the traffic and wait to see who complained.' It seems a lot of the net neutrality discussions have only worried about one part of the problem — Netflix, YouTube and P2P — while an equally important source of concern went unnoticed: latency in online games."
It seems a lot of the net neutrality discussions have only worried about one part of the problem -- Netflix, YouTube and P2P -- while an equally important source of concern went unnoticed: latency in online games."
The issue isn't specific to ANY type of usage - net neutrality, or rather the lack of it, impacts all uses of the network.
As long as connectivity providers are also application providers, any application they don't like is a potential candidate for connectivity problems.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
One concern is that each and every game developer will need to negotiate with each and every ISP to ensure their traffic achieves acceptable levels of latency for users.
Or in the case of private servers (where they still exist), every private server (or private server hosting company) would have to negotiate separate deals.