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UK ISP To Prioritize Gaming Traffic
nk497 writes "A UK ISP is now offering a broadband package just for gamers, which will prioritize their traffic to give them an edge over rival players. Demon Internet has also set up direct networks with gaming companies to boost speeds, and is promising lower latency and a higher usage cap than standard packages. 'Looking at the usage of gamers, it's actually more akin to a small business,' the company said. While paying to get specific content streamed more quickly may worry net neutrality campaigners, Demon says it has enough capacity for its own customers and that's who it's looking out for."
LOL wut? Net neutrality would prevent this, yes, but it would also prevent ISPs from holding you hostage for not paying up. I get that you're a Libertarian and it's all ZOMG gubment doin' stuff, but give me a break. The suggestion that what we have now works is as laughable as it is wrong. At bare minimum there needs to be rules to ensure that things are conducted in an above the board fashion.
Additionally, this is in a sense a method of cheating, you're putting down extra money to have an in game advantage, It doesn't take a genius to see that it puts pressure on other players to pony up for it as well, whether it would otherwise be necessary or not.
Prolly more like "Not intentionally slowing down"
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Let's create preferred lanes for Mercedes, Lexus and BMW drivers. After all, these people paid a lot more than Al Bundy for his Dodge and they pay more taxes as well. So it's entirely fair they get preferred treatment and lower driving latency (get to their destination faster). They're businessmen and women, so their needs are different from the normal people. We still have enough other roads for all the other drivers, don't worry.
If they had enough capacity on their network to avoid congestion, they wouldn't *need* to prioritise anything. This appears to be running a poor network, then charging more to compensate for it.
Shame, Demon used to be a decent ISP in the 90s.
Um, despite the "worry over net neutrality" cited in the article, the actual service just looks like they're repackaging a higher speed/business connection as a "gamer" package. Nothing there actually says that your connection will be slower by packet category.
Paying £3 to get something extra doesn't sound too bad. What worries me is that ISPs may quietly start crippling their default packages so they can sell "extras". For example, this ISP could artificially raise the latency of normal users' connections, and when anyone complains they might say "it's because we give priority to the more expensive packages -- if you want better latency you must also pay more". You might say "meh, that'll never happen"... But, this is exactly the sort of thing our ISPs are infamous for doing here in the UK.
Exactly. If we let ISPs decide for us which packets are more important than others, what's to stop them from favoring popular games while ignoring the rest? It's not as if all games use the same protocol, so instead of optimizing the network for particular applications or protocols, why not optimize it based on particular needs?
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Prioritizing based on source or destination would be a problem under Net Neutrality but prioritizing based on protocol etc isn't necessarily unless it's to try to degrade a competitors products(like a phone company which is also an ISP intentionally degrading VOIP).
NN doesn't stop you pushing VOIP packets through faster than FTP or UDP faster than TCP.
Prioritizing based on source or destination would be a problem under Net Neutrality but prioritizing based on protocol etc isn't necessarily
Since most games run their own protocol, it's effectively the same. So the WoW protocol gets prioritized and the Age of Conan protocol does not, it works out to exactly the same as a src/dst filter.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"I see it as more of a QOS feature than as a neutrality violation"
I have QOS on my router. Why should I have to pay an extra fee for it. If they are not overselling their network, they should not need to prioritize traffic to get the performance for which they are charging this extra fee. If this stopped at being a service fee for setting QoS on a single customer's connection for the services of their choice, and it did not include peering agreements guided by specific types of services for which they are charging consumers a premium, I might agree.
The service is between the ISP and its customer, not a bribe paid by a customer to someone else's ISP.
I could be "someone else" on the same ISP. So yes, that is "bribing" for priority on "someone else's ISP". Besides, Net Neutrality rules don't distinguish between who is paying, or whether that other network happens to be an ISP, a corporate network, or even someone's home network.
It's sensitive to protocol (e.g. gaming vs. HTTP/HTTPS/etc), not to the identity of the party on the other end (e.g. MSNBC vs. Fox News or YouTube vs. Dailymotion).
Comcast degrading BitTorrent traffic (that's protocol based, not "identity" based) was a Net Neutrality violation. Favoring specific applications IS a Net Neutrality violation, unless it falls under "reasonable network management". As I said before, if they are not overselling their network, they should not need to prioritize. Reasonable network management would be limited to times of unusually high spikes in traffic, and would be a fail-safe for time sensitive or safety critical services, not for people who have paid for some special prioritization.
Is there any evidence that what would actually be enacted is this way, or are you like most Net Neutrality proponents who make up their own rules and decide that must be what NN means?
It's still very much up for debate, and will be until it get's passed by the Congress, at least in the US. I think there are two pertinent points to be discussed here in regards to NN:
1. Does prioritizing traffic compromise the spirit and principal behind NN if it does not degrade others service?
2. Would it possibly be better to implement a QOS scheme that allows customers to prioritize whichever traffic is most important to them?
My personal answers are:
1. Not necessarily.
2. Yes
I will be contacting my elected representatives and the EFF with my views. I recommend you do the same.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
This prioritizing of gaming traffic would be illegal if Net Neutrality existed.
No. Actually it isn't necessarily a violation of net neutrality at all.
Net neutrality (as understood by most rational people) is violated when someone who is NOT a customer of the ISP gets charged for better access to the ISPs customers. e.g. throttling google traffic but boosting bing traffic becasue google didn't pay and bing did.
Yes, there are some nitwits who try and conflate net neutrality as being in conflict with QoS or Tiered ISP service levels like offering (slower lite vs regular vs higher speed connections), etc, etc, but that's not the "net neutrality" that net neutrality advocates are interested in.
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with CUSTOMERS paying to have their traffic, or some subset of their traffic given priority. And in fact I EXPECT customers to be able and willing to pay for faster speed for their traffic within their ISP.
You see how seemingly "good" laws can cause unintended and harmful consequences? (Lord save me from do-gooders trying to save my soul, or impose their morals upon me.)
You see how conflating two network management issues that are unrelated creates FUD about the unrelated issue? People like you are as bad as the do-gooders.