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Is Verizon Already Slowing Netflix Down?
hondo77 points out a blog post by Dave Raphael, who noticed some odd discrepancies between two different Verizon broadband connections he has access to. His personal residential plan and his company's business plan both went through the same Verizon routers, but his residential plan is getting unusably slow speeds to places like AWS. He suggests that Verizon is already waging a war on high-bandwidth services like Netflix after the recent court decision against net neutrality. His discussion with a Verizon service representative seems to confirm this, though it's uncertain whether such an employee would have access to that information.
Most people support Net Neutrality because they think things like this will not happen.
So then, under the net neutrality rules you need to explain why what Verizion is doing would not happen.
What will stop Verizon from doing this? My canceling my phone service and telling them I'm switching to T-Mobile because of cloud throttling.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is Verizon Already Slowing Netflix Down?
Yes. Verizon throttles lots of stuff. Why? Because they can. They want to you pay for "fast, fast, fast!" but they don't like it if you use the data or the speed you're paying for.
http://bgr.com/2014/02/05/veri...
“We treat all traffic equally, and that has not changed,” a Verizon spokesperson told BGR in an emailed statement. “Many factors can affect the speed a customer’s experiences for a specific site, including, that site’s servers, the way the traffic is routed over the Internet, and other considerations. We are looking into this specific matter, but the company representative was mistaken. We’re going to redouble our representative education efforts on this topic.”
It is still unclear exactly what was causing the issues that Raphael described, but it’s apparently not any form of bandwidth prioritization. Instead, the issue may relate to congestion specific to the Amazon servers or connections that Raphael was testing, but nothing has been confirmed by Amazon.
I almost admire your optimism.
Because it would be illegal, and they would be subject to legal repercussions, unlike now. What part of this do you find confusing?
They're confused by the part that conflicts with their ideology.
Why would anyone believe what a low-level CSR tells them in a chat session? This is like when an eBay CSR claimed that eBay did not allow the sale of Bitcoin mining rigs a few weeks ago. The person didn't know what they were talking about.
Not to mention this is Verizon, who can't tell $0.002 from 0.002 cents. Engaging them on a topic of any complexity is sure to lead to hilarity and/or frustration.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
ISPs say that they don't have enough bandwidth for everything, and that they must throttle traffic.
Then, ISPs say they want to have your residential AP also broadcast a public wifi hotspot.
To me, those two things are in contradiction. If there isn't enough bandwidth then why are they adding public hotspots to residential plans?
May be a bit more complex - as the reverse lookups shown in the traceroute have subtle differences (including case). One would wonder if there is also some split DNS as well. Dw.
Proper net neutrality legislation would require (under penalty of fines) an ISP to not throttle one service for another.
That is traffic to verizion.com would not get higher bandwidth than those to netflix or t-mobile.
if you search on the internet, netflix is pushing it's own CDN with the condition that they don't pay the regular CDN fees. most of the big ISP's haven't signed on which is why netflix is slow on their networks. the pipes to the CDN provider are probably maxed out like the issue with Cogent a few years ago
business scuffle with two companies trying to lower their costs of business. not like netflix is the angel here either.
Because it would be illegal, and they would be subject to legal repercussions, unlike now. What part of this do you find confusing?
The part where Verizon is demonstrably doing something to cause this. "slow speeds to netflix" can be explained a lot of ways that don't involve content based throttling. Short of a subpoena for exactly the right router configuration (good luck, they have about 20,000) you can't.
"Confirmation" from a Verizon spokesperson that Verizon isn't throttling access is more than a little like the fox guarding the hen house and asking the fox to "confirm" that the hens are all present and accounted for. That's not to say that Mr. Raphael's assertion is necessarily correct either, but he does provide additional evidence to support his claim, whereas Verizon is merely providing "assurances", as far as I can tell since the BGR article provides no details beyond the brief spokesperson statement.
Evil is as eval("does");
Well if you have Vios and your Netflix is considered noticeable slow, or choppy. And say TWC plays netflix at faster speed. You just go, I am switching because my Netflix is too slow. It is faster with the competition.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Throttling can be done passive aggressively and there is no law against that, that I know of. Just let links degrade, then give business users higher priority.
and verizon isn't throttling anything, they are simply not upgrading their circuit after a huge spike in traffic
Proper net neutrality legislation would require (under penalty of fines) an ISP to not throttle one service for another.
Verizon is not throttling A service. They are throttling "cloud providers", which means no specific service is throttled, just anyone pushing data through Amazon - that's the whole point of the article, that his data rate is also impacted because he uses AWS.
There is no way you can write a law that will stop Verizon from doing what they are doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If your problem with a law is simply that there are law breakers, then you're simply fundamentally averse to a law-and-order society.
Our legal system is no stranger to passive-aggressive and underhanded law breaking. And in an organization as large as Verizon, it's kind of hard to do something illegal on a massive scale and not be found out eventually. And the penalties could be staggering. No investor would encourage Verizon to break the rules; otherwise that's what they'd have been doing all along. D'uh.
But they would have to perjure themselves by denying it. And in an organization that large, does anyone think there will never be a whistle-blower who comes out with documentation showing that they were doing it? The risk of getting caught would very likely be sufficient deterrent (if the penalties are severe enough), which is the whole point of making something illegal.
Because it would be illegal
Why?
What was the rule or regulation or law from Net Neutrality that made what Verizon is doing illegal?
I want someone to be specific because my point is this Verizon action has NOTHING to do with Net Neutrality, and would not be stopped by any Net Neutrality rules that the FCC put forth before they were told to stop.
So I repeat; HOW WOULD VERSION NOT BE ABLE TO DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, your whole premise is that competition eliminates competition, but you support government intervention to eliminate competition because competition eliminates competition.
Wow. 420 much?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Sure you can stop them. You can revoke their Incorporation Charter.
One thing we seem to have forgotten is that Corporations are creations of the state, and thus subservient to the state (ostensibly).
The problem is, that when HARM is done, we have never simply revoked Corporate Charters. If we start doing that, then CxOs and boards will take their fiduciary responsibility a little more seriously.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Letting links degrade isn't illegal. Throttling is. If links getting degraded was illegal, then getting congestion would be illegal. A link is degraded when it can no longer handle its peak load, yet you see this happen all the time. Verizon is just a bit more ballsy about doing it with high profile routes in an attempt to get more money out of other companies.
Sure you can stop them. You can revoke their Incorporation Charter.
Come on, under what law can you do that? Again, what law lets you do anything to Verizon for what they are doing?
This is what you are not grasping, Net Neutrality is not designed to stop actions like this. The government does not care about this. They will not act against this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Proper net neutrality legislation would define suitable actions for an ISP near or at capacity during peak usage. Because in that situation, stuff is getting throttled, and I sure hope my http or SMTP request has higher priority than somebody's torrent or video stream. QoS is a good thing.
The first 2 hops in his traces don't match up...
This AC is correct. IF you read the fine article behind the article referenced in this story it is CLEAR that the guy's home connection has at least one more hop. I would assume that after 4PM, many home users would be showing up and cranking up Netflix (or other online activities) and putting stress on the first router which is NOT involved in the business connection.
So, this is apples and oranges... Or at least just congestion on the home connection that doesn't exist in the business one.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Because it would be illegal, and they would be subject to legal repercussions, unlike now.
You are clearly suffering from the disjoint definition of "Net Neutrality" -- There is the version that you think would be right, and then there is the version that the FCC adopted. You've already been told that there is a difference, but you continue to choose to ignore reality due to some blind hope that the FCC is there to protect you. The FCC is there to generate campaign contributions by selling policy to companies like AT&T and Verizon. As a matter of fact, these companies were the people consulted when drafting the FCC's Net Neutrality rules. You were told about that too. You chose to also ignore that due to that same blind hope.
Nothing the FCC adopted would prevent Verizon from limiting bandwidth to such an extent that services like Netflix become pixelated junk during peek usage periods. That is the real Net Neutrality as adopted. You were told what the real Net neutrality was, and you ignored it while cheering it on. Welcome to the internet that you cheered for.
"His name was James Damore."
Because it would be illegal, and they would be subject to legal repercussions, unlike now. What part of this do you find confusing?
The part where Verizon is demonstrably doing something to cause this. "slow speeds to netflix" can be explained a lot of ways that don't involve content based throttling. Short of a subpoena for exactly the right router configuration (good luck, they have about 20,000) you can't.
Yes, you can obtain this evidence.
You don't go searching through 20,000 routers to figure this out.
Instead, you ask and obtain the network speed results from 2,000,000 Verizon customers through a public crowdsourcing campaign.
Either the hard evidence will clearly show that speeds are being throttled, or the public backlash alone with a campaign like this will force Verizon to "fix" it, else they lose customers. A lot of customers.
Either way, we can get the evidence. You just have to think outside the box.
Net Neutrality states that all data must be treated equally. That means if I purchase a 20Mb connection, I should be able to allocate that 20Mb connection to any service I want without the ISP throttling it down. If Netflix lets me stream at 20Mb, but for some reason I can only get 10Mb because it is throttled by Verizon, well then that breaks Net Neutrality. Obviously there is a lot of things to take in, like router, modem, and infrastructure, but if there is obvious evidence showing my connections to a particular service is treated differently, it would be illegal under Net Neutrality.
"This word you keep using...I do not think it means what you think it means" -Inigo Montoya
Competition does not lead to monopolies. Competition and monopoly are literally antonyms; they are the opposite of one another. So let me ask you this...if not competition, what would you propose to prevent a monopoly?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
They are throttling "cloud providers" ...which are a service...
Wrong, "Cloud Providers" are multiple sets of IP's to Verizon, nothing more or less. To a company AWS is a service, but not to the consumer of the data.
Given any ACTUAL service - say Netflix - why Netflix is free to send stuff directly to consumers instead of storing it on a cloud provider.
Thus no SERVICE is impacted by Verizon simply letting the natural bottleneck that happens around cloud providers because they have a lot of data people access exist without addressing...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I RTFA. Nowhere does this blogger compare Netflix traffic to similar service from someone like YouTube. Illegality under the normal understanding of "Net Neutrality" would require showing a bias between two similar sources of traffic.
There should be an app for that...
"The Premium package gives you access to all your streaming favorites like YouTube, Hulu Plus, Netflix along with dozens of foreign movie sites you've never heard of.
The Friends & Family package gives you access to the people you want to keep in touch with, when you want to keep in touch with them, over your favorite NSA-sponsored proprietary social networking site: FacePalmSpace.
Our Adults-Only package allows you to stream all your favorite German Scheiße porn tube sites!"
Don't think so? Bookmark me, wait a couple years, then come back and mod me "Insightful".
The key line from the transcript is "yes, it is limited bandwidth to cloud providers". You can translate that bad English into : "Verizon is limiting bandwidth to cloud providers" and get incensed or "Verizon has limited bandwidth to cloud providers" and have a complete non-issue. Given how unlikely it is that a low level CSR is going to know about Verizon's super secret throttling system I'm going with the latter.
My cable company has been metering us for several weeks now following a slight overage in our data limit. They charged us 15 bucks for exceeding 100 GB in a calendar month, thanks to a Tera-Online download and a busy month with Netflix. The corporate media companies are going to finally succeed in their dream of channelizing the net and making it just another TV medium dominated by commercial adds and controlled by the media oligarchy. Welcome to the future...it is a place of dim hopes, shattered dreams and corporate citizenship. The Idiocracy lives...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I also am a libertarian/conservative-leaning voter who, I believe, has to have a similar view to you. But on Net Neutrality, the freedom of the people cannot be protected by giving freedom to an oligarchy. In the modern day, the people are not only subject to the limitations of law. More and more, they are subject to the rules set by corporate oligarchies. In the US, unlike in Korea, there is a gentlemen's agreement amongst internet providers to limit the speeds that we should expect. The capitalist idea of personal property has been perverted over the last 30 years by the use of EULA's that is prevelant, which teach people that they only own their computers to the degree that MicrosoftApple tells them they can.
If you would prefer a company that provides freer computing or freer internet service, there's really no where to run.
Unless you exercise your free-market right to go shopping for a new government. Brazil is looking pretty good to me.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
For what it's worth, we just did this with our Family plan (ditch V for Tmo) - and, can verify, 2 weeks of normal 4G data usage on TMo totalled about 20 Meg, setup as a mobile hotspot and give the kids tablets with Netflix - ran through 480 Meg of data in like 5 minutes - I don't think there's any throttling going on there...
I moved from DSL to cable because Netflix was spending too long buffering. Supposed to be about 10x faster on the downstream but still that little spinning circle is a way-too-frequent experience. Keeping the cable though as it help with the "fallback" viewing method.
Net Neutrality at its core says: "you may not treat traffic from one location/company/program differently than you treat data from all other locations/companies/programs."
Verizon (allegedly) is not; they are treating all Cloud Providers equally.
They are not throttling any one company. They are simply allowing a bottleneck in the network to exist to "cloud providers".
Which would happen to impact Netflix, yes, but also impacted the guy that wrote the article who is not Netflix - he's just being treated equally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That doesn't mean that what Verizon is supposedly doing doesn't violate the spirit of what people want net neutrality protection against, however.
That's exactly my point. What people want is this.
But it's not what they are getting, it was never what the FCC proposed, it's not what they will ever do. And yet people are all up in arms because the FCC is not allowed to control ISP's even though it will do nothing in the SPIRIT of why people want Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality is a hollow label simply used to sell a bad product.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My canceling my phone service and telling them I'm switching to T-Mobile because of cloud throttling.
Wake me when T-Mobile offers FTTP, until then keep pretending you have a clue what you're going on about.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Comparing a residential account and a business account? I don't see a story here.
I'm sorry, did you just mention a major corporation and the phrase (sufficient deterrent) in regards to penalties in the same sentence?
Where's my ROFLcopter?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Well, I have no experience with Verizon, a few calls to my ISP tech support(Suddenlink.net) I have made convinced me that they would be no help.
One in particular some years back:
*Stillwater, Oklahoma: Internet service was down again...a frequent occurrence at that time, but usually only for short periods.(they were "upgrading the infrastructure", so I generally cut them some slack) This time it had been about 16 hours.
The weather was admittedly pretty bad, heavy wind, heavy rain, lightning, cold, etc...*
I call tech support:
Me:I cannot access the internet. The modem is not connecting with you.
'Tech': well, the internet is down temporarirly. We're sorry, but we are trying to get it working again as quickly as we can.
Me: The internet is down, the whole thing?
Tech: Yes, the whole internet is down. During the storm earlier, a truck hit a pole in town and took down the whole internet.
Me: A truck hit a pole in town, and took out the whole internet? Hmmm...Thank you, goodbye.
*ROFLCopter with rib cramps!*
So, for those of you that thought you knew how the internets work, think again! I now have the means to control the whole internet....because I know which pole it is!!!!
But don't worry, for the measly sum of one million dollars, I will put a truck proof barrier around it.
After all that's a nice internet you got there, it would be a shame for something to happen to it...*fires up chainsaw* ;-)
About the only useful information I can get out of them is whether it is a regional problem, city problem, or neighborhood problem.
If it's none of the above, then I can safely deduce that the problem is between the house and the pole in the back yard, and put in a service request.
Fortunately I know enough networking to trouble shoot and support/manage my own home LAN, so I guess this is good enough for my purposes.
Unfortunately, I'm not the typical residential/home user, who may not have that knowledge or ability.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I guess "Slashdot Beta Tourette's" is the winter bug going around this year...
We made one, but the data being returned kept dropping out for some reason.
Dark Reflection
A fat fine from the FCC might help if we had solid net neutrality. A reminder that their past compliance will be considered when they wish to expand their spectrum usage wouldn't hurt.
Yes, because most people totally have 4 or 5 great options for high speed internet service.
Oh wait, actually I meant 1 or 2, but sure. If there's true competitive pressure then things change.
Just like how Comcast offers faster internet speeds in some metropolitan areas. Not coincidentally those are the exact same areas that happen to have Verizon FiOS. Where their only competition is DSL? Not so much.
OK, what would explain it? The traffic went the same route until the last hop. They happily verified that there was not a general congestion problem on his local segment. Then, the CSR admitted they were throtrtling. RTFA!
No, they are confused by an unclear description of "net neutrality".
I've seen some places (non-fox news) describe "net neutrality" as "Enforcing traffic to be at equal speeds"... which is not the case. People using that description would be against it because they believe it would mean all web traffic would be slower, to match the speed of the slowest server... That reeks of "All must be fair, so we must race to the bottom" and "Everybody gets a trophy" that many people disapprove of.
If you inform them that Net Neutrality is against throttling speeds, and having customers get what they paid for... then most of those against, turn sides.
I see it as we either need to enforce Net Neutrality, or enable a free market, where we have more than one or two choices for broadband (or any other utility).... If we had 10+ ISP's to choose from, this wouldn't be an issue, one would not throttle, and that would force the others to compete. But we don't have a free market... and too many of those in power (both in government, and the big TelComs) would lose money to allow a free market.
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
If by "this side of the pond", you ignore anything that's below Río Bravo, then you might be right...
As evil as they may be they were by far the easiest and most accommodating when I had to deal with my mothers accounts after her passing. All I had to do was give them the $ of her last bill to show it was me and they even gave me money back retroactive to the date of her death. TMobile on the other hand wanted to keep billing me until I had full power of attorney to cancel her account. What a nightmare they are.
Oh my, that is probably the best use of that quote I have seen in ages.
--Thanks!
Cognitive dissonance is the term.
In this example, a libertarian is getting harmed by a corporation and blames the government instead.
According to the article, it has nothing to do with circuit capacity limitations. The user had two different classes of account (home and business) that were going through the same router. The only difference was the accounts, not the hardware.
Actually, it still isn't illegal. Verizon has been in a battle with Cogent in LA over peering because of streaming services and games chewing up all the bandwidth and both of them wanting more money from each other. They aren't touching the data going through their peered connections on an individual level, instead all the data suffers. This doesn't violate net neutrality. They are neutrally fucking everyone that happens to get routed through Cogent by Verizon.
Verizon CSR is, essentially, the lowest tier job in the English speaking world.
Actual bandwidth details will tell the truth, but it's much, much more likely that a Verizon worker bee is simply an idiot, or just repeating nonsense he overheard and misunderstood while on his smoke break.
Awesome, so now Biden gets to decide who's traffic goes first... I hope all your emails start with your professed love for the Democrats or its the 10kbps bucket for you.
Evidence?
Most people support laws against murder because they think it will reduce the number of murders.
Yet it is obvious that murder still happens even though the laws exist.
Therefore I conclude that there should be no laws against murder! Um, wait...
The different accounts subscribe to different service tiers. This is like complaining that your cheaper 768Kbit account cant stream Netflix HD but your more expensive 5Mbit mid-tier account can.
The business account is probably paying several hundred per month, and for that the account gets a different level of service, perhaps one that doesnt degrade so much during prime-time.
I'd be pretty pissed off if my $200/mo business plan was treated equal to your $65/mo residential plan, that your $65 gives you the "Net Neutrality" right to fuck me out of the better connection that I am paying for.
"His name was James Damore."
Letting links degrade isn't illegal. Throttling is.
Expanding on this... the post summary says he tested from both a verizon customer connection, and from a business class connection, and that both took the same path (eg. traceroute). In that scenario, the transit ilnks are the same (minor assumptions needed here), but that doesn't mean the link to the user is the same (the last mile) or the links from the local hub to verizon. Over subscribing home user cable, dsl, and dial up has been common practice for ages - that's not going away.
A couple more points:
1. The example has nothing to do with net nutrality. Net nutrality means that your connection to {some service / ex. Netflix} is not rate limited in preference to paths to {some other service / ex. Hulu or ISP's own service} from your same connection.
2. The source matters here. You can't compare service levels between different offerings. If you have dial up, and your friend has value level DSL (0.5 - 1 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up), and another guy has the fastest consumer DSL (7.1 - 15 Mbps down / 768 Kbps up), and another guy has FiOS (really fast), and your office has a T3/DS3 (symetric 45 Mbps), you can't complain about "Net Nutrality" when one is slower than the other.
A better example test would be two services running on Amazon cloud (or two services in any given colo), where both should be able to achieve the same speeds, and can be tested to do so from a tertiary point (another ISP), but when using your connection you notice a substantial difference in performance to those two services - meaning one is getting preferential treatment.
There may be cases where the net nutrality flag can be thrown and the remote services could be on completely different networks, but that gets far more difficult to prove through testing. Any point along the separate paths could be a problem; they could have different peering agreements and varying connections to exchange points; the services themselves could preform very differently and have substantially different infrastructure; etc etc etc.
In the end, the post is saying that a business class connection is getting better service. I'm shocked and appalled! NO SHIT!
1, 5, 10, 100 difference services. It actually makes it worse if they're intentionally throttling MORE individual services. Each service affected under "cloud" is affected individually.
I feel like it's more a consequence of cognitive dissonance than cognitive dissonance itself, but I suppose quibbling over such details is just being puerile, huh?
Business class may have higher priority when going over the same internal link. If that link is congested, the residential users will feel it, but as long as the total number of business bandwidth doesn't go past link capacity, they won't feel it.
We're talking about backbone links, so very high speeds. QoS is a bad thing here. It comes down to this. Would you rather have a 100gb link with QoS or a 400gb link with no QoS. They're the same price.
Why is this not yet ranked +5 insightful.
I recently moved to a place where I can't get Comcast (thankfully). Even though I'm out in the country instead of in town -- everything is so much better. Youtube and Netflix don't buffer like they did with Comcast, they just play. My internet bill went from $75/mo to $50. So better and cheaper. Of course it could have been different as there is only one provider here too, but I got lucky this time and my provider isn't such an ass as Comcast. But that's just the luck of the draw.
You simply can't treat a monopoly like a free market -- these terms are antonyms and reality demands different treatment. Believe me, if there had been competition, I would dropped Comcast faster than a fetid turd, but there wasn't and so I bitterly paid my bill and sucked it up.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
According to their CSR and backed up with evidence, they are throttling. RTFA!
I agree...the blogger has two data points, connects them and thinks its a "trend".
If you look at the traceroutes at the bottom of the blog, which he seems to believe make an argument for his point, the top two IP addresses are different between business and residence. The "residential" route could simply be overloaded due to everybody firing up netflix when they get home.
The OP has a genuine beef that he should get better bandwidth to Netflix, but he would have made a much better argument if he would have posted speed results to YouTube, dslreports, and other diverse sites not hosted on AWS....
Until then just two data points connected by a straight line...
How many banksters went to jail for tilting the entire fucking world economy over a cliff?
Oh yeah, zero.
You can even launder money for terrorists and drug cartels and be punished with nothing but a partial deferral of your annual bonus.
As Matt Taibi put it:
http://www.rollingstone.com/po...
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I can't if you're being sarcastic. I hope so.
If your version of net neutrality says they can prioritize traffic that they feel their customers need more than others (ie. SMTP over torrent), you are giving them free reign to say, "we feel the most important traffic is this proprietary protocol XYZ that we just came up with and which we use exclusively, which delivers streaming video from our servers and select partners. And the least important traffic is Netflix."
The point of net neutrality *should* be, IMO, something akin to a common carrier status - they're all zero's and one's, and they are not allowed to differentiate or prioritize any of those on any given link. They can simply route them through china and around the world and back, or shove everything to/from 69.53.0.0/16 though a single T1 to MAE-EAST (though that does hit on a slipery-slope grey area).
If you inform them that Net Neutrality is against throttling speeds,
Except that isn't what net neutrality is about. Net neutrality has nothing to do with residential and business accounts getting different data rates (which is the complaint in the original article.) It isn't about residential users seeing congestion because there are too many other users on their net segment. One hundred people on your net segment all browsing media-rich websites while you're trying to watch a movie on Netflix and your movie stalls isn't a violation of net neutrality. And it isn't even about the throttling of speeds when you overrun the limits on your data plan.
It IS about preferential treatment for certain data SOURCES. And this is going to be something that is hard for a user to prove since it will take more than "netflix sux but youtube still rocks", or "netflix at home sux but netflix at work rocks". And it will take a LOT more than some undocumented alleged rambling from a front-line tech support person.
And, I dare say, you will still have a lot of people who disapprove of net neutrality if you tell them that it would prohibit their ISP from giving their Netflix stream priority over someone else's web browsing. "So what if it takes five seconds for their web page to load instead of one, if them getting it in one means my Netflix hiccups?" (Perhaps this displays why using Netflix as the quintessential argument FOR net neutrality is a poor idea, since it is easy to dismiss it as just selfish people who want their movies to run without interruption even if it means everyone else's network experience suffers.)
or enable a free market, where we have more than one or two choices for broadband (or any other utility).... If we had 10+ ISP's to choose from, this wouldn't be an issue,
Well, unfortunately, we've already seen that a totally free market won't result in 10+ ISPs because there won't be enough money to keep all of them in business. Even back in the heyday of dialup ISPs our area only had three or four at best (not counting the AOLs of the world, which I wouldn't call a real ISP anyway), and they tanked because they couldn't keep customers when faster access came around. Heck, some parts of this state had NO ISPs until the state stepped in and provided it as a kind of "extension service". The one local ISP that survived the transition resells DSL for the local telco, so even that "competition" isn't really competition.
No, to get those 10+ ISPs there will have to be heavy subsidies, and that creates something very different than a free market.
That's a good description. You show how people change their opinion depending on how it's described. They may switch.back to being against when you point out "may not discriminate based on content or origin" means no more spam filters. That denial of service attack must be delivered with the same priority as the tele-medicine feed, the way one bill was drafted.
This There are several other similar problems. They probably CAN be solved if the bill is written VERY carefully, but it's tricky. Comcast may decide that YouTube ads are spam
Comcast is throttling newsgroups, any file over ~2GB gets slowed to nothing.
The behaviour is consistent and predictable, and it started after the recent FCC ruling.
Expect more of this behaviour.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
What you should be pissed about is that you have to pay for a "business plan" in the first place. Back in the 90s when telcos started selling DSL and other high speed services to residential customers, there was not any difference. I had a 384k DSL feed at home that was just as fast as the 384k DSL feed at the office.
The limitations are completely arbitrary and 100% due to the fact that the telcos and ISPs are cheap bastards and will do everything in their power to avoid upgrading their infrastructure.
Our cable (and hence cable modem) went out for a day recently (we use Cox). My wife set up a mobile hotspot from her T-Mobile phone in a spot in which she had LTE service and went about her life as normal, meaning streaming Netflix in the background while she works. It turns out that at LTE speeds, Netflix feeds you rather high reception, and you can go through a 2.5 GB limit in less than two movies. So, she was throttled for the rest of the month to 2G speeds.
Supposedly they do not throttle on the unlimited plan. They are very clear on the 2.5 GB plan that they will throttle after the cap (but will not charge extra) and they did in fact throttle (and I was fine with that--that was all we paid for, and in the typical month is faaaar more than enough). On the unlimited plan, I question how much Netflix streaming they would really tolerate.
If they gave a damn, they wouldn't make their public face such a lowly position.
However, the other evidence is there in TFA.
Well, if an entire metro-link is swamped under, you are already at the point where a whole building of CSR's might not be enough. Regardless, I would think QoS is optimally implemented as far downstream as you can manage, especially if you normally expect congestion problems to be fairly localized in nature.
As I read the terms, they only allow you to "Hotspot" 500Meg on the unlimited plan, so I suppose they would continue 4G service to the phone but somehow throttle hotspot service.
However, as I read the terms, there was no Hotspot service at all on our 500Meg limited data plan, and yet, there it worked, right up until we slammed into the limit. If you want to eat data fast, try jumping around fast forward and rewind in video, that's what the kids love to do. I let my wife be the guinea pig - see if she notices a problem with 2G speeds for the next 10 days until our month rolls over - she's already noticed the "you're over your data limit, would you like to buy an upgrade" beg messages, but I think I've got her convinced that they don't mean anything when we're home on WiFi, and don't matter much on the road.
I got the Nexus 5, and I don't think they (TMo) really know where my data goes, nor would they have a way to shut off only hotspot functionality... I see how they could do it on the other phones with their custom firmware installed. I suppose they could tell when I consume data faster than a phone can by itself (though, Chromecast could get pretty hungry...), and send me nastygrams telling me to stop it, but if they want to throttle the Nexus 5, I think they'll have to throttle the whole connection?
That denial of service attack must be delivered with the same priority as the tele-medicine feed, the way one bill was drafted.
Not quite that bad, if you assume that the DOS is not a legal use, but almost. FCC 10-201 says "No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices;", so while the unlawful DOS can be blocked, any blocking based on an RBL would be illegal under this rule. And this rule is the existing FCC rule that was overturned by the courts but a recent bill was submitted to re-enact it.
If so, I am in favor of throttling the traffic. Fuck the Beta site.
You chose to also ignore that due to that same blind hope.
what did you do, beyond getting all high and mighty on forums like this? further, did it help?
Net neutrality means that you cannot discriminate against the packets that are being requested. For example, it does not matter I am shipping by UPS, I only pay based on the size and weight. What you are suggesting is that UPS be allowed to open my package and inspect the contents and then charge me based on the value of the contents. Now I bet you will say why don't you use another company, but there are only 3 shipping companies USPS, FedEx, and UPS. If UPS can get away with this practice, I am sure FedEx will do the same. Somehow you are not able to understand simple facts which conflict with your ideology.
You're still missing the point of net neutrality, it should have nothing to do with what you're mistakenly calling "common sense QoS".
If I'm paying for access to the internet, at a bandwidth of 20MB/s, then whatever I decide to do with my 20MB/s should be treated as equally as whatever you do with your xMB/s that you're paying for. For example, while you're watching cat videos and liking posts on facebook.. you should be able to do that at a speed or capacity that you are paying for. If I'm downloading a file my traffic better damned well be given the full pipe that I'm paying for. My useless 100GB file download should be slowed just as much (in a real time basis) as your useless facebook posts or streaming cat videos if there is a network congestion problem.
Now... if you have Verizon FIOS (for example) and Verizon were to offer a service other than Internet access over it's infrastructure, such as say... TV or Phone then it is Verizon's prerogative to QoS that data at a better service level than internet traffic over it's internal network - up to and including it's device that terminates in your home. But it should be prohibited - by law - from making traffic from youporn.com take a lower priority than youtube.com just because it decided to do so.
I fully agree, but they could also just design their network to not have congestion at the "local" level. I think this was estimated to cost about 1% more to the entire cost of a new fiber network.
Why would it be illegal to have a saturated peering link? Are you saying that the government would control to whom and what the link speed for each peering link should be?
I'm not saying that the Verizon to AWS link is saturated for this reason. I'm just pointing out that Verizon could handle all traffic in a neutral way to the letter of the law and still have an issue with traffic going to AWS/Netflix. It would be the responsibility of Netflix and Verizon to work out a mutually beneficial agreement that would carry the traffic without congestion between their respective networks. That is exactly how this all works right now.
No, it means anecdotal evidence is to be taken as better than no evidence whatsoever. Not everything is black and white, one side of the fence or t'other.
Consider this as a scale - Peer reviewed, multiple-source reproducible trumps anecdotal evidence, but anecdotal evidence is still better than the absence of any evidence on either side.
Uhhh...you never actually worked helpdesk, have you? Or even dealt with them for any length of time? Let old Hairy clue you in, helpdesk guys usually don't know a damned thing that isn't written on a little sheet sitting in front of them and "pulling stuff out of their ass" is pretty much SOP. Hell when I used to have to deal with the Hughesnet helpdesk for several rural customers I HAD TO TEACH THEM because they didn't know the basics of how their equipment worked! I don't know how many times I got "I didn't know you could do that, we are recording so would you please walk me through it step by step so I'll have it when a customer has that problem?" from the Hughes guys and this was tier one! Tier 3 had one answer and that was "reboot" LOL.
So while i don't know if Verizon is fucking Netflix and it wouldn't surprise me if they were you REALLY can't go by the word of a helpdesk guy because they know less than nothing in most places.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Actually, I am mostly going by the evidence presented. The part about the CSR is mostly a dig at Verizon and the many other companies that for some reason choose to be represented by people who know very little about anything relevant (often including English). They deserve the reputation their poorly paid representatives give them.
Verizon screws with Skype too. I was trying to run Skype at a friend's place. The latency was terrible, making the program unusable. So I fired up a connection to my VPN service, which in theory should increase the latency, because it is an extra hop. Running through the VPN fixed the problem, and I could use Skype.
Insightful. Very similar, but this one is a little more polished: http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
I went to play a 3D streaming movie and Netflix said internet connection was too slow.
But I did a speedtest on laptop 50mbps, and did it on my LG TV...and got 39mbps. Which exceeded Netflix's recommendation.
So I am suspicious that Comcast is throttling already too.
You are looking only at one side of the link. There's two sides.
What will stop Verizon from doing this?
Netflix pays Verizon for 100Gbps upstream links at various peering points in the country for whatever Verizon wants to charge. If Verizon doesn't provide 100Gbps from those links because of a bottleneck on Verizon's own network, Netflix sues them for breach of contract. It's Verizon's job to guarantee Netflix that 100Gbps throughout Verizon's network. Repeat for Netflix on AT&T, Google fiber, TimeWarner/Comcast/whatever cable network.
If Netflix doesn't want to do this, then their Verizon-based subscribers will have shitty service. At that point they will either deal with it, or cancel Netflix, or cancel Verizon and switch to an ISP that Netflix does have a traffic contract with.
How does Net Neutrality play a role? Verizon can't refuse to offer Netflix access to their network, or artificially slow down Netflix's traffic on their own network once there is an agreement between Netflix and Verizon. I'm not sure if net neutrality also specifies that Verizon can't charge arbitrarily high prices for network bandwidth to certain companies. That is a good question.
I'm currently using a VPN when using Netflix on Comcast. In my tests, I've found the buffering takes about 4 times less time when using the VPN and the quality is significantly better. When I perform speed tests on my Comcast connection, I get around 30 Mbps download rates. My guess is that Comcast is directing Netflix connections through a shaper or fixed bandwidth pipe in order to limit the amount of data travelling over their network. I have noticed this problem within the last year or so, when I first got Comcast in my area this was not a problem and Comcast behaved just as it now does over the VPN connection.
Verizon justifies throttling netflix because they feel netflix somehow owes verizon money for carrying all that data.
What Verizon forgets about is that their own customers ALREADY paid for that data, through monthly ISP fees.
This is no different than setting up a toll road, and charging a toll to the cargo trucks for using that road, while at the same time charging the cargo owners a separate fee for the right to to ship cargo via that same road.
Sorry Verizon, you can't sell us the cake and then charge a separate fee to eat it too.
ultimately their competitors will be the ones getting that business
What competitors? Verizon gets away with crap like this specifically because there IS no competition.
There is DSL in the US, but the existing copper lines are so multiplexed and oversold that DSL speeds max out at about 10 megabit.
The way telecoms in the US are set up, you either put up with whatever crap service the local provider offers you, or you simply go without. You can't just switch to another provider, because there isn't one.
You have it backwards, it's the large ISPs that are subsidizing the politicians.
In my area, Time Warner absolutely, undeniably is. This is a 15 megabit connection and netflix sometimes drops to extremely low quality after a long time of watching while my ping is still really fast and a bandwidth test was still 15 megabits (with Netflix paused).
(Perhaps this displays why using Netflix as the quintessential argument FOR net neutrality is a poor idea, since it is easy to dismiss it as just selfish people who want their movies to run without interruption even if it means everyone else's network experience suffers.)
Yeah, stupid selfish customers actually wanting to use the 6 Mbps they paid for.
http://www.defectivebydesign.o...
Oh good god, you don't need subsidies to have 10+ ISP's. You are mistaking that to have choice you need 10 lines running into your house. The problem at heart is one of who owns the lines and who owns the data over the lines.
Take electricity for example. You can have multiple companies feed in the electrical system, and pay for a particular company because the carrying costs is identical for each company. The problem and this is where the true monopoly lies is the last mile. The company that owns the cable into the house is the one dictating the charges. And we continually fail to address that issue.
Adam Smith in his papers addressed this issue quite clearly. His opinion was that the government was not to own the monopoly, but that the government was to dictate a trust owned by the private market. This means only one cable will run into your house. However, the costs for that cable is split evenly across all companies. The concept for the most part is implemented in Switzerland and Germany. Namely the government dictated that other providers can run data across the cable that enters your house. Thus then you do get 10+ providers without government subsidies.
Now before you squawk "oh Switzerland and Germany are not that big as America" I am going to refer to the fact that I have a house in the mountains and it has 15 Mbps Internet access. This house is in what North Americans would call the boondocks. At our house in subburbs we have 150 Mbps access. I accredit this to growing the pie, not allowing a single company to own the pie.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
When you get a good provider, you shouldn't hide who they are. If they are being decent, then you should give them credit where it's due. Who are you with now?
Then there is the alternative; to fight back.
Verizons throttling Netflix amounts to stealing the money paid for movies + time invested.
The contracts amount to bait and switch. Their customer service exists ony as a straw institution.
This makes them swindlers.
Stealing from thieves is good form.
If they steal your money, steal their service.
Period.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
...to stop hogging the net with continuous streaming videos for hours. There's just a limit where some things become unreasonable, and laying millions of miles of fiber to support the delivery of crap like NetFlix delivers is just insane. If it were doing some _good_, like maybe carrying educational materials or something, that'd be different. But watching "Tremors" for the 14th time just because you can just isn't worth all that cable-laying. Its a waste. Buy the damn DVD or Blu-Ray and be done with it. C'mon...
The only fair solution is for the ISP to shape traffic per-subscriber.
If the subscriber wants to prioritize different traffic types then they can do that internally once it hits their equipment.
ISPs can still throttle torrents to ensure voip traffic moves through.
No! If I dedicate all my bandwidth to torrents and you dedicate all yours to VoIP why should you get preferential treatment?
The only fair solution is for an ISP to do per-subscriber shaping within their network. Each subscriber gets throughput relative to the bandwidth that they paid for. Traffic type shouldn't matter when comparing traffic for two different subscribers.
If an individual subscriber wants to prioritize VoIP over torrents they can do that on their own equipment (or have the ISP do it for them). But that should affect only the traffic for that subscriber, and should have ZERO impact on any other subscriber's traffic.
Get rid of beta. It sucks.
If an individual subscriber wants to prioritize VoIP over torrents they can do that on their own equipment (or have the ISP do it for them). But that should affect only the traffic for that subscriber, and should have ZERO impact on any other subscriber's traffic.
You apparently have no idea how the internet actually works.
Even if your ISP actually did something that idiotic and kept every subscribers data in its own bucket, as soon as the traffic moves up to a peer its all in one bucket and the peer doesn't know or care which data is yours and which is someone elses.
No! If I dedicate all my bandwidth to torrents and you dedicate all yours to VoIP why should you get preferential treatment?
Because you aren't buying a fixed bandwidth allocation from your ISP unless you are leasing a T1 or something.
And again, even if you do have a leased T1 with fixed dedicated bandwidth that you can allocate however you like... that's only yours up to the ISP. As soon as the data reaches a peer, its "mixed up" with everyone elses data, and your ISP has no control over how the peer prioritizes its data.
-------
Beta Sucks. Cancel it.
You don't have to put special traffic throttling rules in to make the service shoddy. Instead you can simply refuse to upgrade the router connecting your Verizon residential service to Amazon AWS. Since that ancient router is still stuck on a 1Gbit link shared amongst all users, service will suck.
But they can legitimately say "We don't discriminate traffic". Just they do discriminate when deciding which bits of their network to upgrade, and the bit connecting to Amazon isn't being upgraded anytime soon.
Strictly speaking, in a lot of places you do have the choice between a single DSL provider, and also a single cable provider. They're both equally crap, though, so you might as well just stick with one no matter how crap it is, because switching won't help (and will probably result in another massive headache and taking time off work, as the installation tech totally fails at their job.)
I'm not sure exactly what you meant be "contended", but an ISP should never oversubscribe their last mile to the point of congestion. Modern last mile networks, even if contented, should have no congestion as long as they're not horribly oversubscribed.
Wave:
http://www.wavebroadband.com/a...
It's a regional player.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
What it involved in the case of the original reporter was a connection that would show high speeds with some data sources such as Speedtest.net, but at the same time show very low speeds with other data sources, notably Amazon AWS. (Throttling Amazon Web Services affects many online services, a notable case being Netflix.) The reporter's work connection, also through Verizon, did not exhibit the same selective slowness.
I wonder what Netflix thinks of this. Like, they want it to overtake regular TV, and it is no big deal to have the regular TV running nonstop in the background. But Netflix has to pay for that content she isn't actually watching. And they don't charge us more just because she uses (way) more than average.
And I should add--we are "cord-cutters." We cut cable a long time ago, except for internet. So, we have over-the-air TV or Netflix (cancelled Hulu for nonuse). Her office is in the basement, so really Netflix is it if there is going to be TV on in the background.
Because you aren't buying a fixed bandwidth allocation from your ISP
I do and it's cheaper than the competition. 30mb/30mb for $60/month with an SLA on the GPON unit to make sure you get 30/30 even if the entire "node" is fully loaded. EVERY customer gets this. I have a higher tier, but not their highest 200/200.
You want to know how the Internet works? Tier 1 backbone providers won't allow peering ports to go over 50% utilization. If they do, then the port needs to get upgraded, typically in less than a month. Congestion is unacceptable.
My ISP subscribes to this same ideal. They advertise tiers as dedicated bandwidth for ALL users. They are a residential service, so there are some hick-ups because of missconfigurations or they are changing things around, but I've called in and reported that my ping was over 20ms when I normally got 8ms during peak hours, and they had me talking to an engineer and got the problem fixed.
If you can show that you are regularly getting congestion in any amount, they will have you talking to an engineer to get it fixed.
What about seeding P2P? "We are selling you unlimited dedicated bandwidth, as long as it's not illegal and you're not running commercial servers, transfer all you want". What if it becomes an issue, will there be data caps? "If we implement data caps, we will change the ToS, but there is no indication that we will". What about throttling? "We will not use throttling or QoS and we don't need to because we designed our network to supply dedicated bandwidth. We used throttling in the past, but it was not worth the management overhead and customer support calls".
I was messing with my DNS settings the other month and got forwarded to an EU YouTube datacenter in Germany. I was streaming 4k videos at 45mb/s from 4,300 miles away(direct flight distance) during peak hours. Verizon customers are getting issues trying to stream YouTube from local CDNs.
What crappy ISP do you go through that doesn't deliver what they sell you?
ISP near or at capacity during peak usage
This shouldn't happen. They should be fined for not delivering. At least fixed line ISPs.
The same thing that stops Chrysler from using substandard latches on minivans and ford from using substandard gas tank parts. Lawsuits over those issues got the practice stopped. No car maker will ever again deliberately kill people because they think the fix is 10% more costly than losing the lawsuit about it. The lawsuits got expensive enough that they fear the verdict enough to just do the recalls when the issues are pointed out. Unlike the oil industry, where the penalties are always below the costs of compliance.
With net neutrality, someone would document the increased latency of Netflix over Verizon's vodeo services, and Verizon would lose a lawsuit for 3 months revenue from all "affected" users. That wouldn't prevent it from happening the first time, but the resulting lawsuit will make sure nobody else does it again, ever.
Learn to love Alaska
And, I dare say, you will still have a lot of people who disapprove of net neutrality if you tell them that it would prohibit their ISP from giving their Netflix stream priority over someone else's web browsing.
No version of net neutrality mentioned or proposed in congress has ever had that restriction (or the reverse, if that is what you are implying). So why are you pushing for people to hate net neutrality for something it's never done?
Net neutrality would prevent Verizon from slowing Netlfix while keping it's own video services prioritized over everything else. But equitable slowing for the purpose of network integrity was allowed in every version of net neutrality proposed or discussed in congress (and every serious submission I've read outside it).
I still don't understand how that lie has propagated (not that you are lying, but that it's been repeated so much that many believe it to be true). It prevents anti-competitive behavior only. It does not constrain most "fair" behaviors (such as limiting P2P or slowing all traffic of a certain type, unless done for anti-competitive behavior).
Learn to love Alaska
There should be a name for the logical fallacy where someone explains facts with the belief that "if the other guy only knew what I know, he'd obviously come to the same conclusion". I know everything you know, maybe more, and still disagree. You've said nothing that disagrees with the other guy, but spent so much time explaining background.
When I last dealt with buying or selling connections, you could buy "contended" service for about $1 per Mbps+line charge. Uncontended costs were about 10x that, often with the line charge being 10x as well, as when you get SLAs, the carriers preferred you move to T1/T3 connections, which can have SLAs that copper pairs can't. What ISP sells shit service? Every residential one. Are you seriously on here arguing that your commercial connection is better than a residential one, and that's why net neutrality is bad?
Net neutrality is ensuring that in congestion, the QoS implemented is not anti-competitive. If ISPs do as you say and run congestion-free, the net neutrality will never have any effect on them. They'll never throttle/buffer anything. AT&T will not look at congestion issues, no matter how many times you call them, or whatever data you provide them. Many people have no other choice. Your suggestions are as practical as recommending they buy a GEO slot for $1,000,000 (no, I haven't shopped slots recently) and pay Loral $500,000,000 and launch their own satellite for 4 Gbps Internet to their house, landed at any number of earth stations for more per month than the average person makes in a year. I've recommended before, when the backhaul providers were squeezing us. But funding wasn't available for it.
Learn to love Alaska
ISP's should be classified as nothing more than common carriers, just like the phone system. Imagine your local phone company throttling your voice communications to some company because they wanted to blackmail that company into paying more to connect.
I pay for a certain bandwidth. Netflex also pays for a certain bandwidth. Verizon may have a legitimate claim that they are carrying more bandwidth than they are delivering to AWS. The conflict is between AWS and Verizon since Netflex is already paying AWS for bandwidth.
No version of net neutrality mentioned or proposed in congress has ever had that restriction
Of course it would. Net neutrality means NO PREFERENCES. That means that the ISP would be PROHIBITED from giving Netflix priority over simple web browsing. "And, I dare say, you will still have a lot of people who disapprove of net neutrality if you tell them that it would prohibit their ISP from giving their Netflix stream priority over someone else's web browsing." How could an ISP that is obeying any net neutrality law get away with throttling web browsing in preference to Netflix?
But equitable slowing for the purpose of network integrity was allowed in every version of net neutrality proposed or discussed in congress (and every serious submission I've read outside it).
If you read the sentence I wrote and though I was talking about "equitable slowing" when I said "priority over", well, I don't know how to fix that. I can only assume that you are one of the people who wants their Netflix to work all the time, every time, even if it means other people get slowed down to give it to you. That's "equitable slowing", right? Your movie packets get through, theirs get queued and delayed.
I still don't understand how that lie has propagated
What, you mean that net neutrality means no preferential treatment, either by slowing Netflix in preference to "normal" web, or slowing other people's web browsing in preference to Netflix? Gosh, I don't know how that lie could have started. Maybe someone who actually read the FCC order?
So why are you pushing for people to hate net neutrality for something it's never done?
The fact that you asked that question proves that you did not comprehend what you read. I "pushed" for nothing. I pointed out that there will be people who whine if an ISP cannot throttle others so that your Netflix can get through, and you conveniently made yourself known. And I was pretty explicit in saying that net neutrality would NOT allow them to do that, and that people who want their Netflix at the expense of others will oppose net neutrality because they can't be special users and get priority handling if net neutrality is enforced.
Of course it would. Net neutrality means NO PREFERENCES.
Your opinion of what you think it should mean is unrelated to what's actually in the bills. Try reading them again (or, likely, for the first time) and quote a section that would make throttling P2P in congested conditions illegal. You won't find it, because it's not there. But you are the one that's insisting it's there, so are the only one that can prove a positive. Go for it.
What, you mean that net neutrality means no preferential treatment, either by slowing Netflix in preference to "normal" web, or slowing other people's web browsing in preference to Netflix? Gosh, I don't know how that lie could have started. Maybe someone who actually read the FCC order?
I've read it. There's nothing in it that would have prevented an ISP from declaring Netflix to be real-time, and HTTP to be interactive, and give preference to real-time over interactive in congested conditions. Again, I can't prove it's not in there, without just quoting the whole thing and saying "see, it's not in there". Since you are so sure that reasonable prioritization in congested conditions would be illegal, please identify and quote the section that would do so.
The fact that you asked that question proves that you did not comprehend what you read. I "pushed" for nothing. I pointed out that there will be people who whine if an ISP cannot throttle others so that your Netflix can get through, and you conveniently made yourself known.
You are pushing hate. I do not now, nor have I ever, had a streaming Netflix account (I had a disc account before streaming, though). I'm only a person who has read the laws a number of times, and works for an ISP and discusses these legal issues on a regular basis. It's not about requiring that everything else be slowed to allow in Netflix. You are hating on one user, and using that as a justification for defending your opinion on net neutrality. You aren't quoting law. You aren't discussing what's in it. You are attacking a class of user you assert believes themselves to be privilidged. When you are interested in discussing net neutrality, let me know.
I let myself be known? So you took my offense at your wrong statements to mean that I must be the "enemy" (a netflix user). I'm not. Like everything else you've said, you are 100% wrong on this. Please feel free to make more random wild guesses about net neutrality and such. At least now we know you present your incorrect opinion as fact, and have no actual knowledge over that which you speak.
And I was pretty explicit in saying that net neutrality would NOT allow them to do that, and that people who want their Netflix at the expense of others will oppose net neutrality because they can't be special users and get priority handling if net neutrality is enforced.
As you are speaking out against net neutrality (by outlining the harm you incorrectly think it does), should I also presume you are in the privileged class of netflix user? And if you wanted to point out explicitly that net neutrality would NOT allow it. Please point to the section that does so. The one thing completely missing in your rants is a link to anything that substantiates your incorrect opinion.
Learn to love Alaska
All I'm saying is that for a one time fee of $1,800 per house, every metro area in the USA can have dedicated 1gb/1gb Point-to-point fiber. Instead we're paying $2,000 per house for shared 320mb of copper.
My argument is that fiber is not only faster, but it is so fast that an ISP can supply fully dedicated bandwidth and connections for LESS money than it costs to lay new copper or upgrade old copper, while supplying a full non-blocking Ethernet middle and last mile.
I can buy a Raspberry Pi less cost than a high quality abacus. Guess which is faster. Hint: It's not the more expensive one.
I can buy a Raspberry Pi less cost than a high quality abacus. Guess which is faster. Hint: It's not the more expensive one.
Yes, but others see you as advocating forcing a Raspberry Pi on your neighbor, regardless of whether he wants it or not, and making abacuses illegal.
I work for an ISP. I've pointed out some of the studies that compared "home run" fiber to GPON, and showed that "home run" was cheaper, but they were dismissed, as it's logically impossible to deliver more for less money, or so say the people spending the billions.
And partly because then they lose control. If a homeowner owned his fiber from his house to a meet-me point in a CO, how can the person that laid the fiber extract infinite rent (extortion)? You'd have chaos. People choosing which carrier to use based on the carrier's performance. That type of freedom will not be allowed by the incumbents without a fight. And you are fighting the wrong fight. It's not with people on a message board about how "net neutrality" works (or should work). Net neutrality wouldn't be necessary if there were free choice. It's a requirement because the networks are all private and locked down. And that is why we'll only ever see GPON (and overloaded GPON,at that). If I could trace my fiber to a CO with a non-blocking path, I'd be able to put anyone else on the other end, and that is the problem.
It'll take Google getting 10+ cities wired with dedicated fiber before the incumbents wake up.
Learn to love Alaska
Your opinion of what you think it should mean is unrelated to what's actually in the bills. Try reading them again (or, likely, for the first time) and quote a section that would make throttling P2P in congested conditions illegal.
Now you've converted web browsing into "P2P" to try to support your argument. Sir, if the law would prevent an ISP from throttling Netflix in preference to other web services, then it would prevent throttling other web services in preference to Netflix. Neutrality means "no preferences", not "well, it's ok because I want my Netflix and don't care about other people..."
You are pushing hate.
Bullshit. I simply pointed out that the people who want their Netflix movies in preference to other people's web browsing will be unhappy with any law that prevents them getting priority. Just like people who currently think other people's web browsing is getting priority over their Netflix are unhappy. The latter is the entire point of the original article! "Hey, someone is throttling my Netflix at home and it doesn't happen for my commercial account at work, and other things other people are doing aren't throttled, so I know it must be deliberate!"
So you took my offense at your wrong statements
Your twisted and ridiculous interpretations of what I said, you mean.
to mean that I must be the "enemy"
And here we go again. Show me where I called you "the enemy", or any Netflix user "the enemy". No, your decision to misread what I've said as an attack on net neutrality because it would prevent you getting priority for your Netflix in preference to other people's traffic shows me that you think your Netflix is a natural right and other people's network traffic isn't as important. Otherwise you'd accept that net neutrality would prevent your preferential treatment.
As you are speaking out against net neutrality
I am doing no such thing, and you need to stop trying to put words in my mouth. I pointed out that the sudden appearance of support for net neutrality that the GP claimed would happen if only it were presented to people in "the right way" was not likely to be unanimous. That's not "speaking out against net neutrality". It's a statement of human nature, which you've demonstrated is correct.
It's not about requiring that everything else be slowed to allow in Netflix.
I didn't say it was. In fact, I've said several times it means "NO PREFERENCE". How you can read "no preference" and think I said it means Netflix gets higher priority is beyond understanding. I was quite explicit in saying that people who would WANT Netflix prioritized over other people's traffic will be UNHAPPY that net neutrality would not ALLOW it. How you read that and wound up thinking I said the net neutrality would REQUIRE it is ... well, either stupidity or malice.
Now you've converted web browsing into "P2P" to try to support your argument.
No, I've never stated anything about web browsing. That you incorrectly assumed it doesn't make it true (for that or any other arguments of yours).
Sir, if the law would prevent an ISP from throttling Netflix in preference to other web services, then it would prevent throttling other web services in preference to Netflix.
Nope. Netlfix isn't a *service*, it's a *company* that provides streaming video services. If you throttled Netflix, you'd be breaking any version of net neutrality. If you prioritized HTTP over streaming video, you'd not break any version of net neutrality.
Neutrality means "no preferences", not "well, it's ok because I want my Netflix and don't care about other people..."
No, it means no deliberate anti-competitive behavior. You can't throttle Netflix but have your video services run at full rate. You also can't throttle much when uncongested (the exceptions are malicious traffic, and such).
I am doing no such thing, and you need to stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Yes, asking you to quote the definition of "net neutrality" you are using and then saying that since you are obviously not quoting a 3rd party, you are using a fictitious made up definition and incorrectly presenting it as fact. You don't understand what it is. Go read the bills submitted around it. Go read the FCC rules. You'll find all the official definitions agree with me, and not you.
It was named by the same people that named the USA PATRIOT Act. The name doesn't define the rules. Only the rules define the rules, and you refuse to quote them. Presumably because you have no idea what they are.
If you knew them, and I was as wrong as you say I am, then why wouldn't you quote them to prove me wrong? It's because the only person wrong here is you. Quote the rules that prove me wrong to prove me wrong. I'll be waiting. Forever (not that I'll wait forever, but that if I were waiting, I'd be waiting forever, because you are impotent).
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No, I've never stated anything about web browsing.
I DID, and the statement of mine that you quoted did. You're telling me that statement is wrong, and now you prove you didn't bother reading it to start with.
Here, I'll repeat it yet again:
"Web browsing". "Priority over". "WOULD PROHIBIT". It says nothing about Netflix users being "the enemy", and it certainly does not say that net neutrality requires the streaming video services receive priority over other web services. It says exactly the opposite. "Would prohibit". Do you not know the difference between "prohibit" and "require"?
Nope. Netlfix isn't a *service*, it's a *company* that provides streaming video services.
The use of the company Netflix is a shorthand way of referring to "streaming web services." Had you bothered to read the discussion, you'd have noticed that the GP started by referring to "AWS", and then moved to the specific example of Netflix. Is that your problem? You can't generalize from a specific company into a broader context of services similar to what they provide? You're stuck because you think I said that net neutrality laws referred to Netflix specifically?
You can't throttle Netflix but have your video services run at full rate.
And you don't think my statement about "no preferences" applies to that situation?
If you knew them, and I was as wrong as you say I am, then why wouldn't you quote them to prove me wrong?
Because you are wrong by putting words in my mouth when you claim I am trying to argue against net neutrality or that I've said that net neutrality demands preference for streaming video services (aka Netflix) over other web uses. Quoting the net neutrality laws won't change your deliberate twists of my words, it will only encourage you because you'll think you convinced me that net neutrality doesn't require such preferences when I'VE NEVER SAID IT REQUIRES THEM, AND HAVE, IN FACT, SAID EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. "It would prohibit" such preferences.
Because you are wrong by putting words in my mouth when you claim I am trying to argue against net neutrality or that I've said that net neutrality demands preference for streaming video services (aka Netflix) over other web uses. Quoting the net neutrality laws won't change your deliberate twists of my words, it will only encourage you because you'll think you convinced me that net neutrality doesn't require such preferences when I'VE NEVER SAID IT REQUIRES THEM, AND HAVE, IN FACT, SAID EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. "It would prohibit" such preferences.
You are the only one here with a reading problem. Net Neutrality would allow priority to be given to specific protocols, and throttling to be done as well. You argued with me on that point, indicating that whatever I'm describing can't possibly be "neutral". Whether your opinion is correct or not is unrelated to the facts around Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality (as proposed in Congress and implemented by FCC) allows for such preferences. That you think otherwise just exposes your ignorance. That you argue about it, while being wrong, shows your stupidity. If you weren't an idiot, then you could quote the rules to prove me wrong. You haven't because you can't. And you think that your inability to prove me wrong is proof that I'm wrong.
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