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ISP Breaking Net Neutrality? The FCC's Got a Complaint Form For That
Presto Vivace writes with news from The Consumerist that the FCC has updated its consumer help center with a revamped form for complaining about an unsatisfactory ISP. From the article: Among the issues concerned consumers can complain about, the form now contains "open internet/net neutrality," right there alphabetically between "interference" and "privacy." So what, specifically, qualifies as a net neutrality violation you can complain about? The FCC has guidance for that, too. In general, paraphrased, it's a problem if there's:
Blocking: ISPs may not block access to any lawful content, apps, services, or devices.
Throttling: ISPs may not slow down or degrade lawful internet traffic from any content, apps, sites, services, or devices.
Paid prioritization: ISPs may not enter into agreements to prioritize and benefit some lawful internet traffic over the rest of it on their networks.
Blocking: ISPs may not block access to any lawful content, apps, services, or devices.
Throttling: ISPs may not slow down or degrade lawful internet traffic from any content, apps, sites, services, or devices.
Paid prioritization: ISPs may not enter into agreements to prioritize and benefit some lawful internet traffic over the rest of it on their networks.
The item you have filed a complaint for was in fact explicitly authorized by "Net Neutrality". Have a nice day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would you be throttling ports? There's nothing illegal about using torrents.
Sounds like these people are simply using the service they paid for.
Why would you be throttling ports? There's nothing illegal about using torrents.
Sounds like these people are simply using the service they paid for.
Assume you have more demand for bandwidth than you have bandwidth.
Now assume person A is trying to look up the calendar at the local courthouse and person B is downloading an iso.
Person A should be prioritized over person B both on a theoretical shortest-job-first basis and on a human court-is-more-important-than-porn level.
Then Maybe you shouldn't have Oversold your Capacity?
"Assume you have more demand for bandwidth than you have bandwidth."
Translation; Company horribly oversold the bandwidth and is too cheap to buy a bigger pipe.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Um... no.
If bandwidth is contended, then you should just use fair queuing. If you have N customers, everyone gets at least 1/N of the total, what's left over is shared equally, repeat until it's all used.
You shouldn't get to decide that one customer's usage is more "important" than another's. If the customer thinks their usage is more important, they should upgrade their plan.
Remember: the internet is based around IP, which doesn't have "ports". TCP and UDP only exist if you're an endpoint, otherwise everything past the IP header is just "payload".
I disagree. I think a system like what you describe is mostly appropriate *after* you provide a certain base level of service to everyone. The person with very-low-bandwidth need should rarely if ever have to wait for the person with the very-high-bandwidth-need, because otherwise you have two people paying the same absolute amount for a service but the one who is using it more is being prioritized. If I pay $20 for as many bagels a week as I want and you pay $20 for as many bagels a week as you want, and I take one bagel a day and you take five hundred, the store should make sure I get my one before you get your five hundredth.
First come first serve. If your ISP can't keep up, blame them, not other users for trying to make use of what they paid for. Bandwidth is the cheapest part of an ISP, cheaper than customer support even. If you want to blame people for consuming more than you, blame grandma for calling support and running up the ISP's cost of operations faster than the 24/7 torrent seeder.
4% on revenues included TV services, which make up a huge portion of the overall revenue and are incredibly small margins. ISPs make decent margins, TV providers do not. The only reason Verizon is selling off is because they want to liquidate a reliable 4% income so they can dump that money into wifi and make much higher revenues. Remember when text messaging costed more per byte than renting time from the Hubble Telescope? There is a lot of money to be made in price gouging mobile data.