I say this every time and no one has ever been able to answer: how is a simple "don't prioritize traffic" some kind of competition-killing regulation, and how would removing it actually create competition anyway?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with, for instance, a content provider handing an ISP a box that sits on their network, mirrors/caches content, and serves it up to that ISP's customers. That helps the content provider, the ISP, and the ISP's customers. And I don't think the majority of "net neutrality" advocates want to break that.
When people talk about "net neutrality", the problems they have in mind tend to look like either an ISP extorting content providers to extract extra revenue, or an ISP giving their own first-party services an advantage by deliberately degrading third-party services. For instance, see Comcast and Netflix.
But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"? (Comcast could claim the latter regarding Netflix, even though it seems obvious what it means when they don't arrange additional bandwidth on those saturated links.) What if the ISP provides the CDN infrastructure, rather than the content provider? What if the ISP contracts with a third-party CDN?
How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"? How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
(One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
...until the ISP decides to charge a large amount of money for the ability to do that, and then under-provision their peering links so that there is no other way to have adequate performance.
But there is a simple way to fix that. Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers. If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
Then they can offer all the CDN service they like, which people will use as long as they're charging market rates but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices.
The latter is the primary problem here.
> Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers.
What does "last mile ISP" mean here? DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
> If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
> but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices
What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers? Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
All legal matters are complicated, but we're a modern society full of a lot of bright people and "free market lol ISPs get to be highway robbers now" doesn't seem like the best we can do.
I also disagree with the notion that inconveniencing some billionaires is less moral than hurting millions of consumers and setting a horrible precedent, so: regulate the shit out of them. If poor people can bootstrap huge medical bills then ISPs can handle some simple regulation.
e: you didn't make that point about prioritizing rich over poor etc, that was directed more broadly at net neutrality opponents
I think the fundamental problem here is that in most locations we don't have a market at all, free or otherwise. We're looking at all these restrictions in an effort to work around the fundamental problem of "people have little to no choice in ISPs". If you're going to have one ISP in an area and regulate its behavior heavily, you might as well just have the government run it. (Note: that's not a recommendation.)
I'd be entirely in favor of solving the problem by saying "last-mile infrastructure (from customers all the way to the nearest meet-me room) is a public utility, all ISPs have to remain separate from the last-mile infrastructure". If the average customer had a choice of half a dozen or more ISPs, none of these problems would arise, because any ISP stupid enough to make services deliberately worse would get dropped in favor of ISPs that don't. ISPs could then compete on everything from services provided, customer service, neutrality, geek-friendliness, IPv6 availability, CDNs/mirrors, or anything else they think people want.
Why do you think turning ISPs into dumb pipes only would not fix most, if not all, problems?
The reason we have all these problems is that the ISPs do not want to be dumb pipes only.
Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses.
Dumb pipes serve YouTube more slowly, and might not have the capacity for HD/4K video. (Look at what server the video comes from; if you're on a major ISP, the server name likely has your ISP's name in it.)
Dumb pipes serve Netflix more slowly.
Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
Dumb pipes might not get as many customers.
Dumb pipes cost more.
Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Yes, they do. That's exactly what they want. A dumb pipe that transports their bits and nothing more.
I'm omitting your list about dumb pipes, as nothing you write has anything to do with dumb pipes and is all completely wrong.
> Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
Hate to disappoint you, but there are no smarts in any ISP datacenter. It's just a big router and some interconnects. Raw bandwidth is all you get, if you are lucky.
> See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
It's not that simple, there are a lot of implementation details that matter. Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
> Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
In an ideal world? A form of local loop unbundling, with a not-for-profit entity running/maintaining the local fiber, and umpteen ISPs readily available to handle termination and routing at the other end.
Really? How many definitions are there?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/stupidnet.html
> In an ideal world? A form of local loop unbundling, with a not-for-profit entity running/maintaining the local fiber, and umpteen ISPs readily available to handle termination and routing at the other end.
That's nice. Now you've either locked out small/unsophisticated ISPs/network users who can't or can't afford to light the fiber or increased cost and/or complexity by requiring an additional service provider on top of the dark fiber provider to provide bitstream, retail and other transport services. Also excellent choice for finger pointing when these two actors donit get along.
Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly.
> Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
> Dumb pipes cost more.
Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
> I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Sure it would. But it has to be one or the other. Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
Of course; they buy it from ISPs, and now you have the same problem again.
> The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay.
> Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
For the same bandwidth? Yes. Raw bandwidth costs more than a plan from an ISP offering that much bandwidth.
> Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
I don't want a single choice of ISP, whether that ISP has agreed to network neutrality restrictions or to divest any particular services. I'd like a dozen ISPs to choose from, and then the rest stops causing a problem.
What problem?
> It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay.
So free isn't enough for you?
You can pretty much get as much content as you want, if you have the customer demand for it.
Join an IX and you'll get as much content as you want for free for the cost of the port. If you got serious content demand, do a private interconnect and get the content for the price of a crossconnect. There are facilities with no recurring costs for crossconnects. Need a shitload of content? The content providers will send you a CDN node to you, for free.
In summary, your your statement is provably false.
> Raw bandwidth costs more than a plan from an ISP offering that much bandwidth.
You obviously never bought wholesale bandwidth. Wholesale IP transit is 20 cents or less per Mbps. IX peering is cheaper than that. Private interconnects, again cheaper.
I don't see ISPs offering 100M connections for $20 or less.
Again, your statement is provably false.
> What problem?
The message I originally replied to said "End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly." And once an ISP starts trying to provide value above and beyond the pipe, all the same questions about neutrality come up again.
> If you got serious content demand, do a private interconnect and get the content for the price of a crossconnect.
> The content providers will send you a CDN node to you, for free.
What happened to "dumb pipe"? Both of these, especially the former, seem to contradict that.
> You obviously never bought wholesale bandwidth. Wholesale IP transit is 20 cents or less per Mbps. IX peering is cheaper than that. Private interconnects, again cheaper.
I have, in fact, looked into both wholesale bandwidth and IX peering (though not in the last year or two). Both of which, at least in the areas and exchanges I've looked in, were several times higher than the cost you're quoting. It's entirely possible that you have access to better information/markets, or that ISPs can get much lower pricing; I based the comment I made on the information I had.
All the numbers I've seen suggested that raw bandwidth costs significantly more than ISPs charge for it, because consumer ISPs rarely expect 24/7 utilization of the full bandwidth, and likely also because they can provide some of the larger sources of content for free out of their own datacenter.
But they do, and that's what they want to keep on doing. An Internet connection is by definition a dumb pipe. It's only when you start messing with it and prioritizing traffic that it becomes something else.
> And once an ISP starts trying to provide value above and beyond the pipe, all the same questions about neutrality come up again.
No, this is just a silly argument. Just because an ISP provider other services in addition to or on top of the Internet connection does not make nor any net neutrality issues. It is only when they start prioritizing stuff that there is an issue.
> What happened to "dumb pipe"? Both of these, especially the former, seem to contradict that.
Nothing. Seriously, this is how the Internet works and is supposed to work. You are supposed to interconnect networks, that's why it's called the Internet. Doh!
Just because somebody else has a shorter path to you than somebody else doesn't make it wrong or unfair.
> All the numbers I've seen suggested that raw bandwidth costs significantly more than ISPs charge for it, because consumer ISPs rarely expect 24/7 utilization of the full bandwidth, and likely also because they can provide some of the larger sources of content for free out of their own datacenter.
Well, it doesn't and it's not for the reasons you state. Wholesale bandwidth prices decrease by 30% on average year on year. Consumer prices are stagnant, or rising.
While it's true that consumers don't use their connection 24/7 (although some make a pretty good go at it), the ISPs could without much problem support that use case. Furthermore ISPs provide close to zero of the content consumers consume. All the content is coming from the content providers, either directly, via an IX or a local cache. The ISPs have nothing to do with it, they are just dumb pipes.
It means you control a physical data wire that goes into more than a thousand residential buildings.
> DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
You're the last mile ISP if you're the infrastructure provider regardless of whether you're also the bandwidth provider.
> What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
Outside of megaplayers like Netflix and Google who are effectively Tier 1 networks unto themselves, the backbones and CDNs are the people who use the free peering. Some website like Yelp or Expedia doesn't want to peer with ISPs or run a CDN, they want to pay Akamai et al to take care of that.
> What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers?
You can put them wherever you want to. Nobody stops you from putting all your servers for the whole world in one city, or having regional hubs, or doing whatever you want. That's your network, not the last mile ISP's. Level 3 can run fiber from an office 200 miles away if they think that's worth it over buying closer office space.
> Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
Then where do they normally peer with other networks or operate CDN hardware?
This is simply incorrect. CDNs are not prioritized on any ISP network. CDNs work because they have a shorter route to the end user, not because they have a higher priority.
ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core for VoIP or anything else when it's part of generic Internet traffic. It's the end users responsibility to QoS police VoIP or other traffic on their WAN interface. The ISP just shifts the bits.
Not privatizing traffic does not break CDNs nor customer QoS. Neither of these things have anything to do with net neutrality.
> But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"?
It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"?
Easy. As I already wrote, forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects.
> How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
It does not need to when done right, as explained above.
> One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
Nothing hard about it. It's called functional separation and it's a widely applied remedy to the anticompetitive nature of telecom markets in other countries.
So, anyone who can successfully define what they're doing as "not prioritizing" can entirely sidestep any regulation you have in mind.
Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
> ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core
Many do. As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads. Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
> It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects
So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints? Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
This argument makes no sense. Colocating a CDN node has nothing to do with prioritization. Nobody is fiddling with any QoS settings.
> Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
What is your point?
> As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads.
This is an incorrect characterization of PowerBoost. PowerBoost uncaps your DOCSIS connection temporarily to take advantage of any momentarily free spare capacity. This is not prioritization, it's getting a free tier upgrade temporarily.
> Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
Such as?
> So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints?
Don't be silly. As long as the ISP provides whatever speed tier they sold to the consumer all is good and well. If they cannot do that then they are shortchanging the consumer and should be penalized for that.
> Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
Yes, to the extent required to provide the service they sold.
> A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
If you saturate your interconnect you fail at ISPing. There is no excuse. Interconnect capacity is cheap and plentiful.
I think the CDN fix could be built right into net-neutrality laws: If you're going to support that functionality then also do it equally to any CDN that is also willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria. For example, don't only let Netflix's smaller competitors let that box sit on your network.
(No, this regulation wouldn't be burdensome either.)
QoS is something I'm unfamiliar with when it comes to ISPs. I personally wouldn't be offended if some small % of bandwidth was dedicated to services consumers and businesses use that require priority, such as VoIP. As long as that applied to all VoIP services and apps equally, though I'm not sure how you would be able to tell.
The only fair way to do this is to use port numbers and protocols and endpoint IP addresses only for the purpose of telling which packets belong to which traffic flow or customer. For deciding which flows get priority, you should look only at the actual pattern of traffic: sparse low-rate flows should be assumed to be interactive, in the same manner that your operating system's CPU scheduler assumes that processes with intermittent load are more latency-sensitive than long-running sustained loads. To see how this kind of packet scheduling works in the real world, look at the fq_codel and cake queue disciplines in Linux. The former has become the default for many Linux distributions and is used by some of the more modern commercial wireless routers.
This will have the side effect that my ssh session will get the same preferential treatment as your VoIP, unless I'm using it to tunnel rsync.
Defining "willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria" would still require very careful drafting to avoid breaking things, though.
A problem with simplifying the problem to "prioritizing traffic" when engaging with laypeople is that opponents of net-neutrality can set-up a strawman argument presenting NN as "treating gaming and porn traffic the same as vital 911 and emergency services traffic on the Internet!" (i.e. conflating NN with QoS), or arguing it's only fair that popular services pay for the extra data transfer they use (that's what peering agreements are for and is unrelated to NN), or worse: proclaiming NN will enable child pornography: https://thenextweb.com/us/2010/08/19/riaa-speaks-out-against... - we should call it what it is: anti-economic rent-seeking behavior on the part of the monopolistic audience gatekeepers.
I believe NN is an example of a "good" regulation necessary to enable free markets - I'd wager the majority of genuine (non-astroturf) NN opponents take the stance in the sincere belief that Government 'interference and regulation' should not impact ISPs' internal business practices - so you should frame it as something "that enables free-markets and increases competition which is better for the consumer and industry" (and avoid the R-word)
Mostly I think NN is fighting the last war. NN proponents continually assert there is no competition for wired Internet and, therefore, it must be regulated. I think looking at wired Internet defines much too narrow a market. As wireless proliferates, it will become increasingly important, and competition in wireless is alive and well. The recent reignition of wars over "unlimited" data underscores this.
I am reminded of the zeal to regulate or break up Microsoft. I was one of those zealots. Of course, then mobile changed everything, and now it doesn't matter so much that Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows PCs.
If I were Comcast I'd be scared, and legitimately so. The wireless players have access to most American consumers. Each cable operator only has access to the homes that get its wire--a small fraction of the market available to a wireless company. We're better off with vibrant cable operators who can compete with wireless however they see best. If that means zero rating or non-neutral networks, OK.
Further, I am struck by the arrogance of the belief that the government knows best how to regulate this market. Looking back I think it's absurd that I wanted government to break MS into "browser co." and "OS co." The market took care of this problem and now Windows users proactively install Chrome. I think that in a few short years, the drive to regulate the Internet will look like similar folly.
So in short I see no problem here to solve and I do not think government should get involved.
Ignoring the laws of physics tends to make for bad public policy.
Wireless will never be able to compete against wired services. This disparity will only grow over time, not shrink. There are only two ways for wireless providers to substantially increase the speed of their offerings: by acquiring more spectrum, or by increasing spectrum re-use by shrinking cell size. Since all the good spectrum is in use, acquiring more means using spectrum that is inherently more limited in coverage. Thus, both strategies boil down to deploying more wired infrastructure.
No worse than the belief that companies, in natural monopoly, will act in the best interests of consumers either. There are many places in the world where the government does work well and in the best interests of their populations - I'm disappointed the "government is inherently bad" meme is so well-entrenched in the USA.
There's a difference there, but like most arguments on the internet, the nuance tends to get lost in the retelling.
Regarding net neutrality, if memory serves correctly, it was but a few short weeks after the passage of NN that somebody was wanting to leverage the FCC's new powers to censor ISIS off of the internet. Wheeler, being a good guy, connoted that they didn't have that authority, and that even if it could be construed that they did, he was disinclined to exert it and give credence to the argument that they did have that power.
All of that was done basically in "the right way", but given the wild swings in administration changes, who's to say that some other head of the FCC wouldn't have been inclined to leverage the power that they might now have for exactly that reason? Are we sure that the courts would agree that NN doesn't give the FCC the right to censor individual websites? Are we sure that the courts of tomorrow won't?
Yes, I know that this is a slippery slope argument, and I understand the inherent pitfalls therein, but that doesn't change the fact that power can be used maliciously, and for some of us, the question of whether or not the problem is worth potentially sacrificing much larger swaths of the first amendment falls differently than for others. I personally don't fault any individual for whichever way they've decided, as there are possible curtilages of free speech on either side of the coin, but I'd like us to agree that being suspicious of vesting power unto an agency otherwise wholly unaccountable to the public is perhaps not the dumbest thing that Americans do.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/17...
Also, wireless is not really competition for home internet. Try cancelling your home internet service and relying solely on one of the wireless carriers and see how far you'll get. The latency, bandwidth and reliability of wireless are much worse than wired networks. The wireless carriers simply don't have the spectrum to provision the same capacity that people routinely use on their home internet connections. With the move to unlimited data plans the only solution will have is severely throttling the traffic of people that actually try to use a substantial amount of data.
Twenty years ago you could substitute "cellular" for "wireless" and "landline" for "home internet" and make the same claims. No one dreamed people would eliminate land phones back when only a few had a "car phone".
I know that Cox has some kind of "low speed, low price" offering, that I believe is under $30/month - but they kinda hide it on their site; I think you have to explicitly call and ask for it. See here (scroll near the bottom):
https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.h...
Note the "Starter Package", then note the package one level up ("Essential"). If you click on the link next to the "Starter Package" for pricing, you will be taken to another page - where the lowest shown tier is for the "Essential Package". But I'm pretty sure you can get the "Starter Package" if you call first.
There's also this for low-income families:
The only way for that ARPU to drop considerably is if a new player enters the market that can significantly undercut the existing players, because none of the existing players are willing to see that number drop by half or more. I don't believe such a new entrant will materialize anytime soon due to the high barriers to entry. I suspect the cost of building and operating a wireless network in the US is too high to support a carrier operating on a fraction of the ARPU.
Governments did intervene against Microsoft, so I'm not sure the market gets all the credit for the fix.
That's patently absurd. You can't just add a natural monopoly to a public good and come up with a competitive market. The most basic of economic analysis -- really, first semester stuff -- would tell you that these are the precise situations where external regulation is needed to even approach something that looks like an efficient distribution of resources.
I would describe your economic philosophy as something closer to a religion, but even most religions aren't provably incorrect.
Now it's the reverse. In the dawn of a new technological age, people want to shackle the old technology rather than deregulate it.
My economic philosophy is no religion; the government regulates the distribution of wireless spectrum and I have no objection to that, nor do I object to the regulation of wireline operators in exchange for their use of public rights-of-way. But this regulation should be measured and the minimum amount necessary. Net neutrality regulations are far beyond minimal.
So please continue on with demonstrating where what I have said is provably incorrect?
The problem is: they don't.
There are 4 main wireless providers in the US (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint), the vast majority (if not all) of the other carriers are MVNOs that run on top of the Big 4's infrastructure. The problem is AT&T is also a major wired provider (U-Verse), as is Verizon. Only T-Mobile and Sprint have no horizontal-business interests in wired networks - but incidentally note that T-Mobile and Sprint also have the smallest service coverage areas compared to AT&T and Verizon - in some parts of the country AT&T is your only real option for wireless service, and AT&T has no compunction with simultaneously selling you a $100/mo wireless plan with a low data limit, a $65/mo DirecTV plan, and $70/mo U-verse wired home Internet plan - where they would gladly throttle Netflix to entice you to watch your DirecTV service instead. The invisible-hand-of-the-market cannot solve this problem because of the sheer start-up costs of physical infrastructure needed to set-up a competing wired (or even wireless!) Internet service - and as we've seen with Google Fiber and municipal Internet services the incumbents quickly drop their prices to prevent these newly competing services from becoming established, if not being completely obstructionist as we see with Comcast holding coax poles ransom. This is why we need to classify last-mile Internet access as a regulated public utility, not as a captive market for rent-seeking companies.
So in your example, at least, I don't see how competition from the wireless industry will budge wired services in consumers' interests, but instead corral us all into a much worse position.
Netflix could approach Provider B and say, "Hey, how about we pay you to remove the data cap on Netflix traffic?". All of a sudden Provider B can advertise that their customers can watch all the Netflix they want with no buffering! People will jump ship and leave Provider A for Provider B, thus "creating competition".
Disclaimer: I personally think the internet should be treated as a public utility, but the above scenario is (probably) what anti-net neutrality proponents believe.
What if a company wanted to offer 2 networks for customers: 1 in which they tell you they'll shape the network traffic to ensure consistent performance for all non-video traffic and another in which they tell it's completely unshaped?
It would be interesting to see the two side by side as actual consumer choices. If I'm buying for an office, for example, I'd take the shaped-kill-the-video plan all dang day. If I'm at home...not so much.
Video is not the problem. Congestion is, whether or not video is part of the traffic contributing to the congestion. Congestion can be managed reasonably without discriminating against video, and even if an ISP wants to discriminate against video (eg. due to having a conflict of interest in the form of a separate video delivery service) the ISP should still want robust congestion management in place to handle growing volumes of non-video traffic.
I think it's more realistic to assume they'd differentiate through better service, faster speeds, higher/no caps, etc. That's what we want and are willing to pay for.