I didn't.
You are saying what I am saying: You pay for 'Quality of Water Service'.
What if you need 5x the flow that the water company normally provides?
What if you needed, for medical purposes 'unflourinated' water (whereas all of their other customers use flourinated).
With water:
+ If you want more water monthly - you pay for that. + If you want higher water pressure - you pay for that. + If you want different kinds of water (hard, soft) you pay for that.
That's 'Water Neutrality'.
What you do not pay for is a higher rate because you're a hospital. Or because you are wealthy and the water company knows they can scam you.
If you do not allow the water company to charge for 'high pressure' or 'hard / soft' water types - then they cannot justify in the investment and no such services will exist
As for networks:
+ If you want a dumb pipe, you pay for that. + If you want a faster pipe, you pay for that. + If you want more data, you pay for that. + If you want higher service level guarantees - you pay for that.
It's like buying AWS, or a new computer, or whatever.
What you should not have to pay for is: $X for Netflix data and $Y for HBO data. Or $X for Facebook and $Y for Linked in data. That's raw price discrimination and it's a problem.
Internet providers have massive equipment and support costs to support streaming video, so if you want amazing streaming at 4K super high quality, well, they can provide that if you're willing to pay. But - they should charge the same irrespective of content (i.e. HBO, Netflix etc)
Do they though? Over and above just providing a link with a sufficient bandwidth and contention ratio?
It doesn't matter.
Apple can charge you whatever it wants for it's iPhone. You can pay or not.
ISP's can charge you whatever they want for whatever QoS. You can pay or not. That's Network Neutrality.
What they cannot do under NN, is charge you based on who you are, or based on what you use your service for. So, charging you for Netflix usage, vs HBO usage is totally out of bounds.
If they sell you a 'streaming service' with whatever QoS - you should be able to it for whatever on earth you want.
My point is: there is usually an underlying cost-based reality to most of these things, and some of the people on this thread are not actually arguing for 'Net Neutrality' - they are arguing for 'ISP's should only be allowed to bill me in a very, specific narrow way, by law, irrespective of what consumer needs are or what their costs are'.
So if you buy a QoS from an ISP, they can't throttle you if it's for P2P or for Netlflix or HBO or whatever. That would be against NN and of course outside the bounds of any normal QoS.
It's just like buying form AWS: you pick from any number of configurations, but AWS can't charge you if you are doing 'gaming' vs 'news' on your hosted service. Amazon doesn't bill you based on what you are doing, just how you use the service.
That's NN.
So, under NN, ISP's can definitely sell you a 'low latency' service, as long as customers want that.
Eh, this isn't true in most places.
You pay a flat rate since you most likely have a 1"-1 1/2" pipe ran to your residence. Even if you cut the pipe off after the meter and let it run full blast you can only burn up a relatively limited amount of water (compared to what the system can carry). If you have a much larger line it is highly likely that your contract has usage conditions.
But the water company should not bill me differently if I choose to water tomatoes, but not chillies.
If turning on your faucet took an average of twenty minutes before the water showed up you'd probably want a high-cost low-latency spigot in case of a fire.
Nobody cares if an ISP wants to offer 2 "packages":
1. High latency, high bandwidth
2. Low latency, low bandwidth
Just like the metaphor of a water pipe, an ISP could offer "normal" where the water takes 20 minutes, or "fast" where it takes a second, but you have to pay 10x or have a much lower limit.
What NN is all about is preventing the ISP from saying HOW you are using the data. In the "water" analogy it would be like your water company saying you can ONLY use their "fast" water in their proprietary "soup making system", then they slow down all other water if they detect you are using it in any non-compliant pots.
I'm more than fine with an ISP that wants to offer a special low-latency VOIP option, but when they slow down all their competitors VOIP services and only allow you to get their VOIP service with low-latency, then it's a problem. Or the all too real possibility of Comcast allowing something like HULU to not apply to the data-caps, while not offering that option to Netflix, Youtube, Amazon Prime Video, or even your own startup or self-hosted option.
That's what I want my government protecting me against, that's the kind of thing that should be heavily regulated.
I know this forum is full of people who want total control of everything but I would bet this would provide a better experience since it doesn't have to be managed by the customer.
> Or the all too real possibility of Comcast allowing something like HULU to not apply to the data-caps
This doesn't technically fall under NN but I agree it's pretty scummy. I think it's a tough argument to make the ISPs shouldn't be allowed to do this though. If Hulu wants to make a deal with an ISP where they pay for their customer's data usage and pay more to be exclusive I don't see why that should be forbidden.
An example outside of ISPs. Spotify used to integrate Musixmatch into their app which would otherwise cost users $12/year. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that Spotify can't make an exclusive deal or that Musixmatch must allow GPM to integrate with them as well.
I'm perfectly okay, as long as you are using the word "application" as a synonym for "type" and not as another word for "service or platform".
In other words, it's okay if VOIP service is prioritized via QoS rules, much of the internet as we know it won't work without this kind of thing, and it's a good thing for everyone involved.
What's NOT okay is when ComcastVOIP is allowed low-bandwidth, low-latency, but GoogleVOIP isn't. Or when each VOIP company needs to "apply" to get approved for the special consideration, or there are additional "rules" that have to be followed that deal with where the data is going, what it's doing, or how it's being used (like saying "VOIP that is used for business must pay more" is not okay in my book).
>This doesn't technically fall under NN but I agree it's pretty scummy. I think it's a tough argument to make the ISPs shouldn't be allowed to do this though. If Hulu wants to make a deal with an ISP where they pay for their customer's data usage and pay more to be exclusive I don't see why that should be forbidden.
It may not, but it absolutely should. At this point nothing falls under NN as it's not a law any more, so I'm not buying this "excuse" any more.
un-limiting one companies data is the same as limiting all other companies data in my opinion.
Again, if that data-cap-bypassing stuff works on a protocol level (as in VOIP data doesn't count toward your limit), then i'm perfectly fine with it, but when it deals with who owns the server, what content it's displaying, and who you are paying to get the service/data, then it should be heavily regulated.
>I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that Spotify can't make an exclusive deal or that Musixmatch must allow GPM to integrate with them as well.
neither would I, but that's not what i'm worried about. Bundling and deals including other services is fine, but what isn't is when those bundles bleed over into the actual data being sent. Just like how i'm fine if my water company provides a free water filter service with their water service. But when they start interfering with other companies water filters, or start making their core service (the water itself) cheaper when used with their provided water filter, then it's in what I consider anti-competitive territory.
And I guess that's the core of the problem I have with things like "unlimited for one service" deals. It's not just including another service with your internet, it's the ISP actively changing the price of their own core service when you use another unrelated service.
While I understand that a policy prohibiting this might end up slowing or stopping some innovative or new ways of providing internet access to people how they want it, I truly feel that the upsides of not allowing the ISPs to play gatekeeper (whether intentional or otherwise) will greatly outweigh the lost innovation.
I also want to point out that i'm not calling for these "shady" practices to be outright illegal, just that they should be "heavily regulated". Meaning there should be quite a lot of oversight, time should be spent determining if there is a conflict of interest or if the specific practice will end up harming competition or innovation.
I have a 3/4" pipe entering the house that I pay for. I can upgrade it to 1" for $50 more a month (and a ton of capex replacing the spur to the service line). I can upgrade it to multiple inches for for $100's more a month as well.
My Internet connection is capable of considerable more bandwidth than I'm paying for. Generally speaking, it's just a software setting on my modem.
I guess you could sort of compare it to having the water provider bringing in a 6" line to my house and tapering the line down to 3/4". But even then, their isn't a way for them to force me on to a specific water well or source, or directly force pricing based upon what I use the water for.
Its really just a tough comparison.
It's like if a football stadium was located near a tollway, and the tollway decided to start charging the stadium itself during sporting events.
That's not a legitimate business transaction, it's a cash grab.
Yes, I do as the consumer of that water. In this analogy Netflix would be the dam operator, so why would a particular dam pay more to the pipe company than another dam?
You pay your utility bill every month for electricity (probably a base rate, and a fixed consumption rate). Does your utility then go to the provider (A local green power source) and demand they pay the utility as well, since 60% of the requests in the region are for their power? (users opting into to green power on their bills?)
So do I.
Sounds like it is already paid.
What they want though, is to charge data coming in, and data going out.