On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 12:13, Ian Stirling <backstage...@mauve.plus.com> wrote:
> Proritising classes of traffic can be less bad than the alternatives. No, they're a bloody stupid way of doing it. By all means, offer it as an option for those users who don't know how to configure QoS/prioritisation at the CPE side, but charging *more* to turn that off is retarded. Indeed, if you pitch it that way, you can sell it as a value-add instead of having to get embroiled in debates like this. It also gives you more flexibility to deal with the "you're mis-classifying my traffic as BitTorrent when it's actually a MMORPG!" issues which arise comparatively regularly. But then, sane marketing has never been ISPs' strong suits. > A) Build out the network to take several times the peak yearly demand. > B) Apply a really low quota, to reduce the peak demand, as everyone is > scared of blowing it, and not being able to use the net that month. > C) (what is usually spoken of as net neutrality) Whitelisting some sites to > improve their performance. Nowadays, "net neutrality" is commonly used to refer to both. > And other possible alternatives. What, you mean like the sensible one? Your 'dumb pipe' connection is throttled back according to how much you're shifting in relation to everybody else (which has been a feature of networking kit for decades, of course). If the user wants to make sure their SSH connections are responsive even when pulling the most a connection will allow at a given time, they can prioritise them at their end. > Bandwidth is rarely free. I don't think anybody (sane) has actually claimed it is? > Net neutrality is normally not neutrality in terms of protocols, but > neutrality in terms of content provider. > > It's the idea that - for example - the BBC iplayer site runs just as slowly > or as fast on any connection, as '4oD', or Dave Doing the Dishes video > player. Once upon a time that was the case, until people started rolling out DPI kit to do application-layer throttling. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
