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[ NNSquad ] Re: Avoiding unfair ISP bandwidth manipulations


On Mar 5, 2008, at 5:53 PM, Lauren Weinstein wrote:

Question: Would this problem be mitigated if all IP-based traffic, other perhaps than basic not-on-demand, non-PPV TV, were subject to the same bandwidth caps and other limitations? That is, if an ISP were cajoled or required to treat its own offerings that competed directly with external services as being subject to the same monthly bandwidth caps, throughput throttling, etc., what would be the effects?

Presumably the bandwidth used by the ISP's own services costs less to deliver because it stays within the ISP's network and doesn't go over the backbone. If the purpose of network management is to control transit costs, it makes sense to treat internal traffic differently. If the goal is managing last-mile congestion, it is logical that all traffic over the last mile should be treated equally.


I think such a rule would penalize service providers who use an all- IP architecture (like U-Verse) while leaving a big loophole for the cablecos, since it would exempt all their video from bandwidth management.

None of the internal services that I know of use any substantial upstream bandwidth or P2P, so such a rule could be used to whitewash network discrimination practices. e.g. "We're not unfairly blocking our competitors' P2P traffic, because we also block our own P2P traffic!"

Wes Felter - wesley@felter.org - http://felter.org/wesley/