Game developers speak with FCC about bandwidth concerns

And let's not forget they will also have the ability to completely yank sites from the service that they deem unacceptable. This would mean the end of free speech on the internet.

Dude I'm paying an extra $30 to Comcast for Docsis 3.0. Not only for the speeds but, for the reason that you don't have a 250gb bandwidth cap.

Right now you don't have QoS restrictions or benefits (unless your ISP is hiding something). No major ISP has set this up yet fortunately. I fully expect the internet to become what game developers are describing here though. There's just no possible way that your ISP wouldn't purposefully give you lag and disconnect your game session if they're given free range under the disguise of QoS. They want more money and they want you to see a benefit for paying more so they will screw you at the lower tiers. Its inevitable.

Net Neutrality -must- come true.

Right now you don't... IF you are in the US and some other countries where it may be illegal or otherwise not yet taking place.

My ISP applies traffic shaping right now, and has for some years. See this page. http://usergroup.plus.net/shaping.php

It's a difficult issue - I certainly don't mind the idea that high-priority traffic, like realtime conferencing, should take priority over lower-priority traffic, like email downloads. That surely improves perceived behaviour for everyone. I don't even mind the idea that you can pay more for better service - this doesn't seem to be to be terribly controversial.

What I do object to is charging *websites* to deal with their specific traffic better. That's charging for the same thing twice and it's out of order; it also potentially gives big ISPs or groups of ISPs the chance to effectively stifle content by, in the long term, reducing rates to a crawl for any site that isn't paying their protection money.

Of course, there are already ways where this is effectively done ('free' websites might have less-good backbone connections and some pay-for websites may even have direct connections to some ISPs) but I think making it widespread would be worrying and dangerous.

In other words if an ISP says, well all web traffic is priority 3, online conferencing is priority 2, etc - unless you pay for a premier account, then everything's priority 1. I'm fine with that.

It's when they start getting into, well traffic from Google is priority 2 because they paid, but traffic from yourhomeserver.net is priority 5 because you didn't pay them - even though you obviously paid your own ISP for the bandwidth - that I have a problem.

There is no such thing as QoS on the internet, unless your packets are highly engineered to only travel along QoS-participating routes--which would be very un-internetlike.

Net neutrality is a pretty critical thing to the nature of the internet. Without it, the internet will become more like your voice landline or cell service, where the provider charges you $3 for a 20 second ringtone, and nobody else is allowed to compete with them on their lines.

It is bigger than QoS restrictions, in addition to what sam said, they also want to tier the internet like how cable is. Imagine having to pay more to get the "internet plus" package which includes the use of all xxx.google.com sites, video sites and social networking. While online gaming could be a premium service like HBO. Where as now we pay for just the pipe, we can use whatever we want with it. Comcast, Time Warner, ATT, and Verizon have all discussed a tiered internet and I wouldn't put it past them that they have a whole reform campaign and marketing blitz to tell us why it is a good thing should net neutrality fail.

uhhh so when all of them restrict their service then what?

sorry but this IS something Government needs to step in with. especially with the caps and throttling that is already taking place....its only going to get worse

@Erluti

Internet should be government controlled - like the interstate highway system.

Your arguments miss the big picture - giving ISPs control of internet will mean that they will regulate it for their own profit - all your "choices" will be offered by them. That's like having construction companies run the road system.

Internet is a public good and needs to be regulated by the public in the public interest not by companies that are required to seek profit with their every act.

Remember that next time when your knee jerks to bash government regulations - corporations are REQUIRED by law to seek profit from all their activities - they can get sued by their shareholders if they do something that's does not pursue the purpose that's prescribed by statute. Unless there is other government regulation, corporations cant distinguish between profitable and harmful investments and profitable and beneficial investments, i.e. corporate law does not control negative externalities.

As long as they stop ISP's from throttling bittorrent traffic, I'll be fine. But will they do that?

"Should net neutrality fail?" Aren't we already living in a world without it? How come I'm not paying extra for google right now?

Are you really that helpless you want the government to hold your hand for you all the time? Give your money to businesses that are good, and only good businesses will survive. Over time, the free market will work things out. More government is worse for you in the long run.

What you don't seem to take into account, Erluti, is that in most areas of the country there is only 1 ISP. They act very similarly to how health insurance providers do, and yet are not considered monopolies.

So that free-market idealism doesn't hold up. Nor does your "free speech" argument; all it amounts to is those who can pay, can speak, "freely" in your terms, those who won't pay for the QoS will have page load speeds akin to 56k connections. I am not sure how that amounts to free speech protection...to me it seems more akin to extortion.

The internet has become a fact of life, and no longer a luxury item. As such it should become a municipal recourse - in my opinion. That probably isn't going to happen, unfortunately (though there has been some interesting situations in the mid-west where towns turned the internet into a municipality).

Net Neutrality is necessary. Just ask any of the people who were subjected to the pilot programs run in major cities, like Buffalo, where ISPs tried these QoS-business models. However, trying to pretend that what is essentially extortion, perpetrated by massive Corporations, is some how protecting free speech is laughable.

You would have to remove current regulation in order to make that work. I only have the choice between 3 high speed Internet providers and all of them are talking about this. The market would need to be more open for your plan to work.

Whew! Glad I never mentioned free speech!

@ Chris - You would be correct to think that is why the government should be involved - in an honest society with the people being put first it would be what should be done. However we are dealing with lobbyists and politicians. People are put after bottom lines (real thrift of culture) and elections (read my lips).

However you might do yourself a favor by looking into what the governments simmering views are on the net. The war on terror has changed everything. Even the founding fathers are now considered terrorists. Sharing information easily is something a terrorists could capitalize on - go ahead - laugh. It's already been spoken aloud by some such as Gordon Brown who openly has called for information restriction on the net.

If we put two and two and two together we see that this works great for a) those that charge for services (moar bells yo!) 2) the government agencies that wish to restrict activity and freedom in the name of..... peace (pesky citizens, how can we keep them under our foot?) and iii) the green movement (hey, look at us - we're conserving energy!)

Certainly a slippery slope and a topic we should all learn more about and contact local representatives to voice our thoughts.

...... boycott ?

thats your answer .......... the spineless drivel that comprise the internet today are capable of little more than saber rattling a full on show of principle such a s a boycott is frankly beyond them.

And for something like an ISP where in some cases you don't have a choice of who your broadband provider is because there is one (UND ONLY ONE) provider in your area ?
If your lucky you have a selection of two Broadband ISP providers in your area.

Unless you do what one town did and that was start a public ISP & cable company that operated at a fraction of the cost of the corporate ISPs. Put in their own hard lines to each and every home in the town and were summarily sued by the corporate ISPs belly aching that it was unfair practice because 90%+ opted to switch over to their towns ISP&Cable because it was cheaper and offered way better service.

Regulation sadly is the answer because the people who are complaining about the ISP practices going on now are too spineless to vote true with their wallets. they will break down the second they don't see change, they will pay the extra fees for premium services, they will smile and continue to talk shit about unfair ISP practices.

Case in point the modern warfare 2 no dedicated servers boycott ....... worked really great had thousands of signups and the day the game came out about 80-90% of them were all playing modern warfare 2.... without the dedicated servers they said that if they didn't get they wouldn't buy the game....... boycotted for exactly the time it took to go to the store pick up your copy and install the game.....

ISP's can still charge for bandwidth. Nobody has or plans to prevent them from charging more for fatter pipes. IMO, that's what actually costs them money, so that's what they should be charging for. I don't want them knowing what we're doing within that bandwidth. Why do they need to know? All it will do is enable them to shut down competitors automatically.

Do you like Apple's App Store approval process? Because the internet without neutrality will be worse than that.

Erluti: "Aren't we already living in a world without it? How come I'm not paying extra for google right now?"

The internet was designed as a "dumb network, smart endpoints" network. I.e. the network itself just transports packets in the most efficient way possible, regardless of what they are. This is what has enabled rapid innovation, because innovators can just design new clients and software. This is net neutrality, and YES we do have it today. It is the status quo.

ISP's want to make it more like the telephone network, where it's "smart network, dumb endpoints".. Where you can just have a thin client on the ends, and the network itself controls and offers you all the features. IOW, the ISP's would control what you are able to do on the network. So, in this model, MCI would be the one conducting a web search, and they'd have to give google permission to offer it.

If that's what you want, please continue arguing against the status quo by bashing net neutrality. If you want to see a great example of a non-neutral network, look into WAP.

@Nook

I think Gordon Brown doesnt realize that military intelligence is an oxymoron.

Limiting info exchange on the net because terrorist may use it is like closing the interstate because OJ may use them during a high speed chase with police. You are destroying far more value than you are protecting.

As scary as terrorists are, it terms of actual value they destroy they are merely annoying. Limiting everyone because would set the economy and the world way farther back than any terrorist could hope to accomplish.

So the whole "we need net neutrality"-argument is based on fear mongering? You all keep saying what the ISPs "want to do" but how come they aren't doing it? What's stopping them from doing what they want? It isn't regulation, because it's not there yet.

And my solution isn't "boycott." It's spend your money on what you want. Pay for what you want. If someone isn't selling what you want, you don't have to buy anything! If someone is charging more than you can afford, change your budget. Or realize not everyone is entitled to everything they want? Or even let that motivate you to work harder and get a better job so you can afford the things you want?
"In many areas, there is only one *broadband* ISP..." You know you can still get dial-up, right? Or are you paying more for broadband because it's worth it to you?

And I keep thinking about how businesses are "required by law" to earn a profit? I didn't realize there were so many companies chomping at the bit to just lose money and give away all their products for free. Because last I checked it was good to earn a profit... Or does everyone else here tell their boss, "No, no. Don't give me a raise. I can already afford more than just a roof, food, and clothes. Every time I use the profit from my labor to see a movie or buy a video game I'm just so guilt ridden! Why am I so cursed?!"

I'm really curious about this town that created their own ISP. Was it a bunch of people who worked together to form their own company and connection? Or did the local government own it? I'm having trouble googling it without more information...

Net Neutrality is at best a short term solution. In the long run (I'm talking 25, 50, 100 years), there will be more American innovation and prosperity through the internet if we don't regulate it. Because if a company is charging way more than their service is worth, it'll become worth it to someone else to undercut them. There are already many different ways to connect to the internet, and more will come.

As Scott said net-neutrality is the status quo.

As for profit, I completely agree that profit is a good thing. Nothing wrong with it. Except its not the ONLY good thing that society needs to foster. Freedom of information, diversity of points of view, equality of opportunity are just some of the other social goods that would be threatened by profit-based discrimination on the internet.

Internet has become the public square, where each person should have a voice, and this right should be protected from limitation by government regulation. That's why governments exist. If profit was the only good, we would not have governments.

I'd be happy to choose another broadband provider if one failed to offer me the product I wanted, except that in my town I only have one choice. It's either go with their broadband or go back to dial-up, and I know I'm not the only one in this predicament. Your idea of a perfect free market giving us the exact choices we want is just as utopian as any socialist.

Right now we have the best kind of competition on the Internet, where websites and services compete to provide the best product. If instead we have ISPs giving the best QoS to those wbesites and consumers who can afford it, we segment the market. No longer would it be about the best ideas rising to the top, it would be about those who can afford the best QoS getting the widest availability. How would Google or youtube been able to start if they had to purchase QoS from an ISP? Would anyone have heard of Ron Paul if his base on the Internet was stifled by high priced QoS?

When the government starts choosing which websites can and can't be made, then I'll side with you, but when it's about guaranteeing everyone the same treatment to their data online, I'll heartily support Net Neutrality.

This is frightening, people not only advocating government control over the Internet, but actually getting voted up for it. All of these problems that you're imagining have been developed entirely BECAUSE of government intervention. Do any of you even have the slightest clue that governments grant monopolies over telecommunications in every developed country? The only reason the USA hasn't had a widespread problem of bandwidth caps and pay service issues is because the USA has the fewest controls over the telecom business. In regions around the States where providers are considering or implementing such practices that provide your excuse for a network "neutrality" law are the very same regions that practice very strict market monopoly laws. Only one cable provider and only one telephone operator are permitted to sell their product in that market, meaning only one provider of DSL and only one provider of Cable Internet. It's been made outright illegal to compete.

Government control over the Internet will be just like government control over roads, I agree. It'll be congested, slow, unpleasant, and poorly maintained. Innovation will completely die. If government controlled the roads in the Untied States prior to FDR setting precedent to make roads a government service then things like highways wouldn't even exist. The first highway was privately built connecting Indianapolis, Indiana to Miami, Florida. It was built in a year (for reference, it takes a year to build 30 miles today), built cheaper, with fewer accidents and is still considered today to be one of the best designed and safest roads in the United States, and possibly the world. All this for a road system built 100 years ago. The first time a government even got the notion of copying this system was some 22 years later in Germany, the road called the Autobahn.

Next time you bitch and moan about network neutrality and legislating it, ask yourself this simple question:

Can you take your business elsewhere?

If the answer is no, the problem lies in you giving government too much power. Allowing government to control the Internet is a recipe for disaster. Not just because innovation will die, but because it will involve severe censorship over activities. Only a delusional person will ever think that Washington or London or any other government on the world won't treat the Internet like China does today.

In case anyone tries to argue against this, the US Patriot Act was said to be turned into a system that would allow airport security to strip search each and every passenger that goes through the terminal. Supporters of this government control said it would never happen. But guess what, it is now. The same will be of the Internet. Allow the government to pass network neutrality, to allow it to regulate the Internet, and we will end up with a system where if so much as criticize the shoe color of a Senator, it will not only be censored out of existence, your government granted privilege will be stripped from you as you notice a big "you can't log in anymore" streaming across your computer monitor.

I laughed at that part too.

haha, ' it's not bad per-se...we just don't consider 56.6k bad you know '

Broadband ISPs would hammer us back to 56k if they thought there was a chance in hell they could get away with it.

And I don't think initially the non premium service will be that bad as so people will be initially accepting of it ..... and year by year they will throttle it down until if you want to play any online game or be able to watch sights like Hulu you will be forced to go with some form of premium package.

For online gaming it will be like the good old days of quake with the low ping bastards as you trudge along on your 56k with a latency of ~100-250ms (god willing) and prove no challenge for the one kid on the block whos parrents got broadband with a latency of ~11ms

only dif now is going to be your going to be trudging along with your broadband connection throttled to hell while you prove no challenge for the kid whos parents went with the super premium broadband package, Hows that saying go six of one half dozen of the other ~.~

Try having rogers as your isp in canada. It doesnt matter what type of service you pay for they have decided to throttle peoples accounts either way. Customer service has admitted to it over the phone and through emails, they claim this does not affect xbox live. But after reading countless forum posts and complaints online and the fact that when I host a game it goes to crap leads me to believe my xbox live connection is being squeezed.

Anyone else dealing with rogers having the same issue?

Someone wanna tell me who the this guy is?