Thread: Internet restriction

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Do you doubtith me?

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Spoiler for toilet internet:

April fools

. . .

Free internets? In my air?

Originally Posted by Sandform

Do you doubtith me?

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Spoiler for toilet internet:

April fools

LMAO ^^

people often misunderstand "net neutrality"
and I think the video is a complete crock of crap, to be honest

a totally neutral network is not always ideal
(in fact, it's often far from ideal)
but like with anything, it can be used, or abused

think of it this way,
your torrent client is not "net neutral"
it does not treat every peer equally
some peers are choked, so will ignore them
some peers are on slow connections, so will serve them slower
it will prioritise uploads to favour those who you've downloaded from
Again, your torrent client is not "net neutral"

In principle, I don't actually have a problem with ISP's offering tiered services
as long as it's not abused

someone (I think it was Tim Berners-Lee, but not sure) once said
"A neutral network is a stupid network"
meaning the network will just blindly do what it's told
and not put any intelligence into packet routing

Ynot, but that is iintended for faster downloads, not for getting money out of content providers.

same difference
seriously
this has all blown up in the UK, due to the BBC's iPlayer

now "regular" people (as opposed to the tech savvy minority) are downloading huge amounts of data
and ISP's are feeling the pinch

The way ISP's advertise, a layman see's an advert for "10mbps broadband" and assumes that's all his to use as he pleases
When in fact, it's not
He's renting the use of a 10mbps pipe - 19 other people are also renting bandwidth on that same pipe

So, you have 20 people, all expecting the 10mbps they're paying for, and complaining when they're not getting the bandwidth throughput

The ISP's have oversold their bandwidth
advertising their packages as "unlimited", when in fact, they are far from unlimited
it's only now, with serious downloadable content going mainstream, that the cracks have started to appear

the way the commercial internet is arranged,
it's cheap (and reliable) for ISP's to serve their customers from their own network
(Virgin --> Virgin Customer)

but expensive to relay from 3rd party networks (BBC --> Virgin --> Virgin Customer)

So, from a cost standpoint, it makes sense to strike deals with content providers

Virgin - "Hey, BBC, pay us some money and we'll mirror your content, and serve it to our customers for you. It's cheap for us to serve our own customers, plus it'll reduce your bandwidth costs"

The money saved from serving a subscriber from the subscribers own network can go toward upgrading the "last mile" of cabling, ensuring everyone can constantly get the bandwidth they're paying for

All they're doing is setting up mirrors
As I said, I really don't see the problem, in principle

Yes, it's the ISP's fault for overselling their services in the first place
but at least they're trying to remedy it by mirroring and caching high demand content locally for their customers
I actually think it's quite sensible

Of course, there's lots of devious stuff they could do with this type of setup (inject adverts, try to dictate what content is "worthy" of mirroring, etc.) but neither content providers nor ISP's are stupid - they know their customers talk between themselves, so any potential foul play will be easily spotted

by the way,
this may be better in Tech Talk

My ISP just back stabbed me big time. I got a home phone from them recently, and they forced me into a one year contract for my phone, tv and cable, where I had none before.

Then I notice in the contract they limited my bandwidth usage to 60 gigs a month, whereas I had no limit before. I use up my band width halfway through the month. Don't know what kind of additional charges I'm going to get for going over.

It was the hot blond with the sexy accent from Muldova they send to my door that got me. Like I could possibly pay attention to what I was signing!

Screw Rogers Cable, and also Bell for restricting Peer to Peer downloads. I'm running out of options in this city!