Oh, crap -- this is really bad (net neutrality)

[daniel_reetz]

This is how the beginning of the end of the open Internet looks:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/uh ... utube-.php

[rob]

Yep, the wireless carriers really pushed to limit video (and by extension, everything else) over their networks. My thinking is that they want to preserve their network by limiting the volume of data downloaded at any one time by any one user (i.e. streaming video at 1000 kbps for 10 seconds is more damaging to the network than streaming video at 100 kbps for 100 seconds, even though the amount of data transferred is the same).

[ceeann1]

So instead of paying for bandwidth this carrier wants us to pay for certain services. Most probably because they have difficulty maintaining a bandwidth based system. Lots of reasons for difficulty with bandwidth, Rob mentions one of them and another would be using boarderline equiptment... among many other things. I think that the market may sort this out. Generally folks want to get all the channels....

[kasslloyd]

Isn't congress and the house trying to pass laws preventing just this, and the media (at least I saw Fox News) criticizing the attempt to "regulate the internet." Without a law saying an ISP can't do just this very thing it won't be before long that our home internet connections come with the same restrictions.... you can visit A site at FULL speed, but if you dare go to B you'll get dial up speed, you can't go to C at all they suck, and if you think about D we'll charge you by the minute!

Theres been an attempt by the big ISPs for a decade now too segment the internet, ISPs charging websites like YouTube for the privledge of allowing their customers to access the website and if they don't pay reduce the speed the ISP customers can get to that site to make it virtually unusable.

That way Roadrunner could not only get money from their subscribers but also blackmail websites into paying them too!

Bad news indeed if this mobile provider is allows to continue to do this, I'm sure it's a "test bed" to see what the federal regulators will allow, if they allow it everyone else will follow and it won't be restricted to mobile providers.

[Antoha-spb]

Well there is actually a commercial/technological reason behind limiting traffic. Unlike user's desires to watch online broadcasts and to download HD-video via torrents the air bandwidth is not unlimited. Carriers would rather allow extra calls or low-volume data sessions limiting huge downloads than vice-versa. If they (carriers) allow selected content providers benefit from exclusive no-cuts policies there may be a case for anti-monopoly offices, but in general this is again just business... We got likewise trends here in Russia.

[spamsickle]

I'm kind of tired of the way multimedia is displacing text on the internet anyway. In some of the other forums where I participate, people post links to videos instead of typing words to make their point. I guess it's faster for them, the lazy sods, but it means I either have to ignore that particular contribution (which I do more and more frequently), or spend 5 minutes listening to, or worse, watching, something which I could have extracted all the relevant information from in 30 seconds if it was simply a typed version of the same string of words.

I recognize that there are times when visuals really add something necessary to a presentation, but that's often not the case. If charging for bandwidth leads some of the video bloggers and podcasters to make text versions of their wares available to boost the number of consumers, I'd even be willing to consider it at home. Which is the only place it would impact me, because other than texting to Google on rare occasions, I don't use my phone for internet.

[/curmudgeon]