Re: Did Internet Founders Actually Anticipate Paid, Prioritized Traffic?

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Sep 16, 2010, at 10:57 AM, George Bonser wrote:

> > I DO have a problem with a content provider paying to get priority
> > access on the last mile.  I have no particular interest in any of the
> > content that Yahoo provides, but I do have an interest in downloading
> > my Linux updates via torrents.  Should I have to go back and bid
> > against Yahoo just so I can get my packets in a timely fashion?
> > </end user>
> >
> > I understand that the last mile is going to be a congestion point, but
> > the idea of allowing a bidding war for priority access for that
> > capacity seems to be a path to madness.
> >
> > --Chris
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> Since prioritization would work ONLY when the link us saturated
> (congested), without it, nothing is going to work well, not your
> torrents, not your email, not your browsing.  By prioritizing the
> traffic, the torrents might back off but they would still continue to
> flow, they wouldn't be completely blocked, they would just slow down.
> QoS can be a good thing for allowing your VIOP to work while someone
> else in the home is watching a streaming movie or something.  Without
> it, everything breaks once the circuit is congested.

It depends. If you're talking about prioritization of the end link, then,
that's one thing... If the ISP wants to implement prioritization there
based on the END USER's preferences, that's a nice value-add
service.

If you're talking about the aggregation point of several customer's
links, then, prioritizing customer A's Yahoo traffic because Yahoo
paid over customer B's torrent traffic when customer A and B have
paid the same for their connection is not so good, IMHO.

Owen