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Hey Jason,

First I think your comment "you give a very technical argument" sounds like its intended to diminish Richard's argument. While his argument may sound technical -- it amounts to simple economics and a fair application of usage restrictions.

When any ISP sets its pricing in order to sell its services and make a profit it must purchase enough bandwidth to support its user base and provide a competitive price -- and still make enough profit to satisfy its obligation to shareholders -- including the principals. It must, within its business model, also satisfy its users with (quality of service) QOS.

Comcast clearly designed its business model and marketing model before bit torrent existed. As bittorrent became more popular it began to hit a critical mass of usage that amounted to an ever increasing spiral of usage without any encomomic adjustment to support that usage. Comcast had to do something to be fair to its customers who put less demand on the system.

There is a definite and measureable difference between content restriction and speed restriction at the protocol level. Content restrictions throttle speeds (or even access) to certain locations (discriminatory) instead of overall speed (discriminates only against abuse of available speed related resources). Speed restrictions when administered at the protocol level could conceivably be used to limit content but only where the content was delivered through a protocol which nobody else was using. The Comcast situation is not an example of that.

For example if we discover that an xxx magazine is delivered by FEDEX so we put governers on all fedex vehicles. This is a terribly inefficient way to restrict content and also infinges on the QOS of anyone else using FEDEX  -- except that users could switch to UPS if they didn't like the slowness.

However if we found that xxx magazine had a private fleet of vehicles and we slapped a special speed restriction on those vehicles then we'd be in effect -- discriminating against content.

The situation for Comcast is that they were faced with a problem -- non-bittorrent abusers were complaining to Comcast about QOS problems. They needed to improve their QOS or lose competitiveness and/or profits. If they raised prices to all their user base to pay for the bandwidth to satisfy the increasing throng of bittorrent downloaders then they'd lose market share. I call them "abusers" not because I see them as intentionally abusive but because, collecitvely, they are at the extreme top end of the usage group in a shared-subsidy access model -- and collectively they are subjecting a geometrically increasing demand on network resources -- but without having any increase in access fees.

If ISP's keep prices the same but want to improve QOS and keep their customers then they have to throttle speed OR buy more bandwidth and swallow the loss of revenue -- thus shifting the subsidy of the increased demand to their investors. The economics of the situation dictate a solution is needed. The dimensioning of ISP's networks to support the user base was never based on bittorrent being part of the access protocol model. Once bittorrent became part of the model something had to change.

Just like the city water supply company does not dimension its water supply based on an ever increasing number of customers turning on all their taps at the same time and leaving them running 24/7 -- neither can an ISP be expected not to try and slow down the excessive use of bandwidth  -- when it is clearly excessive -- OR charge more for the excess.

Keep in mind that when a bit torrent client is running full bore it is downloading data at a rate much faster than anyone could watch in real time. As a user I don't want to support bittorrent junkies 24/7 with the user fees I pay. But when I'm online I need the speed for my business services to run properly and if I need to download 10 videos at a time I should have justified that degree of usage in my own business model. Why should I be forced to subsidize bandwidth that others are using and not expect QOS myself.

If I pay for 4 gigabits of access speed I have a reasonable expectation not to see that slow down to 300k. I should not have to pay for a 10 gbit connection just to have the 4 gbits I want -- so that I can subsidize another user who is running their 4 gig connection flat out 24/7.

For net neutrality to work and be cost effective there has to be a way of controlling speed that does not discriminate as to location, or content. Doing it at the protocol level is the most cost effective and least discriminatory way that I currently am aware of. It can be done transparently at that level without in any way restricting a users right to destination and/or associated content -- and can be charged appropriately for at that level.

The best solution is to pay for only two things:

1. Access Speed -- which is how bandwidth is now sold to customers.

2. Protocol dimensioning. Means that if you want to run a bit torrent client with 5000 connections at peak hours -- you should pay a premium for that because the bandwidth you are consuming is a measureable real cost. In many areas we pay less for off-peak electricity -- why not internet bandwidth?

Remember that any fixed rate service such as local telephone, street sweeping, insurance, etc. is always based on the "shared subsidy" concept. There are always people who place fewer demands on the service than others who are heavier users. You pay 20.00 a month for a land line and use it 5 times a month for an average of 10 minutes a call. Cost is 40 cents a minute. Your neighbor has the same service, pays 20.00 a month and talks six hours a day -- cost is 1/10th of a cent a minute. Both parties are ok with that. But if some special service prompted an ever increasing percentage of the neighborhood -- to talk six hours a day something -- would have to give. The high volume users would have to be slapped with higher fees, or usage limits, or you'd have to convince the 40 cent a minute customers to all pay 60.00 a month to subsidize the 6 hour a day users.

Nobody minds reasonably subsidizing other servcies -- it is only when usage is abused or gets excessive that it is problematic. Users should not be disturbed if their ISP says they have entered a zone of usage that should put them in a higher usage category. It is up to the user to economically justify whether they can afford it.

It is next to impossible to control content or access to content by dimensioning protocol speeds. Until it becomes proveable that content is being controlled by protocol level bandwidth adjustments there is currently no better way to maintain net neutrality. In fact that is precisely how it has been controlled to date.

Dial up is an access protocol, ADSL is an access protocol, Broadband wireless is an access protocol. With those protocols we have already been paying for more speed with more money since the internet was born. ( A bittorrent client is effectively an access protocol of a somewhat unique kind -- or you might say its a special application of a common access protocol.)

Regardless -- its characteristics are such that we can queue it (bittorrent client),up with 50 large files we want, and let it churn endlessly away maxing out our connection 24/7. We don't need to attend to it in order to use it -- so why are people so bent out of shape if its massive dowload speeds are throttled by half during peak periods? Why can't an ISP just charge an extra 15.00 a month for a non-throttled bittorrent account and use the money to pay for the extra bandwidth -- letting the heavy users subsidize each other?

You are correct Richard it is a simple problem. But why did I have to take so much time explaining it? Sorry about that.

Hi Jason, it's good to see you're still up to your old tricks. You seem to make two basic errors here, so let's see if I can illuminate the issues for you. Before dealing with your complaints against the editorial, one factual error really jumps out: News Corp doesn't own DirecTV any more, they sold it to Liberty Media. Service has declined, and I cancelled and switched by TV business to Comcast. I can use a Cable-Card TiVo HD on Comcast, and it's way better than the proprietary DirecTV DVR you have to use for HD on the service that Murdoch described as the "turd bird". So land your black helicopters and look at the editorial for what it is.

Net neutrality advocates are concerned about "content-based discrimination." You sound the horn on this several times above.

But the deal is this: Comcast's management system is not "content-based", it's "transport protocol-based." It doesn't single out specific content for management. The tests used the Holy Bible and some other generic text files, and these files move just fine as  long as they're transported with FTP or HTTP over the Comcast network. I've tested and confirmed that myself.

Comcast applies management to any use of BitTorrent for unattended seeding during periods of high upload traffic. This is actually "transport-based discrimination", if you will. Transport-based discrimination is soundly consistent with the best traditions of the Internet. It treats FTP and HTTP differently than RTP and UDP, and has ever since Jacobson's Algorithm was deployed in 1987.

The FCC's error is a failure to recognize that a transport protocol such as BitTorrent is not a form of content, it's  a delivery system for content, and delivery systems have effects on the multiple users who share Internet access and transit links. So the ruling is flawed on a factual basis, not just on a policy and legal basis. And that's why the courts will slap Martin and his pandering Democratic pals up the side of the head as they just did in the Superbowl case.

And I for one will enjoy seeing that.