[Junk_Collector]

Both of these analogies are against net neutrality though. The postal service has special requirements and costs for shipping packages that could impact it's services or employees such as Ord-D and Hazmat. Electrical services differentiate between loads that have an impact on the service in the form of power factor correction fees. You just don't see these as a typical homeowner because nothing you run has enough impact to warrant it.

There are two major parts/ideologies in Net Neutrality centered around the idea that traffic should be treated equal no matter what it is, and that traffic should be treated equal no matter where it is from or two. Both of these stances lead to interesting and nuanced technical discussion or at least used to before they became a broader public platform.

[hannasanarion]

But a package is still a package, and electricity is still electricity. Neither the post nor the power company care what you're using your electricity for or what you're sending in your packages as long as you pay an appropriate cost for your usage.

A byte from Netflix takes exactly the same number of packets on the wire as a byte from Hulu or a byte from fcc.gov. Charging more for transferring one of these over the others is pure rent seeking.

[tengbretson]

> A byte from Netflix takes exactly the same number of packets on the wire as a byte from Hulu or a byte from fcc.gov.

This may be true, but its irrelevant unless the COGs for an ISP is measured in packets. It's almost certainly not.

[hannasanarion]

It pretty much is. That's what customers pay for: how many bytes they can get per unit time. How much the ISP needs to spend on infrastructure is exactly proportional to the total bandwidth customers in an area are using at peak. More usage means they need to install more switches. What label is on the return address of the traffic makes no difference to the expense on the ISP.

[tengbretson]

It absolutely makes a difference. My neighbor on the same ISP as me pulling down a file from my FTP server does not have the same cost to my ISP as both of us streaming Netflix.

[hannasanarion]

Yeah, and they charge you for your bandwidth to the internet, not your bandwidth to your neighbor. What travels along that bandwidth that you've already paid for is irrelevant. It costs the ISP the same amount whether they are sending you Netflix, or Youtube, or Hulu, or their own digital TV.

[Junk_Collector]

If I am using voice traffic, it is very sensitive to routing delay. The total transit time that packet route takes is much more important than the amount of bandwidth I need to throw at it. If I am using an emergency service such as 911, that packet must keep going through regardless of other traffic congestion no matter how many people are streaming Netflix at the moment. Netflix itself is relatively immune to impact from group delay and doesn't need prioritization for reliability but it does require a large amount of bandwidth to be available in order for it to function properly. A packet, is not just a packet that can be simply interchanged if you want maximum performance out of your network.

Also you have the issue that sparked the large public prominence of Network Neutrality. Netflix was renegotiating their peering agreements and the ISPs were trying to soak them on the last mile costs. ISPs felt Netflix should bear the cost of network expansion since their service was generating all the traffic that they needed to upgrade to accommodate. Netflix felt the cost should be primarily carried by the ISPs. This has almost nothing to do with you as a consumer, but Netflix successfully branded it that way to garner public support. N.N. complicates adds a lot of uncertainty to what is legal to negotiate in a peering agreement between companies. L3 is probably going to be the big loser here, not Comcast.

And finally, because I see a lot of posts on this chain that don't understand what Power Factor is, it probably needs to be pointed out. A refrigerator has an inductive motor in it's compressor that it uses to chill the air. A toaster is a simple resistor. The inductive nature of that motor degrades the power network by transforming some real power into imaginary power (mathematical terms) and basically messing up the phase relationship on the distribution network itself. This ratio of real(useful) and imaginary(useless) power is called Power Factor and the power company measures it and asses a fee based on how much you screw it up. A typical household does not run enough of anything to noticeably impact the networks power factor so most consumers don't know about it but if you were running a hundred refrigerators you would absolutely be charged more than running a thousand toasters.

What does that have to do with packet networks? Well, when the traffic (electrical load) impacts the function of the distribution network, the cost is passed on to the user that generates that load. Not all Kilowatts of power consumed are equal.

[hannasanarion]

"Last mile costs" are what consumers already pay for. The ISPs claim that netflix needs to pay extra or else they won't give their own customers the service that they have already paid for is extortion, plain and simple.

Netflix was already paying for an uplink connection of sufficient bandwidth. The customers were already paying for a downlink connection of sufficient bandwidth. The assertion that it's necessary to hold one party hostage in order to get more money from the other is absurd.

UPS doesn't demand that Amazon pay for its new trucks, and it certainly doesn't hold Amazon packages hostage until they do so. They're supposed to buy their infrastructure with the profit that they're already generating. And ISPs are seeing record profits right now.

[Junk_Collector]

Except, when Amazon generates a volume greater than UPS' capability to ship, UPS absolutely negotiates infrastructure and capital investments as part of their guaranteed service contract. If Amazon is unwilling to help them increase their capacity to ship, then they throttle the amount of packages that they will ship for Amazon so as not to shut out their other customers and damage their base. These are regular negotiations between large entities entering into partnerships.

What I am saying here is that your analogies are poor because you are uneducated about the topics you are analogizing from. Which sadly, has become a good analogy for the broader Net Neutrality debate.

You might also notice that I am not advocating for the ISPs in my last post. I feel that their demands on Netflix were excessive and unrealistic. That's why I described it as the ISPs trying to soak Netflix.

[bduerst]

That's just splitting hairs.

IP packets aren't at risk of blowing up in ISP employee hands, and even if they were, it wouldn't justify allowing ISPs to charge more for Netflix than NBC streaming.

[Junk_Collector]

The mail analogy is that some items have special requirements for handling and routing. I won't route Hazmat through post offices that can't handle it just as I won't route high security network traffic through China. Shipping perishable goods requires that those goes be given prioritization so that the arrive before spoiling. Real time voice data requires a minimum time delay. Is it OK to prioritize voice packets over other data to ensure quality?

Another question you might ask. Is it OK to prioritize data that is destined for the 911 network over data that is heading to Pornhub? What about a university? What about Khan Academy? What do you do with encrypted data where you can't tell the type or destination? What if the encrypted data is malformed such that it is causing detrimental performance to the broader network?

Management of a modern network like the internet is an amazing challenge that requires all kinds of work to find optimal solutions. We need real technically nuanced discussion and consideration to craft legislation that actually solves problems and doesn't create significant new ones. We don't need badly flawed analogies designed to garner public support that only apply if you don't know about the topic.

[bduerst]

All analogies are inexact by nature, which is why it's splitting hairs to nitpick them to death.

These are fringe use cases that still don't justify an ISP charging more for Netflix streaming over NBC.

[Junk_Collector]

So I'm genuinely curious. What legislation would you propose to solve the issue?