[chimeracoder]

That would be politically trickier to pull off. It's much easier to say, "We're not censoring anything - we're just not giving them 'premium' speed.", and then redefine the status quo as the new 'premium'[0].

For Netflix, it doesn't matter - having the equivalent of dial-up speed is essentially the same as being blocked entirely, since their service depends on reasonably fast download speed.

To illustrate another scenario, imagine two political candidates, one whose platform includes treating ISPs as a public utility, and one who doesn't. It would be very easy to slow the former's campaign website to a crawl (e.g., 30s or more load time per page). While this wouldn't prevent people from accessing the website, or him from getting his message out, it would seriously hamper it in very noticeable ways.

This way, the ISP isn't censoring any political candidates (that would be bad!). They're "just" not giving him the "premium" speed.

[0] This kind of redefinition happens all the time - notice that five years ago, mobile data plans were unlimited and texting was expensive for the carriers to offer. Suddenly, texting "became cheap" for them to offer, and data became limited. It's not that the costs dramatically changed (SMS always had literally zero marginal cost, since it piggybacks off of the packets already being sent), but fee structures and cost structures are oftentimes very different.

[CamperBob2]

Texting never cost anything at all for the carriers to offer. It uses a sideband data stream that's always present whether it carries a payload or not.

[JoeAltmaier]

Right. Paying per-packet when there are only connection costs is a way for carriers to create a cash cow.

That's why I fear pay-per-view models on the internet. Once I'm connected it isn't about the packets, yet lobbyists trained by cable TV are trying to inject that model where it makes no sense. Except of course to the scalping bastards trying to get rich selling packets.

[danellis]

People say that a lot, because they've heard it somewhere, but do you actually have the facts to back it up? I'd have to check my books to be sure, but I think you're talking about SMS delivery over the SACCH. That's an associated channel, meaning it goes along with a traffic channel, so that would apply if you were in a call. If you were not in a call, it would have to go over a standalone control channel SDCCH -- in other words, that channel would be being specifically used for the SMS transfer.

And, of course, there's the cost of running the SMSC.

[bitJericho]

Not really. I and a lot of Netflix customers would be happy to wait a few minutes for it to buffer enough of the video to begin showing it in HD. I'm not given that option though. "Luckily" I choose to live in an area with an ethical service provider so I get HD Netflix at no extra charge to me or Netflix.