gbasden wrote:I have hopes that Wimax or something like it will eventually provide some sort of meaningful competition, but it's not there yet for most of us. Or are you referring to cell modems? If so, that's pretty meaningless competition. The tiny caps on those devices make them useless for anything but the most trivial web consumption. Not to mention that they are offered by the same entities offering the DSL connection in a lot of cases, making them not highly competative.
Satellite is better, sort of, if you don't mind immense latency. Satellite is useless for a lot of things. I can't get a decent Citrix connection into work, for example, over a satellite connection becase the latency is too great. Plus World of Warcraft is almost unplayable!
I'm not saying that all broadband solutions are created equally, but they're out there (and they will continue to expand as technology expands - provided that net neutrality doesn't deter the providers from continuing investment and research, of course
). I just wanted to be clear that the statistic in the article you cited is misleading, because the author does not appropriately qualify it.
gbasden wrote:I thought my second question was pretty clear, actually.
The question I was saying was too vague was this one:
gbasden wrote:Do you believe that allowing access providers to block or cripple traffic to maximize their profits is going to improve or harm the internet in general?
That's different from what you re-state below.
gbasden wrote:Do you think it would be OK for Comcast to block traffic coming from Netflix at their routers in order to coerce people to use their video on demand service instead?
That's pretty much the same as your first question, which I answered. (Quick recap: No.)
gbasden wrote:Wouldn't that be using their infrastructure they pay for to maximize profits?
That's one way of using their infrastructure to maximize their profits, but far from the only way.
gbasden wrote:That's just the other end of prioritizing traffic. If Netflix pays for premium handling so their streaming is clean and lag free, but Hulu doesn't and gets deprioritized, which service is going to win?
There are a couple of issues in here. First, I'll address the prioritizing/de-prioritizing issue. Everyone would start at one baseline, and would then have the option to to upgrade. If Netflix chooses to pay for premium handling (i.e., prioritization) and Hulu doesn't, that doesn't mean Hulu is de-prioritized. That would mean they're remaining at baseline. The next issue is whether Hulu has the same opportunity to purchase the prioritization as Netflix does. If they do, then where's the problem? If they don't, then I would agree that is a problem.