Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 7th Sep 2007 13:37 UTC, submitted by Adurbe
The US Justice Department has said that internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority traffic. The agency said it was opposed to 'network neutrality', the idea that all data on the net is treated equally. The comments put the agency at odds with companies such as Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to guarantee equal access to the net.
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Member since:
2005-07-24
It sounds more to me that the 'two-tier' system is nothing more than traffic flow control, which routers all across the internet are doing anyway.
AFAIK the plan is to create a high-speed lane for higher-priority traffic, or add priority to sites which can afford the charges.
This isn't a bad idea, really, it would create funds and incentive for ISPs to expand their performance capabilities, but then the question remains as to the remaining performance in regards to non-preferred sites.
If too many people jump on the expressway, they may decide to widen the expressway at the expense of the frontage road, causing backups on the frontage road, which will be most sites.
Would be good for YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and corporate news sites, bad for community projects or non-profit orgs, or just the normal individual's web-site, which could become virtually inaccessible as browser timeouts begin to be eclipsed by network delays.
What we really need is ISP-caching, with cache updates occurring at a given interval for basic 'added priority' content, and on-modification through notification for 'high-priority' content. ISPs could sell their storage capabilities and deliver specific content faster ( such as YouTube's top 100 videos or so ).
Oh well, I'm split on it.
--The loon