“ISPs aren’t going to this extra level of service for consumers today because they’re not charging for it. They give it to business customers who pay more.”

It’s not a matter of the ISP doing it for the benefit of the customer. It’s a matter of the ISP doing it for the benefit of the ISP and charging customers for actually using it. The cost to the ISP to allow usage is functionally zero, and thus customer fees for usage are nothing but pure profit for the ISP. Again: If value, then fee.

“The market knows how to handle this. We do not need heavy handed micromanagement regulation that tells ISPs how to price goods and services.”

That would be a logical argument if there were actually effective competition in the broadband market. In reality, most locations have limited competition between at most two entrenched players. The cable & phone company monopoly/duopoly that dominates most market areas has little incentive to actually respond to what customers in the market actually want or need. Their pricing is certainly not related to the actual costs of providing services. Their pricing is much more closely related to providing a sufficient profit to make their stockholders happy.

In the absence of an effective marketplace, there is indeed a need for regulation. Even in the presence of an effective marketplace, some regulation is still necessary.

How about we compromise? In any market where there are five or more independent ISPs, any ISP can charge fees for whatever they want. With that many ISP’s in an area, you could reasonably assume that competition would actually occur, and that actual market forces would come into play.

No, it’s clear you don’t understand the economic principles or the broadband market. ISPs aren’t going to this extra level of service for consumers today because they’re not charging for it. They give it to business customers who pay more. If the ISP found it necessary to bundle the service for residential customers, they’ll do it. If they could sell it to the customer for a small fee, that might happen some day. The market knows how to handle this. We do not need heavy handed micromanagement regulation that tells ISPs how to price goods and services.

Routers are a one-time expenditure. Those costs can be amortized over several years.

Your average engineer does not devote more than a small portion of their time to QoS. QoS is generally a “set it and forget it” operation. Yes, it can consume a lot of time during the “set” phase, but either that phase is relatively short or the ISP needs to hire competent engineers.

“Priority on the network is also something that is by definition scarce.”

Which is why I stated earlier that priority should be restricted to a percentage of bandwidth.

“If everyone and every application was prioritized, then no one and no application is prioritized.”

Just what in anything I’ve written would lead you to believe that I meant that everyone and everything should be prioritized? I did point out that what applications you want priority for do not necessarily mesh with what others want priority for.

“Pricing is the only mechanism that ensures the availability of priority.”

Actually, pricing allows an ISP to charge customers for what they should already be doing for their own benefit. I believe I made clear that prioritization offers benefits to an ISP even if they never charge any users for it.

1. Because there is no law that your items must be included in every vehicle sold. If they were required by law, then there should be no separate charge. Don’t confuse this with me meaning that every ISP must include QoS by law either.

2. For the simple reason that those things that you listed actually cost money to put in. The cost to implement QoS for an ISP is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable. Especially when you consider that any actual costs are amortized.

QoS improves the ISP’s network management. That is, it makes things better for the ISP even if it does nothing for customers. Why should an ISP be allowed to charge customers for something that effectively costs nothing, but improves things for everyone involved, especially the ISP?

Or to put it simply: An ISP will charge for QoS, not because it costs them anything to do it, but because customers perceive value in having it. Remember the mantra – If value, then fee. It’s not: If cost and value, then fee. It’s: If value, then fee.

No, but they do charge separately for the fancy GPS unit, the integrated DVD player, the bigger engine, the fancy tiers and rims, etc. Why aren’t you advocating a law that bans car makers from charging SEPARATELY for these items like you’re advocating a law that ISPs from charging separately for QoS?

“What you’re advocating is not free QoS, but bundled QoS. I prefer to let the market decide whether something should be bundled or billed separately.”

I never said I was advocating free QoS. I said that ISP’s should not be allowed to charge for it. I’ll qualify that and say that it must not be charged for separately. Just like your auto manufacturers don’t charge you separately for seat belts and lug nuts.

“All connections are shared at some point on the network even if they’re dedicated on the last mile.”

That’s how computer networks operate. If you don’t share at some point, you have a closed network. As we move 20+GB of data across the Internet every day, the vagaries of network issues on a business class connection are not unknown to me.

“It’s only a question of how much sharing there is. Business class Internet connections do charge for QoS today.”

And it costs a pretty penny too.

First of all, you’ve clearly never worked with business class Internet connections. All connections are shared at some point on the network even if they’re dedicated on the last mile. It’s only a question of how much sharing there is. Business class Internet connections do charge for QoS today.

What you’re advocating is not free QoS, but bundled QoS. I prefer to let the market decide whether something should be bundled or billed separately.

What makes you think I want to outlaw business class connections? Letting an ISP charge for implementing QoS on any connection should be banned. Since a business gets a connection with guaranteed bandwidth, how the business implements its own QoS should not be something the ISP has any say over other than as a percentage of the guaranteed bandwidth.

“Either it gets bundled into the baseline cost in which case those who don’t use the extra services will subsidize those who do, or it gets billed at as an extra in which case only those who use the extras pay.”

Do you honestly think that there is an ISP out there that wouldn’t make it almost a necessity to purchase that ‘extra’ capability? If you do, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona you can buy.

Just keep in mind this simple mantra that all ISPs have:
If value, then fee.

Repeat that mantra and keep it in mind whenever you consider what your suggestions would mean to an ISP. Remember, an ISP has no interest in their network other than to charge as much as possible for you to use it the way you want or need to use it.

“However, under no circumstances whatsoever, should any ISP be allowed to charge for it.”

So you’re going to come in now and outlaw existing business class Internet connections that do charge for QoS? Or do you only want to regulate this on consumer grade broadband? Or do you want to prohibit any services for content providers?

That last one is moot because content providers don’t care about prioritization; they care about distribution and edge caching e.g., CDN. Consumers generally prefer simpler service tiers and having too many itemized charges is probably something that doesn’t fly. But I prefer to let the market settle this and it appears to have done so already. Putting in vague regulations to prohibit this could have unintended consequences especially if the language doesn’t distinguish the types of charges that it wants to ban.

Ultimately, we all pay for everything. Either it gets bundled into the baseline cost in which case those who don’t use the extra services will subsidize those who do, or it gets billed at as an extra in which case only those who use the extras pay. To me, the free market should decide which business model should succeed and government shouldn’t be forcing everything into a bundled billing model.

Streaming video (buffered) could probably be left in the middle between high and low priority since it’s a medium bandwidth application that doesn’t require low latency. It also uses HTTP for transport most of the time to leverage existing caching solutions. Video conferencing (remote surgery) does require low latency and high priority but it uses very specific ports that are easy to identify.

The point is that it is possible to have simple universal rules for determining good discrimination and bad discrimination. If the ISP is transparent about its prioritization methods, watchdog groups and the FCC can flag any objectionable practices and stop them. What we don’t need is a blanket rule like Markey’s third Net Neutrality bill which bans all sorts of prioritization because that would make the Internet far less efficient.