> such guarantees are impossible on any shared medium

Nonsense! My ISP could most certainly sell me a guaranteed minimum speed on their portion of the network at all times of day! In fact, this is precisely how commercial provisioning often works.

Obviously they can't control what happens once traffic leaves their network, but that was never the issue and no one is complaining about that (at least that I'm aware).

They might also offer higher off peak speeds, or charge per unit of data (like water and electric utilities), offer lower off peak pricing, or whatever. That's largely orthogonal to the current issue of rampant false advertising though.

> > Charging more to, or placing time restrictions on, certain classes of customers who consume large quantities is a key part of that strategy.

> You mean like how large ISPs want to throttle and charge video services more?

No, that would be analogous to the electric utility charging you more if you're using the TV vs the dishwasher. I'm not aware of any that do this, and to head off any counter examples I most definitely do not think that such practices should EVER be legal.

Discriminating against customers based on aggregate usage, rate of usage, usage versus time of day, or similar, is completely different than discriminating based on what is done with the service. The first is reasonable, and the second ought to be illegal in all cases as far as I'm concerned.

> It's typically done for a discount... Careful with that assumption, that's exactly what the smart meters are for ...

And I don't think such smart meter usage should be legal - as with this Maine law, it should NEVER be legal to incentivize data collection and sale via promotional offers.

> My ISP could most certainly sell me a guaranteed minimum speed on their portion of the network at all times of day!

I feel like this is stretching the definition of 'could' a bit, it's not like the residential arm of most ISPs are equipped to just flip a switch and give you a dedicated connection but yes, it is technically possible. It's also ludicrously expensive, a 100M dedicated point-to-point connection in my area costs about $1k/mo. and you have to foot the bill to dig the trenches and get the wire to your building. Should be noted that this doesn't include the costs to access the wider internet.

My point still stands though, minimum bandwidth guarantees aren't really possible on shared systems.

I'm more than happy to make ISPs change their wording but when it comes to residential internet "X Mbps" has never not meant "Best Effort capped at X Mbps." Regardless, changing how ISPs advertise themselves suddenly won't change the reality of this class of internet. Among this group of people that already know how it works and don't need the pamphlet the advertising doesn't really matter -- it's not like it will suddenly cause ISPs to change how their network is run.

> No, that would be analogous to the electric utility charging you more if you're using the TV vs the dishwasher.

I feel like the mistake here is making it sound like the person who's consuming the video content is the only party that matters. Presumably you're okay with your water company charging more for industrial use. But here's the thing, the factory is only using all that water because consumers want to buy the products made at the factory. And by charging more to the factory they're essentially charging more to consumers for using water for that specific purpose.

A good analogy for video content would be PCB manufacturing (especially since it uses a lot of water). In this case consumers are buying their made-to-order boards on-demand and their purchase directly triggers the water usage required. Yet the PCB manufacturer (and you by proxy) are still charged the industrial rate.

The same with video content, just because you as a consumer request the video doesn't make the company delivering it not a different class of customer, a high-volume bulk-sender.

I don't think we actually disagree on any of the basic facts or technical details here. (Well actually I do disagree with your general claim about minimum bandwidth guarantees not being possible on shared systems, but that's probably getting a bit far afield.)

I don't object to very limited, neutral, and above all good faith traffic shaping taking place in order to mitigate sudden spikes in usage that would otherwise cause problems for the network. I also wouldn't object to peak (ie time of day) or usage (ie quantity) based pricing, a practice already engaged in by the vast majority of public utilities.

I do object to any sort of throttling targeted at specific applications, protocols, or use cases. Utility services need to be neutral, and to the extent possible blind. They deliver a service and nothing more.

Directly related, I also object to the collection and sale of usage data. I don't want any of my utilities collecting unnecessary usage data or selling information about me.

I also object to false advertising. The fact that it's currently the status quo only serves to illustrate a systemic failure of the current regulatory system.

> I feel like the mistake here is making it sound like the person who's consuming the video content is the only party that matters.

... yes? That wasn't a mistake. I purchase bandwidth from them. To the extent physically possible, it is absolutely none of their business how I use the bandwidth that I purchased.

> Presumably you're okay with your water company charging more for industrial use.

> The same with video content, just because you as a consumer request the video doesn't make the company delivering it not a different class of customer, a high-volume bulk-sender.

Actually my understanding is that utilities often charge less for industrial use, albeit with other more complicated conditions attached to the service. Water or electric utilities having special contracts for particularly high volume customers isn't an issue, but charging residential customers different rates depending on whether they were taking a shower or doing the dishes wouldn't be acceptable. Equivalently, on the commercial side of things charging office buildings different rates based on whether they were hosting insurance agents or software developers wouldn't be reasonable.

Relating this to our ISP analogy, isn't it roughly equivalent to peering agreements and other commercial provisioning options that currently exist (versus residential subscriptions)?

Rereading the comment chain, it seems a misunderstanding occurred between us earlier. I wasn't claiming (and never meant to imply) that commercial and residential customers need to be given the exact same contract terms. I only objected to discrimination based on how the provided service is used. Charging a residential customer different rates (or providing different speeds, or etc) based on the content or source of their streaming or downloading isn't okay. Equivalently, discriminating against commercial entities based on what their business does with the bandwidth they purchase isn't okay.