Quote:
Originally Posted by wizwor
The Netflix agreement provides a speedier onramp for a fee and Apple is interested in having a protected 'flow' for its traffic. Do you doubt that Comcast uses QoS to ensure high quality television and voice calls? The unprioritized traffic is everything else.
I think the analogy stands up.
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Before Netflix signed the deal with Comcast, they were routinely throttling their streams forcing quality down. Many (most?) cableco ISPs do it, too.
A google search for Comcast throttling will find hundres of reports. Comcast was also called on the carpet by the FCC for selective throttling of streaming applications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling
If you pay for a specific bandwidth level but can't use all of it because of throttling, you are effectively paying a higher rate for the service you do receive which is the same thing as a tax. And a non-trivial one at that.