Yeah, I get the notion that if comcast wants to shake down netflix ("nice packets you got there, shame if they got slowed down by all of your competitors packets") that's bad.
But I don't fully understand how this works practically. For example, lets ignore that Netflix or Google might have its own CDN or peering capability and just think of it as a simple content source. My imagination is that they pay for bandwidth and total data cap in the same sense that I do. That is, Netflix could buy a X gigbit connection or a 10X gigabit connection and there would be some price differential for those. Am I wrong? Assuming I'm not then presumably as it is for me, you don't really get the bandwidth you pay for in the case of ad hoc connection. You only get that under ideal circumstances (such as connecting to speedtest when none of your neighbors are using their connections). So it's not clear to me what Netflix should expect if they buy that. That might be good enough to reach 80% of their customer reliably but some won't ever get a good stream.
But lets say they buy that and Sony buys 10 times as much for their network. Now sony perhaps can eek out a little better performance. some of its network dependent in ways that can't be beaten with more packets from the source, but some things like packet resends and alternative routings might improve things.
So how is this really different than the QOS that comcast wanted netflix to pay for in the first place? One company can pay for more.
Next question is what is QOS. does net nuetrality really mean that the few instance where we do need QOS routing rules that those are now verbotten? Or does it mean that there will be packey kind labels like "video" that get priority for everyone or no one by mutual agreement? If so then presumably no one can charge extra for QOS labels? if you could it seems like a backdoor to paid priority. But if you can't charge more then what prevents me from labeling any packet I send as a priority packet?
Final question is about the fact that something like 35% of your typical cable bandwidth is not internet. It's an RF communincation channel owned by comcast. They use it for their video content. Its not governed by the internet rules. In principle they could stop using it for their content and sell it to sony or netflix or apple or google to use for theirs. So were back to paid priority on a toll road. Comcast so far has said they are leery of that because of the consent agreements they signed when they bought NBC might not allow that. But that's just comcast. AT&T or verizon don't have that restriction. Since both kinds of content enter yout house on the same physical cable any distinction between them is purely virtual
So is this whole no-paid-priority moot?
The thing I worry about is that in order to get the FCC net Neutrality rules the FCC had to agree to not regulate the pricing of internet as well as creating regularoty burdens that will likely act as a barrier to entry. For example, people providing both content and networks (I'm looking at you google) might worry the FCC would start to regulate its content. And so if net neutrality vanishes in virtualization then I just got less than I bargained for in supporting net neutrality.
