I get how this <i>could</i> benefit end-users if all goes to plan, but how does this benefit ISPs like Comcast? The entire reason they want to break net neutrality is to push their own agenda on users. This doesn't allow them to do that at all. I suppose it opens users up to coercion.<p>That said, I think the net neutrality deadlock is a good thing. It's where it's supposed to be at right now. We have a free and open internet and a public branch of the government protecting that.<p>There will be a constant onslaught of corporate interests trying to limit free speech via marketing and bribery for many years to come, and I don't see Network Cookies solving that issue...in fact, I think it gives leeway more to the ISPs than the users. Now Comcast can sell you a modem with "recommended settings" and unless you know what 192.168.0.1 is you're going to just go along with it.<p>Let's keep net neutrality simple: access means full access.
Isn't this just QoS revisited?<p>Also, think about it for a second: the user wants <i>all</i> their traffic to be high-priority zero-rated. Except maybe ads and DDoS traffic.<p>The anti-net-neutrality cases come from reversing the customer relationship. Zero-rated traffic obviously doesn't exist, what they mean is "traffic paid for by someone else". Either voluntarily as part of a market-cornering promotion (Facebook basics), or as part of a shakedown (throttling of Netflix in an attempt to get them to pay).<p>The lack of an integrated billing system is a great historical strength of the internet. We already had a global telecoms network where the billing had primacy, it's the telephone network. In which the lack of market competition meant that every little thing got charged for.<p>The one case that <i>might</i> work would be the possibility of specifying a "not important" flag on your own traffic in exchange for exemption from any kind of caps. In the event of actual congestion the ISP could drop "not important" traffic first.
I'm not really sure why consumers or ISPs have a reason to be excited about this. I'm beginning with the assumption that the custom shaping rules will only take effect once a bandwidth cap is reached (otherwise, why would someone self-limit?). If a consumer reaches their bandwidth cap it means some service will suffer. Letting them choose which one suffers the most doesn't seem like a killer feature. For ISPs, it doesn't matter how the bandwidth is distributed once the cap is reached.<p>Maybe there is some use case for metered connections or data caps?
This opens "interesting" commercial opportunities for ISPs. "If you (the customer) voluntarily zero rate or fast lane services X and Y you get a discount." And those services pay the ISP more than that to get an advantage over competitors. The money flow is similar to having X and Y pay the ISP not to be throttled down on the ISP network, which is what some ISPs wanted to do.
There is no reason for data caps (duapolies ISPs are being greedy)... if you sell a specific speed/bandwidth (which are usually sold as bits per second?), I should be able to use it all the time.
There is a simple algorithm that would suffice.... Whatever I'm using right now is what I want to have preferential delivery. Really it is that simple.
Same as other commenters I'm struggling to see how this is useful in the zero rating debates. But if it could somehow be used as an easier more dynamic way of doing user-controlled QoS then that would be fantastic.