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Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

IMHO, this headline & article is sensational and almost a straw-man argument. I'm not sure anyone should expect to be able to run a substantial business off their home internet connection without buying a business-class connection - nor does this decision by Google somehow imply they've "flip-flopped" on net-neutrality. I run a little game-server from my RaspberryPi at home. Technically, I'm not allowed to do this. While my Comcast IP is supposedly dynamic, it only changes once every 18 months or so. But I really think the law is there for people who go overboard sending terabytes-per-hour with some crazy successful business. At its peak, my site only gets only about 5,000+ hits per month or so(because it reports real-time data and people hit refresh all the time). Like Comcast, even if Google says no, just go ahead and do it anyway. They'll probably not bother you unless you're rolling your own Netflix-clone or something, in which case you really should upgrade to business-class or get on those cloud providers.

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> IMHO, this headline & article is sensational and almost a straw-man argument.

No, its really not. Google was a very strong proponent of the freedom of users do use connections as a dumb piple that was written into the FCC Open Internet rules, and is now acting in a way directly opposed to that in favor of a ISPs power to blanket ban all server use (and, on top of that, based on their apparent behavior, also the power to adopt such a blanket ban and then enforce it selectively to only actually prohibit server use that the ISP has other reasons to oppose besides the mere fact of server use, which then serves as an end run around the transparency provisions of the open internet order as well as the neutrality provisions, since the real substantive rules are not disclosed.)

This is a fairly breathtaking flip-flop, and the headline is quite accurate.

> Like Comcast, even if Google says no, just go ahead and do it anyway. They'll probably not bother you unless you're rolling your own Netflix-clone or something, in which case you really should upgrade to business-class or get on those cloud providers

Avoiding "they'll probably not bother you" guesswork is exactly the point of the transparency provisions of the Open Internet report and order, and the specific ISP-based prohibitions of lawful applications that had occurred that the FCC cited as motivating the neutrality provisions included IPSs banning specific server software (notably, P2P filesharing software), so its pretty clear that blanket server bans are within the scope of the problems the neutrality provisions are designed to address.

It really is sensational and straw-man.

I've never heard anybody suggest that the VERY common clause that prohibits servers is in some way related to net neutrality. (for instance, in the 18 pages that Wikipedia uses to describe net neutrality, they NEVER reference the user's ability to run servers)

This just seems to be some sort of flame-bait article by someone who rants hourly about how "Don't Be Evil" is a bunch of crap.

Sure, be upset that Google won't let you run your company web server on a personal Google fiber account. Fine, complain about ToS... but don't pretend that this is about Net Neutrality or Google Flip-Flopping.

And, to be clear, the entire Comcast-banning-software wasn't an issue... it was Comcast disrupting and discriminating against the packets that caused the issue...

> I've never heard anybody suggest that the VERY common clause that prohibits servers is in some way related to net neutrality.

Clearly, you have (well, unless you are using "heard" very literally, in which case perhaps you haven't, but who cares then?), if you've read the article or the comment you are responding to. And I'm sure you've heard it more than that, too.

You've just chosen to disregard those arguments.

> Sure, be upset that Google won't let you run your company web server on a personal Google fiber account. Fine, complain about ToS... but don't pretend that this is about Net Neutrality or Google Flip-Flopping.

Its about Google prohibiting users from running a particular class of lawful applications / services on the fixed broadband service offered by Google, for which Google has offered no network management rationale (they have asserted that it falls within "reasonable network management", but provided no justification for that except "everyone else does it").

The Open Internet report and order (for which Google lobbied) provides: "A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management."

This is absolutely about Net Neutrality and Google flip-flopping.

I'm operating under the good faith assumption that hatsix actually hasn't come across any discussions relating server bans and net neutrality before reading your comment and the original article. That's what I took his comment to mean.

In that case, it would be helpful to actually link to resources that discuss the two. For example:

http://commons.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Network_Neutrality...

Also:

http://www.jthtl.org/content/articles/V2I1/JTHTLv2i1_Wu.PDF (search for the phrase "Restrictions on Providing Content")

Now the question becomes: does this reflect a widely-held view?

> I'm operating under the good faith assumption that hatsix actually hasn't come across any discussions relating server bans and net neutrality before reading your comment and the original article. That's what I took his comment to mean.

Even if he hadn't, the article quotes Google itself as promoting a particular server-based application as benefiting from net neutrality. That should be enough to demonstrate some level of hypocrisy.

I really had not heard of any discussions of user-side server bans w/regard to net neutrality.

The quotes in the article do NOT suggest that google has changed stances or flip-flopped. It's the inferences and assumptions that the author made between the quotes that suggest that.

His arguments are only valid if I the reader already believes that Google's definition of "any type of Server" is consistent with the wikipedia definition of "any type of Server". The author provides no proof that this is the case.

The article even points out that google employees are assuring customers that gaming servers and other non-commercial servers are NOT banned.

My very non-hypocritical argument is that google used vague language in their ToS, as most ISPs do, in order to give differentiation between personal and business class service. The author decided to interpret the ToS with a specific wikipedia definition of "Server", despite lack of any indication from Google that this is what was intended, and specific cited and official instances that indicate that this is NOT what is intended. Despite lack of positive evidence for this interpretation and even citing negative evidence, the author asserts that Google is now against Net Neutrality.

> My very non-hypocritical argument is that google used vague language in their ToS, as most ISPs do, in order to give differentiation between personal and business class service. The author decided to interpret the ToS with a specific wikipedia definition of "Server", despite lack of any indication from Google that this is what was intended, and specific cited and official instances that indicate that this is NOT what is intended. Despite lack of positive evidence for this interpretation and even citing negative evidence, the author asserts that Google is now against Net Neutrality.

As a defense of Google's position as not conflicting with the Open Internet Report and Order that they lobbied for, that seems to fail on the grounds that using "vague language" about what is prohibited in the Terms of Service seems to be directly in conflict with the transparency provisions of the Report and Order (and, also, with the transparency principle which is part of the standard for evaluating whether practices limiting use of lawful applications, devices, and services are valid as "reasonable network management practices" under the neutrality provisions of the order.)

So, this argument, rather than contradicting the charges against Google, actually supports them.

Net Neutrality was a reaction to a plan by ISPs to double-dip, charging both their subscribers and the businesses who use them. It was formed back in the days when the telcos first put forth a plan via which they would, in effect, charge for a lot of services they don't actually provide.

While people have come up with a lot of their own ideas since then, the "no servers" clause has been widespread for ages and predates Net Neutrality significantly.

In other words, you could very well fit it under "reasonable network management."

> Net Neutrality was a reaction to a plan by ISPs to double-dip, charging both their subscribers and the businesses who use them.

That was the last straw that led to the effort to get net neutrality regulations, but it wasn't the one and only ISP restriction on that net neutrality was aimed at.

> In other words, you could very well fit it under "reasonable network management."

I don't see how Google's practices (the combination of the ToS's blanket no-servers policy and the apparent -- and Google employee confirmed -- practice that this is not applied to all servers, but means something more limited that is not specifically publicly disclosed) can fit anywhere within the neutrality and transparency provisions of the FCC's Open Internet Report and Order [1], and "reasonable network management" doesn't seem to save it. The relevant neutrality provisions for which reasonable network management is an exception are the non-blocking provision:

  A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband 
  Internet access service, insofar as such person is so 
  engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, 
  services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable 
  network management.

And the no-unreasonable-discrimination provision:

  A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband
  Internet access service, insofar as such person is so 
  engaged, shall not unreasonably discriminate in 
  transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s 
  broadband Internet access service. Reasonable network 
  management shall not constitute unreasonable 
  discrimination.

And the relevant transparency provision:

  A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet 
  access service shall publicly disclose accurate
  information regarding the network management practices, 
  performance, and commercial terms of its broadband 
  Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make 
  informed choices regarding use of such services and for 
  content, application, service, and device providers to 
  develop, market, and maintain Internet 
  offerings.

There is considerable discussion (at paragraphs 80 through 92) of the considerations that go into determining reasonable network management; but the particularly key one may be paragraph 87, which summarizes the applicable principles thusly:

  The principles guiding case-by-case evaluations of network
  management practices are much the same as those that guide 
  assessments of “no unreasonable discrimination,” and 
  include transparency, end-user control, and use- (or 
  application-) agnostic treatment.

The Google practice here is consistent with none of those three principles.

[1] http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201...

The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s. I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a longstanding, standard practice of reasonable network management, because there is a reasonable concern that people might saturate their connections and cause issues for others.

The thing people are really up in arms about is that their ISPs might charge them for access to Google, Skype, etc. selectively, even though they do absolutely nothing to run that service. I don't personally ascribe to whatever random definitions of Net Neutrality are out there, I just don't like the idea of ISPs charging for services they don't provide or otherwise selectively degrading them to make money. My principles are not in conflict and I simply do not care about whatever high-minded principles someone has come up with in a poor attempt to replicate that bit of common sense that ISPs shouldn't make up special fees for things they don't even provide.

You may notice how that "things they don't even provide" bit means that I have no weird "is this actually neutral?" edge cases when people pay to run caches/proxies/whatever to actually improve services for people, even when there are fees involved, while people sometimes get concerned over whether or not something is truly "neutral" or not. This is because I do not care about "neutrality" as such, but rather a much simpler concept of fairness: don't charge for (or degrade) services you don't provide.

> The "no servers" clause, and its inconsistent enforcement, has been a part of literally every single consumer ISP ToS I have ever been a party to since the 90s.

It hasn't been part of any of the ones I've been party two prior to 2000, or any of the ones after that except the ones from major telcos (but then, the ones prior to 2000 I was party two weren't, by any stretch, broadband.) But, even so, it doesn't really matter, since prior to the Open Internet Report and Order for which Google lobbied, there weren't FCC transparency requirements on fixed broadband providers, or neutrality rules which included transparency as a factor in determining whether a restriction was reasonable network management. There is now, and Google's decidedly non-transparent practice is inconsistent with the policy for which it lobbied.

> I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a longstanding, standard practice of reasonable network management

I have a hard time seeing it as "reasonable network management" given the way that term is used in the FCC Open Internet Report and Order, a policy for which Google lobbied.

If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case.

> If you can defend the idea that it is such within that context, I would like to hear the argument. But simply repeating time and again the same old "everyone has always done it" argument isn't making that case.

I have no interest whatsoever in defending principles I do not and have never held. Google can defend themselves without me, in any event.

Rather, I advocate something entirely different than "neutrality" as a principle from which to confront the real threat net neutrality was formed to prevent. That happens to align with what Google is currently doing, if not why it is doing it. The idea of "neutrality" has a lot of weird corner cases that make no sense at all in practice. I'd rather advocate something good than something... neutral.

> Clearly, you have (well, unless you are using "heard" very literally, in which case perhaps you haven't, but who cares then?), if you've read the article or the comment you are responding to. And I'm sure you've heard it more than that, too.

You're absolutely correct, I wasn't using it extremely literally, or even semi-literally. I meant that I hadn't heard anybody suggest this BEFORE I read the article that suggested it. Glad you pointed that out.

> You've just chosen to disregard those arguments.

That's quite an assumption that you've made. But I suppose we arguing on the internet, and that's the MO... assume that the people you're arguing with are both stupid AND intentionally misleading.

But, to set the record straight, I truly had not heard anybody (before this article) suggest that the rules that Comcast did and does have in effect about not operating a mail or web server be removed due to Net Neutrality. I know plenty of people thing that rule is bullshit, but they never linked the two concepts where I read or heard it. All discussion of Net Neutrality that I was aware of (again, before this article, do I really have to keep pointing this out every time, because it really seemed obvious to me when I made that original statement, but I suppose it was confusing enough the first time, so I'll keep clarifying it) revolved around bittorrent or the preferential treatment that ISPs were giving their "approved" (i.e. pay-for-performance) services (and, the discriminatory degrading of services from those who refused to pay).

It was the double-dipping that was publicized, the fact that they have 'tiered' services for personal and business purposes seemed reasonable...

To be fair, I am heavily biased against relying on Comcast for anything, so I guess it had never dawned on me that someone would attempt to run a server on anything that Comcast provides... personal OR business class. But I'm a block away from being able to have DSL, so I'm stuck with Comcast.

I also want to point out that my reading of the quote you provide does not suggest flip-flopping. I'm neither ignorant of nor ignoring the quote, but I take it to mean that "An ISP[...] shall not block ACCESS TO lawful content [...]". Certainly this is an understandable interpretation, especially considering the events that lead up to the net neutrality debates in the first place.

> I also want to point out that my reading of the quote you provide does not suggest flip-flopping. I'm neither ignorant of nor ignoring the quote, but I take it to mean that "An ISP[...] shall not block ACCESS TO lawful content [...]". Certainly this is an understandable interpretation, especially considering the events that lead up to the net neutrality debates in the first place.

I'm not sure how your rewriting (particularly, inserting the additional words "ACCESS TO") is imagined to make what Google is doing anything more inconsistent with the order, or how it is consistent with the order itself [1] (e.g., Paragraphs 65, referring to the language you are modifying/"interpreting"):

"We also note that the rule entitles end users to both connect and use any lawful device of their choice, provided such device does not harm the network."

A server appliance is a lawful device.

[1] http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201...

Enforcement is currently aimed at users consuming the most bandwidth, but I'd rather not have to hope that the selective enforcement doesn't apply to my rule violations.

"Everyone's a felon" and "everyone's violating the contract" is a terrible state of affairs.

This is what retroactive restrictions based on "generally accepted understanding of what things means" feels like:

Its "Unlimited Internet!", oh wait, if you are in the top 1% of bandwidth users we reserve the right to throttle you. Oh wait, we really don't want you to use more than 5GB a month. Ok fine, if you use more than 2GB we'll start throttling you and at 5GB your network connection will become unusable.

>people who go overboard sending terabytes-per-hour with some crazy successful business

Which is why they probably limit 'excessive use', and / or have hard GB caps in place, which basically every ISP does. If you paid for, say, 20GB of up/down traffic, and you can run your server within that, why should they be able to say you can't do that, just because it's a "server"? If you had uploaded 20GB to e.g. Dropbox, they aren't complaining.

If you have Google's fiber, even if they say it's unlimited, they still have the ability to restrict your up/down speed (I'm assuming, given the legal support of all the past "unlimited X!" that sometimes gets throttled to extinction). Why don't they just limit it if you're being excessive, regardless of the purpose? Or offer extended GB/TB packages and put hard limits somewhere?

> If you had uploaded 20GB to e.g. Dropbox, they aren't complaining.

It's even more ridiculous than that! If you sync 20GB to dropbox, that's a client. If you sync 20GB with bittorrent sync, that's a server. Same data, same purpose, same network load. But one gets banned.

Also, I have to wonder if someone at google has heard of a thing called an X11 server...

You are defining server that way. Google is not. So you are arguing about something that doesn't even exist.

How does google define server, then?

1. Does P2P count?

2. What if I'm downloading a creative commons movie and seed it to a ratio of 15?

3. What if I'm seeding a hobby video podcast I make at a constant 300mbps?

4. What if I use opera unite instead of bittorrent?

5. What if I switch to nginx?

6. What if I make a living off that video podcast?

7. What if I was only sending it to my family instead of the world?

1: No

2: No

3: No

4: No

5: No

6: Yes

7: No

Computer programmers like exact definitions. Server: The main controller of the program, or main sender of data.

The real world is much more fuzzy. They are concerned with business use, not server use exactly.

So your answers to my questions say that anything non-commercial will be fine.

But then you define server in a way that disagrees with those answers.

Do they care about servers, or do they care about businesses? If businesses, why can't they make it explicit in the rules?

They care about businesses, it says so very clearly in the article. And if they haven't already, they should make it explicit.

It's nothing special about google - all ISPs have the same rule.

I DID NOT define server! You read it exactly backward. I said that's how programmers define it, but that's NOT how google defines it (for internet purposes).

Oh. Sorry about misreading there.

But seriously, while programmers are pedantic sometimes, when I'm running a website out of my basement that's a 'server' by ANY definition. If google is only going to enforce the rule on business servers, they should say so.

And it doesn't matter what other ISPs do, we already know they're horrible.

I'm sorry I have to disagree with you. While I accept that they're just trying to target this specific subset of users that they feel they can get more money from, that is very much a violation of net neutrality.

Further, their current terms of service, while in intention mean: "customers who are using our services to run a business", can later be construed to target everyone. Though they promise that they wont. A dark cloud to cast.

Say they want to get rid of Alice, who knows why, but Alice has a Minecraft server. Those clauses arn't about Minecraft servers, but Alice agreed to the terms, and they can use those terms to remove her.

Despite the undercurrent of hatred for Google on hacker news, I think in general we all expect better from the company. This is not better.

wow.. where to begin. So you and Google seem understand the exact definition of "server". "main controller of the program".. lol..

Hah! You try defining server. Don't forget X-windows when you do so.

I think the typical meaning is a system that responds to requests with data. I think this is a usable definition. By default it includes P2P, but you can always add 'except P2P'. X servers don't fit this definition, which seems correct to me.

oops. sorry. I misread your earlier comment.

Or better yet, just deprioritize the heavy users' traffic. That way you don't even get slowed down unless the queues start to fill up somewhere on the network.

The real question here is how important it is for home users to have the ability to run servers without signing up for a business-class account. Google wants to create an equivalence between two groups:

1) People who want to run a server at home

2) Businesses

The debate here should be about if that equivalence is dangerous and why.

Perhaps it would be better to avoid the connotations of the word "business" and just view this as Google saying "if you want to run a server, you have to pay more for a premium account." Do people think this is reasonable?

> The real question here is how important it is for home users to have the ability to run servers without signing up for a business-class account.

That may be a real question, but I that its not the real question; equally real is the question of whether what Google did is permissible under the language of the Open Internet Report and Order, since that's a governing regulation (and, on top of that, one for which Google recently and actively lobbied.)

And, related to that, whether the expectation that Google will obey the law governing where they can and cannot restrict customers when offering a service is reasonable.

Google doesn't want to create that equivalence. The problem is the definition of business in the US is so broad as to be unusable for this kind of thing.

For instance Google is fine with you using your connection to VPN to work, but you are technically an agent of your business when you do that.

Thus outright disallowing Businesses is a no-go, since they can't filter you beforehand they have to get you to filter yourself.

One way would be to ensure that the business version is so much better than the consumer version that businesses switch themselves. Unfortunately if you have 99.9% uptime and 1 Gbps total bandwidth, who isn't okay with that?

What if the support options for residential was strictly email, and only answered M-F 9-5 (not including holidays) with a response time of 24-48 hrs, but for business support you get 24/7/365 phone & email support with a response time of 1 hour?

Because that is going to be the story, more or less.

The amount of time you can stand to be without service is basically the crux of the decision; if you just run a gaming server or host your mom's cooking website, being down a day or three won't really matter, but if you (or your clients) depend on your site -- say, you have an online reservation system for a hotel -- then even an hour is going to cost you money, and I know from personal experience that if it's down for a day or more, the client is probably going to drop you unless you pay them off in a big way (free month of service, etc.).

> I'm not sure anyone should expect to be able to run a substantial business off their home internet connection without buying a business-class connection

Right, because you usually don't have SLAs for connection. But apart from that -- why ever not?

Exactly. Business traffic is business traffic. There is absolutely no reason that a "consumer" grade fat fiber pipe is unusable for non-critical business stuff, except for one reason:

"We can charge businesses more".

But hey, I guess little shops that want to provide their customers with wi-fi and batch send some financial information at the end of the day need Big Expensive Solutions (TM) to accomplish it...

As a former pawn in the ISP game, there's a lot of reasons, though most of them are either directly or indirectly related to SLA's. The implied notion is that residential customers aren't going to lose money while their connection is down, whereas most business customers lose money every minute that their connection is down.

When I was in residential support, you don't know how many times I heard, "Well you better get this fixed ASAP! My business depends on it." I'd have to remind them that if they expected business-class service -- including 24/7/365 phone/email tech support, over-nighted equipment replacements, etc. -- then that required a business-class contract. If you pay the pithy rate for consumer-grade service, you get <surprise!> consumer-level support, and there is a world of difference between residential and business support capabilities.

It's also not a secret that the business support techs are usually a rung or two above those in residential support, and so what may take that junior-level tech a few hours to fix, would take the senior-level tech in business support a few minutes (and more often, to resolve it correctly). This is not only due to the nature of the issues being more challenging for business support, but because it's the ISP's prerogative to keep their clients online. Unlike most residential customers, business will more likely have access to more options for service; whereas AT&T, Comcast, TWC, etc. can piss all over their residential customers, it usually doesn't matter because the customer literally has no other alternative. On the other hand, businesses are often courted by ISP's, and competitive offers are always available. This is compounded by the fact that business-class service more specific in its offerings; you don't just pick a "basic" or "turbo" package, you often have 10x as many choices which take into account latency, burst rate, symmetrical upload/download, etc.

Another perk of business-class at some ISP's is a direct communication line to the NOC. Not specifically by phone (still have to go through support for that usually), but at least where I worked, the NOC sent out emails to our business customers for every planned outage (in advance, right before execution, and upon completion) with details of the work, as well as for unplanned outages (which usually detailed the nature and impact of the outage). At times, alerts were sent out when a large-scale malware, DDoS, etc. was present. You know, things that as a business, your own networking/sysadmin staff need to know to do their job effectively.

When I see comments like this I thank my lucky stars I'm not slanging DWDM/Fiber anymore.

I've said this before but it's worth saying again: In the United States we have two classes of Internet. One is the consumer net, which is quasi-3rd world in many parts of the country. The other is the Enterprise, which is, I would argue, the only first-world network on the planet (by aggregate capacity and availability).

When you subscribe to the former, and expect the latter, you'll undoubtably be an unhappy camper.

None of what you wrote is an argument for banning users from running servers on their Fiber accounts.

In fact, it's almost insultingly paternalistic if that is in fact the view Google (or any other ISP) takes.

That's because it wasn't an argument for banning users from running servers on their Fiber accounts.

I was responding to the parent (perlgeek), not the original submission. It was an argument for why business-class services exist, who might require them, and the value they bring.

Don't offer unlimted 1Gbps up/down if you're not willing to make good on that promise.

Companies shouldn't be allowed to choose how much is too much when the usage in question is within the scope of an agreed upon contract.

Allowing potentially every user to utilize 75% of 1 Gbps up/down service 24/7 is crazy.

I don't imagine Google is doing this to line their pockets - the infrastructure was created with certain assumptions in mind and when someone is using it outside of the parameters, it becomes a headache for the engineers. Here's an analogy - Amazon's AWS service. When you have noisy neighbors - people using AWS's service in a way Amazon did not expect, it degrades performance for everyone else. Now while for Amazon it makes sense to increase server capacity, noisy "consumer internet" should upgrade to a business class connection.

And again, it is within the scope of agreed contract, its in the article. I don't think its insane to offer a certain guarantees of a service (1 Gbps up/down) within limitations (you won't be using 75% of it 24/7).

> And again, it is within the scope of agreed contract, its in the article. I don't think its insane to offer a certain guarantees of a service (1 Gbps up/down) within limitations (you won't be using 75% of it 24/7).

Then specify the limits up front, rather than promising a gigabit connection. Metered Internet access is potentially reasonable, unless the limitations are arbitrary, undocumented, and capricious.

>Metered Internet access is potentially reasonable Except when its not, because everyone will bitch & moan about rocking the boat. When Comcast added the 250GB monthly limit, there was a large vocal minority that made sure that that restriction never left trail.

That's because 250GB is stupidly low. It equates to only 4% utilization on a 20mbps connection. I can buy 250GB in a datacenter for a dollar. And on top of that the cap didn't grow over time to reflect increased bandwidth needs and decreasing bandwidth costs.

Give me a cap that represents fair bandwidth prices and I won't object.

250GB may be low, but if you think that you can equate data center prices to prices for transit delivered to an end-user's address, you aren't thinking hard enough.

Educate me. As far as I know, the only expensive part is in establishing a connection to a user. The cost of extra data is only in the backbone parts of the network, and those do not eat a large portion of revenue.

In short, data centers are generally located at the core of networks, end users are, by definition, at the fringe of the network. All the equipment and lines between the core and the end user add to the cost to supply bandwidth through up-front purchasing cost, maintenance cost and configuration cost. All of those are costs that would not have to be paid if they did not supply internet to end users. To assume that the cost of just supplying bandwidth to a date center is the same as through all that infrastructure is to assume the cost of all that is zero, or close enough they write it off, while in truth it probably accounts for the lion's share of their overhead.

aka the last mile problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile

...except that the last mile has the same 10mbps or 50mbps or whatever capacity even if you're on the crippled-speed budget plan. The only cost to increase the quota is for the ISP to upgrade its major inter-site links, not the edge connections.

The last mile limits bitrate, not quota.

If even 10% of the end users fully utilized their circuits they would be far over their capacity to get those packets to their core, even if the core could handle moving them to other networks. As such, increasing the amount of transit the ISP purchases may do nothing for allowing it to be effectively utilized at the end user location.

Old, but very detailed:

http://drpeering.net/white-papers/A-Business-Case-For-Peerin...

First of all, that's ludicrously low. More importantly, it's a new restriction on an existing service, rather than a new service. Both of those lead to push-back from current and potential customers.

In any case, the problem is that Google has already pitched their fiber service as gigabit, and attempting to meter it will make it look less appealing. Personally, I find arbitrary restrictions on the type of data I can transfer even less appealing, but many people won't.

What would Google say to someone saturating their bandwidth 24 hours a day and not running a server? I can easily think of ways to do that. For instance, how about doing daily image backups of your home media center?

If you want to provide a given level of service then say so. Is it 1Gbps up/down with a 1TB/month transfer limit? (That's less than three hours per month at 1Gbps, FWIW.) Is there no guarantee of performance, so you get 1Gbps sometimes but only 100Mbps when the network is congested? Spell it out. Just saying "no servers" is a cop out that lets them cancel service for half their customers whenever they please because so many people are going to be violating it, probably without even knowing it.

> And again, it is within the scope of agreed contract

The controversy is not over whether it is within the scope of the Terms of Service. It is whether the Terms of Service are consistent with the FCC's Open Internet Report and Order.

And when I had 100/100 MBps in Sweden, my ISP had no mention of what you're allowed to use your connection for outside of outright abuse (DoS flooding, hacking). And I was even paying student rates in the range of $15/mo. I ended up running an internet radio station and a image host CDN slave out of my apartment, uploading 3-4 TB/mo. They never cared. Their network was solid, and they were profitable. So few people will do this (especially since with the lack of an SLA) that they can easily afford it.

Good grief. This is about stuff as simple as being able to deprioritize packets from rival businesses — want to make Vonage suck compared to your bundled phone service or Amazon video suck compared to Netflix? Net Neutrality prevents this and the guys who are against it are The Usual Suspects.

There's nothing in Net Neutrality to stop vendors from capping bandwidth, only from cherry-picking packets.

In this specific case, virtually anything — including say the bittorrent client WoW uses to distribute patches or GoToMyPC — qualifies as a server.

> But I really think the law is there for people who go overboard sending terabytes-per-hour with some crazy successful business.

What law? You mean the term in Google's contract with it's subscribers that prevents servers? That's not a law.

If they wanted to limit servers to a certain bandwidth, or to say you can't use their connection for a business that charges money -- why wouldn't they just put that in their contract instead? It's their contract to write how they like. What they liked was to prohibit all 'servers', rather than what you suggest they meant to do. Maybe their lawyers made a mistake, you should let them know.

It boils down to what they are selling?

Does the product ad say, 1 Gb bandwidth for $XX when use of bandwidth doesn't exceed 20%?

Generally, these sort of exceptions are not made clear at the time of purchase.

Frankly, if they are selling bits or bandwidth it shouldn't matter the type of account. The type of account should only impact customer service. The water company analogy should apply.

Would Tor nodes count as servers under Google's guidelines? Could Google theoretically prohibit someone from running a Tor node if they're not a business-class account?

Why can't they just limit part of the service to make it impractical to run a large server on it? Decrease the upload bandwidth, or limit the number of simultaneous connections you can have. Those would all be service limitations instead of discriminating on use.

Doesn't that make you a felon, ala Aaron Schwartz?

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