The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163179   Message #3889900
Posted By: Mr Red
23-Nov-17 - 03:13 AM
Thread Name: BS: Internet Neutrality is at stake
Subject: RE: BS: Internet Neutrality is at stake
Internet providers have been doing this for a long time.

On the UK's biggest - BT - their service is attrocious in rural areas and if you are at the end of the line (literally) it is not the speed limit that dictates the service (~=3 Mb) it is the traffic. And for all the world it looks like they are happy to give priority to those that paid for an upgrade to higher speeds. The problem is there is a disconnect in the policy because my GF can't get an upgrade because of the location. But she still suffers interruptions and as more people use it for TV any live (BT monopoly content) has been getting worse and worse.

The millions of BT (notso) HotSpots they tout as a sales incentive are in the same boat. I can get a WiFi connection at 144Mb but the content could be zero for hours. The guy who has the router gets priority. And notably the outage is around 3:30pm when schoolkids are home.

They would argue the HotSpot was free, but in UK law anything free with is part of the cost. Not that they care.

And as a digression - news, adverts and prices are predicated on your browsing history/location. Notably E-Bay searches don't seem to influence the ads except on E-Bay. Obviously Goggle don't get those data. Amazin' does share data IME.