Comcast Hints at Plan for Paid Fast Lanes
Sounds entirely reasonable to me:<p>&gt; [T]he Commission also should bear in mind that a more flexible approach to prioritization may be warranted and may be beneficial to the public. For example, a telepresence service tailored for the hearing impaired requires high-definition video that is of sufficiently reliable quality to permit users &quot;to perceive subtle hand and finger motions&quot; in real time. And paid prioritization may have other compelling applications in telemedicine. Likewise, for autonomous vehicles that may require instantaneous data transmission, black letter prohibitions on paid prioritization may actually stifle innovation instead of encouraging it. Commercial arrangements that entail prioritizing such traffic could ensure the low latency levels needed to achieve the high level of data quality necessary for such services to thrive.<p>VoIP really needs low latency. Buffering a Youtube video or downloading a torrent doesn&#x27;t.<p>Selective prioritization could improve the former drastically, while having no noticeable effect on the latter.<p>Note I&#x27;m not taking a stance on the issue either way. Maybe it would be better to keep Net Neutrality and add provisions for latency-sensitive applications. Maybe it&#x27;s better to nuke it and let the markets figure it out.<p>Either way, this is an important point and I&#x27;m surprised that the HN crowd doesn&#x27;t discuss it more.