On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:30:43 -0700, Neeum Zawan wrote:

> On 04/29/10 17:56, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> ISPs can throttle the traffic based on where it is coming from, eg
>>>> YouTube or iPlayer.  It's in their interest to do this, otherwise a
>>>> load
>>>
>>> 	Depends on the country you live in.
>> 
>> Whether it's technically possible or not doesn't depend on where you
>> live at all.
>> 
>> Whether it's *legal* or not is an entirely different matter, and
>> proving an ISP is using traffic shaping can be difficult to do.
> 
> 	I was referring to legality.

Even still, that doesn't mean that the providers don't mess with traffic 
intentionally (or not) or employ traffic shaping technologies - or that 
traffic isn't shaped at *some* point between source and destination.  The 
only way to guarantee whether it is or isn't is to own all the points 
between the source and destination; if, say, in South Africa it was 
illegal to do traffic shaping, that doesn't prevent Level2 Communications 
from applying some shaping that affects people in South Africa if their 
data happens to cross the Level2 network.

Jim

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