Adam
We disagree on NN, although I respect those who fear getting the government involved will just make worse problems. But there's a lot of misinformation being spread, and some of it seems to have influenced your colleagues.
Comcast filed that the traffic shaping is "needed" and George writes "there will always be a need for practical network management solutions that ensure per-user fairness and not per-session fairness." That turns out not to be true. The best evidence is that neither the largest U.S. provider (AT&T) or third largest (Verizon) do anything like the Comcast traffic shaping. Their top officials have said that won't change.
The first question here is empirical: can Comcast add enough bandwidth to virtually eliminate this problem at a reasonable cost? Since AT&T and Verizon have done it and report strong profits on their broadband service, the cost cannot be too high. In fact, I've calculated that the added cost to virtually eliminate congestion on a network like Comcast's is likely close to 10 cents/month/subscriber. That won't guarantee getting through during massive peaks like 9/11 or multiple cable breaks, but means 99+% of the time I can watch digital quality TV from ABC or NBC.
That doesn't mean NN is necessarily right. While the cost in this instance is small, it's not zero. Regulation always has a downside. But other networks without caps have proven the realworld traffic can be handled, so the argument "you must shape for any network" should be pulled off the table.
Ironically, Comcast provides the information that working without shaping is very practical. Their filing pointed out that they have no need for it on their downstream, because the bandwidth they have is more than sufficient. Similar is true in DSL and fiber networks, and will be true on the cable upstream as DOCSIS 3.0 deploys. Ordinary node splitting, etc. can pretty much solve the problem meantime at a "reasonable" cost.
As you know, I'm always happy to share information if I have it. Let's all work towards "evidence-based policy" and "falsifiable claims," empirically informed. I think it's particularly important in D.C., where nine out of ten voices support the lobbyist's line and rarely have the depth to check further. There's much less money for those simply looking for the facts and public interest, so the voices are much weaker. I call it "publication bias" - the typical "nonpartisan" event in D.C. has a majority of the speakers taking significant money fromthe providers.
I think we all want to do better, whether right or left.
db