Owen this is interesting I think also...but how do u prove motive? Arvinder
Yes, you've got "some of the largest Internet companies as customers². Because you told them "if you don't pay us, we'll throttle you". Then you throttled them. I'm sorry, not a winning argument. Nick
Claims by some large ISPs that this is untrue rest on the claim that they dont do traffic discrimination.
While they may not be (and, indeed, are not allowed to) do traffic discrimination, what is ignored is that refusing to add sufficient peering capacity is, to the consumers perspective (and to the content providers perspective as well) effectively the same thing as throttling.
I will note that as yet, not one of these providers has claimed that they did not refuse to increase peering capacity in order to leverage payment, and, indeed, payment does appear to have been leveraged.
Owen