> "No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind—in other words, no "fast lanes." This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates."
In the absence of a clear definition of "favor", this could also make it difficult for ISPs to host CDNs, or caching servers provided by content providers. If you put Netflix's caching box on your network, in some sense that "favors" Netflix traffic. And yet doing so is good for Netflix, the ISP, and the customer.
"consideration of any kind" would likely include giving the ISP a free server.
For that matter, there's nothing wrong with a CDN giving an ISP money to host a server on their network, if the balance of costs between the CDN and the ISP works out that way. An early-stage CDN or site-specific CDN might well have to do that to get started.
An ISP hosting edge caching servers shouldn't violate the rule so long as:
a) The ISP's own systems do not discriminate for or against the traffic from that edge server (i.e. no rules on Comcast's routers to slow down netflix.com while speeding up nbc.com).
b) The ISP offers the same edge server hosting deal to anyone who wants it.
Big ISPs now own content companies, so even if they don't lease space to Netflix, they would still have edge caching servers on their networks--their own. The neutrality rule seeks to ensure that they don't shape their network traffic to degrade content from other providers who don't own the wires and routers.
In the absence of a clear definition of "favor", this could also make it difficult for ISPs to host CDNs, or caching servers provided by content providers. If you put Netflix's caching box on your network, in some sense that "favors" Netflix traffic. And yet doing so is good for Netflix, the ISP, and the customer.