On first read this seems alarming, but actually the more I think about it things aren't so bad.

For a start this would help improve the quality of service for "normal" users...presumably my service is affected by those who hammer the network downloading loads of pirated movies,porn, software and music over P2P (not saying even for the moment that this is the only use for P2P, but based on what I have seen on most p2p networks it is the primary content)

It would mean that ISP's would have to drop the "common carrier" service and therefore they would have to take some responsibility for the content delivered...Carefully managed this could be a good thing....Actually the more I think about it the more unlikely it seems that ISP's would want to do that.

As long as the users of the "silver" service are charged less than the current costs of a non shaped service..then it offers the opportunity for light users to have some of the Broadband gains without paying too much for it.

I think we are at a tipping point where some very bandwidth heavy applications are just around the corner...With the next ADSL upgrade (MaxDSl) things like movies on demand are going to become a very workable possibility..without a usabele multicast solution across the internet (doesn't IP6 offer this ?) this is going to be lots of carrier bandwidth being swallowed...The ISP's need to counter the fact that this is going to result in lots of sustained high demand transfers across their service.

There is already a lot of traffic shaping going on at some ISP's (plusnet do it but in a very subtle manner at the moment) the only difference is that it is likely to become more severe and they are starting to actually admit to it.

The market will decide...we have to have faith in that, if there is a profitable way of providing a service not affected by these proposals then somebody will offer it. If this has a massive negative impact on users when the first ISP implements it then they will all migrate to other carriers, who will then realise that they can capture a bigger market share by not deploying such restrictions...in big business smaller profit-bigger market share can be more valuable than the other way round.

What is more worrying is this talk of content providers paying ISP's extra to have better QoS levels between that ISP's users and themselves...that is a big worry IMO

Personally I would welcome a reduced cost shaped service as long as-

They are honest about the shaping rules

The rules fit my usage and I can easily migrate to a different package if my needs change

It results in reduced costs if I only need a limited service.