utility capacity, was Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality

Fri Feb 27 22:51:27 UTC 2015

>Water, gas, and to a great extent electrical systems do not work on
>oversubscription, ie their aggregate capacity meets or exceeds the needs of
>all their customers peak potential demand, at least from "normal" demand
>standpoint. 

Hi, former municipal water and sewer commissioner here.  We size the
system to meet likely demand, but not peak demand.  If it's a hot dry
summer and everyone wants to water their lawn, or there's a big fire
that's drawing a lot of water from hydrants, we can have capacity
problems.  We deal with it by interrupting service to a few large
customers, a car wash and a golf course.

But it's not really comparable to broadband service, because on the
Internet, nearly every consumer end user device could easily saturate
the entire network if it wanted to.  It's like every house having a
100,000 gallon toilet.  Better hope you don't have a lot of people
flushing at once.

R's,
John