Hi.
I agree with your comments re customers. (residential customers, in
particular)
At risk of being flamed, what I'd propose is that regulators should put
effort into understanding whether the basic service is broken. If it's
not broken then perhaps it is reasonable to allow provider-prioritized
traffic. (i.e., if the provider offers a good SLA for basic traffic and
lives up to it even in the presence of prioritized traffic) On the other
hand, if the provider doesn't guarantee a quality basic service then
their request to "prioritize" is in bad-faith; they will effectively be
de-prioritizing the basic service.
Cheers,
-Benson