The Sonos equipment does not have an on-off switch. Apparently it is designed to be permanently on, like your LAN device. You can mute each station, but to turn a station off, you must unplug it, an action few people take. Suppose you have tuned a Sonos device to a Pandora station, and you mute that device. Because the Sonos equipment is still on, it will continue downloading packets over the Internet to a device that no one is listening to.

a. Describe the consequences of this situation on the Internet.

b. You pay a flat fee for your Internet connection. In what ways does such a fee arrangement discourage efficiency?

c. It turns out that if you pause the music, rather than mute the device, the Sonos device will stop downloading packets. Do you think this design is appropriate? If not, how would you change it?