def __init__(self, service_url, service_name=None, timeout=HTTP_TIMEOUT, connection=None):
        self.__service_url = service_url
        self.__service_name = service_name
        self.__url = urlparse.urlparse(service_url)
        if self.__url.port is None:
            port = 80
        else:
            port = self.__url.port
        (user, passwd) = (self.__url.username, self.__url.password)
        try:
            user = user.encode('utf8')
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        try:
            passwd = passwd.encode('utf8')
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        authpair = user + b':' + passwd
        self.__auth_header = b'Basic ' + base64.b64encode(authpair)

        if connection:
            # Callables re-use the connection of the original proxy
            self.__conn = connection
        elif self.__url.scheme == 'https':
            self.__conn = httplib.HTTPSConnection(self.__url.hostname, port,
                                                  None, None, False,
                                                  timeout)
        else:
            self.__conn = httplib.HTTPConnection(self.__url.hostname, port,
                                                 False, timeout)