The Net Neutraility Debate - Should ISPs have that much power?
Senator John McCain introduced a bill in the Senate last week, named the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, that would effectively allow Internet service providers to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing.
The move came the same day Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to move forward on an official Net neutrality policy that would prevent ISPs from making those types of decisions.
The so-called Net neutrality debate has pitted Internet application companies, such as Google, Facebook and Skype, against big broadband providers, such as AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Comcast. The network operators argue regulation will stifle innovation, while the Internet companies say an unfettered network is necessary to encourage innovation.
My question to you: Do you think internet service providers should have the power to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing?
full cnn article
The move came the same day Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to move forward on an official Net neutrality policy that would prevent ISPs from making those types of decisions.
The so-called Net neutrality debate has pitted Internet application companies, such as Google, Facebook and Skype, against big broadband providers, such as AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Comcast. The network operators argue regulation will stifle innovation, while the Internet companies say an unfettered network is necessary to encourage innovation.
My question to you: Do you think internet service providers should have the power to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing?
full cnn article
Tags: debate, fcc, isps, net neutraility
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kevin on -
Hah, McCain admitted to not knowing how to use his email during the campaign. Now he wants us to take him seriously about the Net neutrality? To answer your question: Hell No!
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Permalink Reply by Mark Huckabee on -
This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT issues of our time and very few people understand it. We absolutely CANNOT allow the ISPs to have ANY right to speed up, slow down, block, or monitor content in ANY way. This should be seen as expressly violating their status as common carriers and make them open to hundreds of different kinds of lawsuits. If we allow them even the tiniest portion of control over what passes through their pipes then their GREED will kick in and we will ALL suffer. Smaller sites (like theMet) could get completely wiped out by an ISP slowing access while promoting their own alternative. Think about how much incentive they would have to do this if the site in question was criticizing their actions. I hate to say it but McCain is either a complete idiot on this issue or in the pay of the telcos (or more likely both). His bill would be the single biggest blow to our civil liberties in the last few years.
PLEASE learn about this issue and contact your representatives to tell them how you feel!! This is important!
Here is a great bit by Jon Stewart on this issue: video here.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Huckabee on
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That is so true, so scary, and so realistic it makes me want to cry!
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Permalink Reply by K Mears on -
As it is inevitable that some networks will eventually meet physical limits, and thus that some content will be limited one way or another, the question is rather do you want competing ISPs to have the power to control their content (and ONLY their specific content - NOT the content of the whole internet), or would you rather let the GOVERNMENT CONTROL ALL INTERNET ACCESS?
NO CONTEST. Keep the stifling federales out of the mix - it will only lead to the loss of the independent and vibrant information systems we have come to depend upon. Let the ISP's determine what they can and cannot handle or provide. As a consumer, I can always choose a better ISP, but once the government is filtering the data stream (for our so-called 'benefit'), we will see ATT and the media giants handed the whole net, just like the 'public' airwaves of television and radio.
The people can influence their ISP's choices by switching from one provider to another to get whatever content their previous IPSP limited or blocked. This is a proven method to handle the issue without government involvement. There is no reason to involve the FCC or any aspect of the government, (especially when "guaranteeing neutrality" will come at the cost of free and independent distribution of information).
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Permalink Reply by Mark Huckabee on
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The problem with this is that there is not enough competition to really make a dent. Take a look at cable -- do you have enough choices in cable companies to make them offer you a la carte pricing (i.e. you choose single channels instead of a package)? No, not one single city in America does. There's just not enough choices to force any meaningful change. Everyone fears the government control bugaboo but the reality is that it never happens. Government has regulated TV forever but do they really control it? No, corporate greed is a much more powerful force.
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Permalink Reply by K Mears on
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The government control bugaboo that "never happens" is EXACTLY why you have such limited choices in cable; and why network TV looked as it did for 40 years: and why it took until the 70's for public tv to even show up; and why Clearchannel plays the same top 40 over 700 radio stations across the country. The FCC has parceled out the market, and become the tool of the leading corporate companies in each field.
An ATT subsidiary was the licensed provider for data services on cable in the Santa Rosa area. They were the only one allowed by government regs to provide that service. Their parent company also had a lock on local telephone services. So for 5 years, they simply refused to put data across the cable systems, knowing they had no competitor who could do so, and their market was forced to live with what they chose to provide. So, until I moved from that city, I could not get anything but a poor modem connection, and neither could anyone else in town. Finally of course, ATT wanted to sell it's new dsl services. No surprise, their captive audience had no choice but to pay their rates - or stick with the phone lines. They managed to prevent a cable modem from being installed in most of the cty, simply by owning the market via goverment regulations. THAT is what happens when the corporations are "controlled" by the government. The corporate greed you speak of works BEST when ingrained in government. Not to say they don't abuse competitors in the 'free market' too, but with government as a tool in their hands, they are unstoppable. Without an FCC regulation eliminating competitive technologies and product offerings, there is at least a CHANCE of competitive services being forced to respond to their market.
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Permalink Reply by Gofaster on -
Lets say you reach into your pockets and build a road. and people use the road. and you charge them for using your road that you built. that seems fair. Then you build a million roads. and you have people that maintain those roads. and monitor those roads. and fix the crashes. Thats not free.
Then lets say a fraction of those users on your road use up 90% of the bandwidth and cause all kinds of traffic jams. SHouldn't you have the right to tell that fraction they can't use up 90% of the bandwidth?
I believe internet access should be a right. I believe in net neutrality. But its not as our laws are written in the US and frankly, as technology sits today, I think net neutrality would be disastrous for us in the US and elsewhere. and heres the reason why.
The evil telcos, many of whom I hate on a personal level, have spent billions and billions building up their infrastructure. Where once there was a copper strand was turned into a fibreoptic cable and is now a bundle of fibre. and everytime they upgrade the files that get transmitted get bigger and bigger. and the technology like torrents will be unendingly created.
Where before you transmitted a 300 mb video file, now you're doing multi gig blue ray torrents and you're hosting hundreds or thousands of them. then your neighbors whine about how their telco sucks so bad and the bandwidth is so slow when its your neighbor sucking it all up like hoover... just one example here and if we had net neutrality they wouldn't be able to do jizack about it.
So if you're a telco and you say to yourself "I'm going to run a fibre cable from LA to NYC" and its going to cost me xxx dollars for the cable then xxx dollars for the rights to bury it underground and then xxx dollars to maintain it and xxx for disaster preparedness and xxx and xxx and xxx and once I build it, I'm not going to be allowed to say a thing about who uses it or how it gets used well then why in the world would I build it? I wouldn't because I'd lose money on it and my stock holders would cease to be my stock holders and then my company or at a minimum my job would cease to exist.
There are significant repercussions to net neutrality that those screaming for net neutrality never seem to discuss. If you look at that environment as an ecosystem, your net neutrality law will only be written for a tiny fraction of it but that tiny fraction might be enough to kill the ecosystem or at least keep it from evolving at any useful rate.
Its like saying we need to end world hunger, but no ones thinking about what would happen if, for a year lets say, we actually did? The next year would be an absolute disaster...
Its laughable that the lady discusses the "geeks that built the internet" as though they had some type of eye of thundera sight beyond sight. Give me a break. The geeks that built the internet had no idea the repercussions of what they were doing. If they had any idea, even a whiff, they would be running the world right now... and they're not. No grand committee designed it. A bunch of geeks said "hey packet switching tech would be so kewl" and then it crystalized when an evil government agency said build me a network any node of which could withstand a nuke and bam! welcome to neo's world.
I think the real answer to net neutrality is this. Wireless. The evolution of cell tech is moving so fast and thats something that won't force you to be tied to a single telco. And instead of packet transmission over copper or fiber that a telco owns, you could have it over mhz and ghz and that is something that no one owns but the government completely controls, at least here in the states, and theoretically you could have unlimited bandwidth, even if that technology doesn't quite exist today. Fiber in the sky with diamonds!
The other advantage that this has over worrying about telco providers is for the world. If we figure a tech way and a framework of rules here to transmit our interwebs ova WKRP in Cincinnati then that tech will diffuse out rapidly to other parts of the world and the third world and that will help everyone. See, greed can do good things.
Now if you think about it, why is the cell tech evolving so fast? To eventually attain net neutrality? No. its all about the schmoleans baby! b/c wireless carriers see gold pressed latinum in your ears and eyes. I think at the end of the day though, it'll solve that other nasty problem. And coincidentally it'll also keep the land based telcos in line since we'll have an "alternative."
Look at cellphones in the third world...they leap frogged the need to lay billions of dollars worth of copper over hill and over dale...
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