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ACLU Study Wary of Broadband Providers
An anonymous reader says "The ACLU recently had a study done that suggests that broadband access is a threat to internet freedom. Their study focuses on the control available to broadband providers who don't have to deal with the same level of competition or regulation as ISP providers. The result is the ability to radically control internet access combined with the omnipresent corporate incentive for profit, whatever the cost to free speech."
There are loads of ISP's offering broadband (ADSL) here in the UK some of which explicitly say you can serve anything legel and have as many pc's as you want hanging off you connection and tell you how to setup nats etc...
The UK regulater makes a hell of a lot of noise, the UK had a public monopoly upuntil a few years ago and the regulator keeps trying to force down prices offered to ISP's for dialup and ADSL access.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The problem is that you cannot use anybody else.
most broadband providers have a govt sanctioned monopoly.
And after the recent declarations from the FCC the little competition that was coming from small dsl providers will soon evaporate.
The ACLU did NOT state that "broadband access is a threat to internet freedom". This is a study on the problem of broadband monopolies being created in the cable market only, due to common carrier restrictions.
It is the grand flaw of capitalism. When a company reaches the point where it no longer has to care about how good the service it provides is, and merely tries to maximize it's profit without needing any concern for the trade-off, then it is wrong. Take Microsoft. It's not in there best interest to increase their profit by making a better product - it works better for them to screw their customers. That's what anti-trust laws are for, and that's why we try to keep any one company from having control of a product/service. The unscrupulous among us (and there are many) will stop caring about customers. That's not how it should work.
SIG: HUP
Sure. I have no problem not running servers on my residential connection. I agreed not to, and they have valid business reasons for asking us not to. They don't put technological means in place to prevent it -- such as NATting their entire RR customer base, which allows people to play games, etc.
And, Time Warner will let me run a server -- if I buy a "business class" connection. I will add that the business-class RR connection, which allows servers, is still a lot cheaper than other bandwidth alternatives.
They are actually very reasonable about it.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Capitalism...provides (if not requires) the ultimate remedy to this problem: competition.
I have to say I don't agree. The structure of Capitalism allows the acquisition or destruction of the "competition."
Capitalism is warfare in the retail realm (though it's effects spill out into other areas of life;) it is a pseudo-feudal system, where warlords seek to conquer their oposition, and smash them into the ground.
Any divergence from this scenario requires legislation to protect citizens from the mighty power that capitalist organisations wield: namely, a truce (where everyone agrees to a price for goods that benefits all major competitors) or victory over all opposition (where more legislation is needed to prevent the monopoly.)
It is every corporate entity's wish to either have a balance of power (which means an abatement of competition) or to eliminate their opposition (which, also means an abatement of competition.)
Capitalism is warfare. The bigger and smarter and more powerful, the more likely they will win. The only thing that stops a state of hegemonic dominance by Corporate Capitalist entities, is the law.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I agree. This is the difference between capitalism and a free market. When there is a monopoly, there is no free market because the buyer can't choose different suppliers. Yet monopolies are often the result of a long term capitalist market.
Having a free market should be the goal--not a capitalistic one. Unfortunately, the government seems to be pushing for a capitalistic market that is tightly regulated (as in enforcing policies that define every way the company should act). This is much like communism--the only difference is that the government doesn't own the companies on paper. Maybe it is this way in some countries, but it is this way in my country (the US). They don't even seem to punish most real criminal behavior--just bring down everyone with absurd contradictory and restrictive standards.
It should be that the government maintains a free market by enforcing anti-trust laws (which they don't--just look at Microsoft) and punishing actual criminal behavior--such as fraud, theft, murder, etc.