Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee

Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."

Comments

Hmm... Technicalities.

[Davus]

The proposal, by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), would have given the Federal Communications Commission the power to prohibit discrimination when it comes to sending traffic over the Internet. Couldn't this, technically, also eliminate QoS/fair queue'ing and general firewall rules?

I'd love to see this.

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

I'd like to see companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, et cetera, form some kind of coalition. For one week, I'd like them to choose a telecom, maybe Verizon one week and at&t the next.

During that week, any requests for pages from those sites from the telecom's network would respond with a warning page saying

WARNING:

Your ISP ([Verizon]) is attempting to charge [Google] so that you can continue to access our site over the internet. If this happens, you will not be able to access [Google] using [Verizon]'s network. We assure you this is not our fault, and we hope you continue to use our site in the future.

If [Verizon] begins charging sites, you will no longer be able to access any of these sites using [Verizon] internet access:

• Google
• Yahoo
• ebay
• et cetera

[Verizon]'s customer service number is [1-877-483-5898].

Continue on to the page you requested.

Content providers' sites are one of the few reasons that Verizon and at&t can sell anything. Without sites like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, Verizon and at&t's pipes are pretty much worthless. The content providers really should make this clear to Verizon and at&t.