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Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the rally-cry dept.

GillBates0 writes "Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has written an open letter to the Google user community asking them to speak out on the issue of net neutrality. The official Google Blog has a blurb on this as well. From the letter: 'In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet ... Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight.'"

3 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. So let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They lay their cables on public property, with the consent of the government, on the condition that they provide a public service to all people equally... and now they're being ALLOWED to violate that? How can Congress justify that? Obviously they're is getting some cheddar for it, but don't they usually PRETEND they aren't?

    1. Re:So let me get this straight... by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      a tiered internet is all about. Charging more for changing speed limits.

      Disabuse yourself of the notion that what the telcos want is a "tiered internet". Charging more for changing the speedlimit is what we've got now. I pay a lot of money for a nice fast connection, with the understanding that it's nice and fast to any destination that can also do nice and fast.

      What the telcos want to do, instead of charging you to go fast, they charge the friend you're driving over to see. Maybe you're going to Disneyworld, then Disney foots the bill if you drive there faster than 25 mph. Now, of course 25 doesn't make sense, after all you used to be able to drive there at 60 most of the way, but thats how it's going to work now.

      The telcos repeatedly frame the issue as one of battling "network congestion" however they fail to explain how all of the packets getting resent after being dropped the first time(s) makes the congestion any better. (To further the analogy, now you're trying to go 60 on a road where everyone's going 25 because their friend didn't want to pay to see them.)

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  2. Ouch by Darklingza · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in a 3rd world African country where 60% of the population has never owned a Telephone and never even heard of the Internet (our Minister of Communications being one of them). Laws are written at the whim of our monopoly telecoms provider and anything and everything that can be done to increase profit and decrease expense IS done. A law like this being passed in the US would almost certainly be copied here, which would be a bad thing for me. So I ask this of all Americans, with tears in my baby blue eyes, please dont let your government screw you over again. Stop them, before they stop me!