Slashdot Mirror
U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality
tygerstripes writes "A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has led to a rejection of the principle of Net Neutrality from the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act), in spite of massive lobbying from prominent businesses. According to the BBC, the bill '...aims to make it easier for telecoms firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'. However, according to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, 'telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet.'"
whhhhat???? the Internet is free????
And so ends freedom on the internet. Fuck you, congress.
It's strange how much we detest government regulation in televsion, radio and voice services, but suddenly we're begging for in on the internet.
Why isn't it reasonable that if a company is making money by using someone else's resources- they should have to pay for it? When send my customers packages, I have to pay UPS to deliver them. This isn't any different.
With the increase of bandwidth consumption by sites like google video and youtube, someone is eventually going to have to pay to upgrade the infrastructure. Why not charge the companies that are making money off of it? (as opposed to me, who is only wasting money on it)
Kadko- *sigh* 156hrs and it looks like the work of a 12yr old
If the companies that own the actual physical networks that the Internet is made up of choose to create differentiated services, then so be it. That's their choice. It's their network. Hell, they could just shut it down.
People running around screaming "the end of freedom speech" are idiots. Freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to a means to speak and desiminate your message. Prior to the Internet the government wasn't required to provide you with paper to write your scathing political treatise or publish your ramblings on the importance of Jules Vern to the modern psyche.
When the networks try to get government protection to screw with the public... I disagree with that as well... keep the whole damn government out of it.
1. If this puts the bandwidth hogs into a higher price tier, so be it.
2. Will this really allow the telcos to blackmail internet company X? I would imagine, say, Google already pays an enormous amount of money for their multiple OC-3*2^zillion links. Couldn't they go to a different ISP?
3. If this made general Internet access suck it could (here's to hoping) force deregulation of transmission lines.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!