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Tech Manufacturers Rally Against Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "Producers of networking hardware such as Motorola, Corning, and Tyco have come out against Net Neutrality. They support the current senate communications bill, and urge immediate action. 'Don't be confused by these spurious complaints about Net neutrality,' Tim Regan, a vice president with fiber optic cable manufacturer Corning Inc., said. 'Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.'" From the article: "Supporters say the Senate measure, which was approved by a committee vote in June but has since gotten hung up chiefly over Net neutrality, is crucial because it would make it easier for new video service providers--such as telephone companies hoping to roll out IPTV--to enter the market, increase competition for cable, and thus spur lower prices. Among other benefits, they say, it would also permit municipalities to offer their own broadband services."
From the summary:
Wait, so telcos are rallying for a bill that would allow municipal broadband? I find that hard to believe.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
It seems to me that telcos would also need a lot of new hardware, supporting more traffic shaping and QoS. I wonder if the tech manufacturers have anything that might help them with that...
You wanna talk about solutions in search of problems?
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
"Net Neutrality" is about control of the future of media - who can deliver what to the masses, with the power to exclude and/or dampen alternative points of view. Simply following long established history of swaying public opinion through control of media.
The momentum to ensure the internet remain a neutral medium has completely died out by this point. Meanwhile, the corps that would benefit from the internet being non-neutral are moving deeper and deeper into a well-funded PR push that just gets more sophisticated and more dishonest all the time. The public, always light on technical issues, is now reaching the point where they don't know what "net neutrality" is, except that it's bad.
Google, if you're listening, you're losing big time here.
So if UUNet is throttling traffic to Amazon how will switching from Comcast to ATT help? It won't. Chances are all routes from your physical location to a given host passes through one of only a few Tier 1 providers regardless of who your last mile ISP is. Don't think in terms of your local ISP charging you to vist websites, think of trunk carriers charging websites to receive traffic from them.
Breaking Net Neutrality violates the End to End Principal. Think of it this way: would you want a phone call from Boston to Florida to cost more than one from New York to California because some regional telco in Georgia wanted to charge Miami more to receive calls? The end of a rational peering system won't be the end of the Internet, it will just be the end of this internet.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but I will try to explain the breif history of this debate as I have understood it since its development.
1) The internet was considered a telecommunication and as thus had to adhere to existing net neutrality regulations. This was the case since the internet existed.
2) At some point, the FCC ruled that the internet was a data service and not a telecommunication. As a side effect of this ruling, Net neutrality was no longer required for the internet.
3) Verizon (I think) started to throtle VoIP, more specificly Vonage traffic.
4) Verizon, Bellsouth and ATT came out and publicly made statements that Google, YouTube, and Vonage have been getting a free ride on their pipes (forgot who started it).
5) The easily defeatable debate of a "free ride" (due to the fact Google/YouTube/Vonage pay for their traffic) made the telecoms change their position and the debate about wanting to serve Television over the internet (TVoIP?). Somehow Net Neutrality would prevent them from offering these extra services to their customers.
6) The "free ride" debate sparked interest in creating a net neutrality bill passed for the internet.
There is a lot more details here, but this is in essence what I have followed. I do not see why it is so hard to see that the greedy bastards are the cable/telecoms? Why are we paying so much for internet access and yet receiving so little when compared to other countries? Where did the $200 billion go to fund a 45mbps duplex fiber line to every home in America? Why do people keep defending the very same companies who tried to rob you of $2/month when the FCC lifted several federal charges on DSL? I am pretty pissed, and everyone else should too!
For me, if I'm ever torn on a candidate for office or a ballot mandate and I don't know or have time to research all of the issues involved, I'll often look at who supports or opposes them. One can often make an informed decision based on this alone.
So, lets look at who supports Net Neutrality: Google, Yahoo, Vonage, Ebay, Skype, Amazon etc. Now take a gander at who is against it: Most (not all) politicians, major telcos such as Verizon, ATT, Comcast, Time Warner and now hardware manufacturers are coming out against it. Now is it so hard to tell who is telling the truth and who is spreading FUD? Who among those mentioned above has the best interests of the consumer and small businesses in mind, and who else is constantly trying to squeeze more and more and more profits from them?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?