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Net Neutrality Comment Period Ends Friday

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the piece-of-mind dept.

FatherBash writes "Friday marks the final day for citizens, corporations, and paid spinmeisters alike to file comments with government regulators on Net Neutrality. Wired has the story with a link to the FCC page where you too can throw in your two cents."

3 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Re:From a previous post on Slashdot by Evil+Poot+Cat · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...and those ISPs will have to control every hop between end users and customers. At some point, an ISP will interface with another that charges extra, and those charges will have to be passed down the chain.

  2. Re:Government by hxnwix · · Score: 3, Informative
    Some very powerful people agree with you, but you don't have to take my word for it. Let's ask what Ed Whitacre, the last CEO of AT&T, our favorite past and future monopoly, what he has to say. Ed?

    There's a problem. It's called Net Neutrality... Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We're gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission... Will Congress let us do it? You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' Well, thanks Ed. You make your intentions very clear. And to Mr. The AtomicPunk, I hope you understand just what you are advocating and just who you are supporting. It is true that we have bad laws and bad regulation - but net nuetrality probably isn't one of them. If the internet is in fact broken, AT&T can go start their own pay-per-bit competitor and we'll all have to use it since it would be so much better.

    You could vote with your wallet and go use it.
  3. Re:The time to Rally is now... by sumdumass · · Score: 5, Informative

    All you have to do is write a letter to your congress critter saying.

    I purchase internet service for a fee. I am told I am getting so much speed or bandwidth for this purchase. Not having a neutral net means that the speed At&t or whoever my service provider at the time will be charging the websites I wish to visit a fee for them sending the services it offers at the speeds I paid for. Net neutrality guarantees this won't happen and that I as a consumer will not have my services slowed down on purpose by the service provider because they couldn't get some other party to pay them.

    Currently, there is a system in placed with the shared bandwidth agreements between providers and owners of the internet's network hubs that allows one network provider to raise funds for the maintenance and usage of their network by another. Of course this is a two way street and the providers feel threatened in that if they overcharge, the other provider will do the same for the traffic coming back through. When Google pays for it's internet, they are paying their provider a fee for the amount of bandwidth they are using. When I use the internet, I am paying a fee to my provider for the bandwidth I am using. When I visit google's site or use one of their service, we both are currently paying for the fees and services. Removing the idea of a neutral network would mean that we would be purposely limited and not getting the services we paid for by the people we are paying in order to have the internet service.

    Not preserving net neutrality means the service provider to whom we pay for our service can legally not deliver the speeds and services they promised when advertising and attempting to gain us as a customer. Government has always attempted to protect the consumer from devious acts like bait and switch or outright fraudulent and misleading advertising. This is the effect not preserving a neutral net will have when someone doesn't pay the fees for increased bandwidth and the consumer doesn't get the internet as their provider advertised. This goes against the history of the government and the basic protections from deceit and dubious business practices.

    PS,
    Might I remind you that the internet is a growing place for political outreach from candidates to their current or potential constituents. Not having a neutral internet means you could be charged to have your website and internet campaign materials delivered to every state in the country and often times inside the same state and cities fee's on top of your normal internet hosting and such. I suspect that popular sites will have advertisements explaining why their site is slow and who is responsible for the slowdowns too if net-neutrality fails to remain in place. IT is imperative that consumers get what they pay for and the government doesn't legalize the ability of them to not deliver what was promised when signing up for the service. When dealing with internet service providers like SBC/At&t, Qwest, Time Warner, and such who own the networks because of government granted monopolies that existed for a period of time, there isn't a level of competition that would protect consumers and guarantee they get what they paid for without the idea of net-nutrality that is currently in existence today. /end letter.

    I think too many opponents of what the telcos want to do don't focus enough on the consumers getting screwed by not having the service they pay for because their provider or the owner of the network their provider uses didn't get the extortion payment. If you buy a car advertised to go 70 MPH and it doesn't get over speeds of 55 MPH, there is recourse because of laws that were designed to protect the consumer. It doesn't make sense to throw this out because some big companies support it. Currently the idea against net neutrality is about competition and profit. Well, that is wrong, there is competition and profit from the current system, the problem is that the competition is a two way street, they need the other network as