Slashdot Mirror
Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality Is Already Gone
Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is "A Load of Bollocks". Anyone here been shaken down by their Internet Service Provider? "The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality 'a load of bollocks' and claiming he's already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others... If you aren't prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he'll put you in the Internet 'bus lane.'"
...is every one of his Slashdot-using customers running to cancel their accounts and find 'net access elsewhere - even if the data gets sent down a wet piece of string.
The point is not whether companies can get higher bandwidth by paying more. What has people angry is the idea that their cable provider might deny them the full bandwidth that they paid for when they connect to certain content providers or use VOIP.
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An anguished, collective shout of horror and surprise emanates from Virgin Media's PR department: "Nooooooooooo!!!"
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
This blatant confession by Virgin Media is the best news yet for the Net Neutrality movement. Because the main argument of the enemies of Net Neutrality (who are therefore the promoters of Net Doublecharge) has always been that "equal access is never threatened", while usually contradictorily also saying "unequal access will be necessary to pay for increased capacity". Now Virgin Media is just admitting that's all a bunch of BS, and they're so hellbent on destroying the equal access for everyone that they already do it.
This is an industry claiming we don't need our equal access protected. And now, at the same time, telling us that it's gone, and we're whining too much because they've already destroyed it.
The enemy has blinked. There now should follow a backlash that will guarantee that we don't continue to give away our most profitable, most strategic global asset, that the public paid to invent, and build and promote, to those crooks who will say anything to steal it. And evidently are now so arrogant that they'll even admit they've already stolen it. Even though they haven't, or at least not so much that we can't take it back.
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make install -not war
Net neutrality means you can't bill your competitor's customers. This is absolutely essential to a free market.
See, there are actually four parties involved. The end user, Bob, buys a connection from an ISP, CableCo. Meanwhile, example.com, buys a connection from a different ISP, ExampleOnline. CableCo and ExampleOnline are competitors, but they have a peering agreement, which means that they agree to share the costs of a connection which lets Bob visit example.com. What's happening here is that CableCo is trying to get money from example.com. But example.com is ExampleOnline's customer! If ExampleOnline's customers are generating traffic which CableCo can't handle, then they need to renegotiate their peering agreement, not go after ExampleOnline's customers. That's unethical and possibly illegal.
I paid to invent and build that Internet that Virgin Media is now holding hostage for charging ransom against the billing model that made it worth holding for ransom. That's not a "free market", except in the corporate handouts you "Libertarians" love to pretend is "free" because you'd love to be the next ripoff artist yourself.
So I'm not "fighting WW2", a ridiculous comment from yet another Anonymous Libertarian Coward. I'm trying to keep some corporate interloper from ruining something that's too important to ignore. And as a trivial side skirmish, I'm slapping down your nonsense about a "free market" that erupts across an open Internet only because it does have equal access.
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make install -not war
How do you think the cable companies got started? One cable at a time.
You left out one government granted monopoly to use the right of way at a tyme.
FalconShould there be a Law?