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.'"
...he's already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others... IANAL, so does anybody know if these kinds of deals might have the effect of invalidating an ISP's 'common carrier' protections?If so, I vote we prosecute him for downloading child porn, as a modern-day equivalent of walking the plank, and a warning to the other ISPs...
Yarrrrr!
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I don't know about other people, but it angers me greatly that an ISP that has already been paid by me for the bandwidth I use, gets to turn around and extort money from the providers that I access. Overselling bandwidth and net neutrality are two separate issues. I can deal with the overselling of bandwidth for longer, because overall it doesn't limit the amount of content available to me, it just makes me wait a little longer. Allowing ISP's to charge providers for a transaction that has essentially already been paid for is dangerous and downright wrong. It's not unthinkable that this could lead to payment disputes between companies where some major providers are only available on certain networks, in fact it's probable that this is the end result.
Make no mistake, what this guy is talking about makes me very angry.
I got a catholic block.
Just FYI - whilst Virgin have the cable market in the UK sewn up, we're lucky enough to not have a situation whereby ISPs are limited to any particular area.
Of course - the only other alternative for digital TV would be freeview (limited channels) or Rupert Murdoch's Sky.
However, if enough people got wind of this, it would be possible to give Virgin a bit of a kicking financially.
I was cynical enough to believe that myself, that "Net Neutrality" would die an obscure inside baseball battle in which telcos easily rolled over a few geeks with a sense of history, economics and fair play. But then it turned out to be surprisingly popular and accessible to the public at large. I don't know how it happened, but it did.
It doesn't hurt to underestimate the public's attention span and insight into its self-interest, because it's usually absent, especially in the face of distracting entertainment. Unless by underestimating you ignore when it's available as a powerful ally. In Net Neutrality, this has somehow turned out to be the case. Let's not pass it up.
--
make install -not war
It's only faster until they decide to shake down your favorite site or service. Then you might as well have dial up.
Their brazen admission of these practices is not better than alleged shameful practices. Both are wrong and both lead to the same place if the other companies are determined to rip everyone off. The practice can't be hidden for long, so what you have is a choice between ignorant leadership that may be evil or plain evil. Both suck.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I see this as one area where Google, MS and Yahoo can show some real leadership. Don't hand over any extra money, and if the customer's ISP is a known throttler, then place a message at the top of each page stating "The page you have requested is being slowed down by your internet provider. Click here to find out why and what you can do about it". If the three biggest websites and their other websites (remember that Google owns YouTube and Yahoo owns Flickr) all put this message on, the backlash against the ISP would be way too big. Remember that speed is relative, especially when downloading webpages. Telling the user to expect the pages slower then usual will give the user the impression it is, even if the ISP hasn't yet started throttling.
If I was some content provider like a youtube knock off or something and I got some bullshit shakedown letter asking for money or they'll limit the download speed at my site, I'd note the ISP sending it and put a blatent note on every video playing page that said "If _____ is your ISP, they're purposely slowing down video streaming on this site. To view videos at full speed, switch to another ISP." That would really burn their ass. You get enough of those messages around the internet on high traffic sites and everyone will get a really bad image of that ISP really fast and switch like crazy. That would be the end of that crap and it would force net nuetrality faster than any law would.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The service was great while my ISP was Blueyonder, but then the "Bearded Demon" (Richard Branson) and his hooded Virgin Media hordes took them over. Now I can't download a single TV program from ITunes without being throttled into oblivion. What's the point of broadband when you just get throttled when you use it?