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Australian ISPs Claim Net Neutrality Is an 'American Problem'
RATLSNAKE writes "The heads of some of the most popular Australian ISPs were all interviewed over at ZDNet about Net Neutrality. For once, they all seem to agree, and they say it's a problem with the US business model, or the lack thereof. They discuss why they don't think it's an issue in Australia. Simon Hackett, the managing director of Adelaide-based ISP Internode, had this to say: 'The [Net neutrality] problem isn't about running out of capacity. It's a business model that's about to explode due to stress. ... The idea that the entire population can subsidize a minority with an extremely high download quantity actually isn't necessarily the only way to live.' Of course, this also explains why we Australians do not have truly unlimited plans."
whenever conservatives talk about socialized services they seem to conflate problems of government corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and unpopular government with the socialized institution. but you're forgetting that public schools, law enforcement, fire departments, public libraries, roads, post offices, etc. are all socialized public infrastructure. if you really think that having government run infrastructure (in other words, having a government) is a bad idea, then wouldn't it be worse having them run the military, police, and writing laws?
if a country is a true democracy, then its government is merely a mechanism for carrying out the will of the people. i mean, most people like the idea of having free schools, but a single person cannot establish a free education system, so you do it through the government. likewise with roads, libraries, the legal system, etc.
if the government isn't acting in public interest, then that's a whole other fundamental problem that needs to be addressed regardless of whether ISPs should be socialized. i mean, why would a government ISP ignore problems any more than a commercial ISP would? would the gestapo come out and silence anyone who complains? or would they just ignore customer complaints like commercial ISPs do? at least the public has a voice in government, whereas they don't have a voice in private corporations.
all the people i've spoken to who've used public wi-fi access have commented on how great it is and seem quite satisfied with the way it works. there's no reason to think that just because a service isn't run based on corporate profits that it would be inherently inferior.
It would make sense to me that costs on the network would be regulated to cost-distance acquired for said packet.
That's exactly what we need, having to watch all the time if we're not accidentally browsing transatlantic after we click a link, or chat with someone.
Other smart ideas :P?
The problem is that this idea undermines one of the main points of net neutrality, to make as many parts of the Internet as free and easily accessible as others.
I agree that P2P is holding us back, and unfortunatley current P2P systems aren't "smart" enough to prefer local connections over long distance ones (which might actually be a trivial fix, but I don't know enough about the inner workings of Bittorrent and others.
Plus, it kind of fits with one of the main truths of the Internet's capacity; demand will always meet or exceed availablity.
What's the value of information that you don't know?