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Cory Doctorow Draws the Line On Net Neutrality
Nerdposeur points out that Cory Doctorow has a compelling piece in The Guardian today, arguing that network neutrality is not only crucial for the future of the Internet, but is what the ISPs owe to the public. He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?" "If the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke. All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day... If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work — give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
That's not what net neutrality is about. That's QoS or usage tiers. What net neutrality is about is making sure that toll road owners are not charging more for trucks carrying company A's stuff than trucks driving company B's stuff. ISPs want to be able to degrade performance from certain internet services, such as Skype and Hulu, in order to "encourage" you to use their own services. That is, unless those services pay your ISP an extortion fee.
In other word, net neutrality is about not discriminating against the source of the traffic. It says nothing about discriminating based on the type of traffic and amount. Comcast should not arbitrarily degrade my Skype traffic because they prefer me to use their VOIP service and Skype refuses to pay them a kickback. I should be able to choose how I use my connection, so long as I am not infringing upon other users.
Municipalities do charge them. We just charge too little, and don't ask for much service in return. The last time my city "negotiated" with the cable company, I don't recall it being big news, and I certainly don't recall there being much public debate over what the terms should be.
For me, it's 8 years until the current contract is up. And yes, I'm going to make a stink.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Some parts of the country don't even have 2 options. The company I work for, we do tech support for multiple cable companies across the U.S. Some areas, speeds are as low as 256kbps down/128kbps, and that's all that's available. No DSL.
In my neighborhood I have a last-mile fiber provided by a government-regulated monopoly, to which I pay a government-established fee (small).
The monopoly cannot provide uplink services; these are provided by a ton of ISPs over the monopoly's fiber. I know of about 5-6 such ISPs, and I am sure there are at least a few dozens.
I am paying a total of about $40 a month for 100Mbps.
What, you're not big on Ayn Rand fanfic?
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
Um, guys? A black flag symbolizes Anarchism. The suggestion of waving a black flag, I think, was intended as a sign of support.
Then again, I reserve the right to be wrong.
www.wavefront-av.com