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A Simple Guide To Net Neutrality
superapecommando writes in with a neutral introduction to net neutrality from ComputerWorld UK. While it doesn't go into a lot of technical depth, it's rare to see anything written on the subject that isn't rabid on one side or the other. "Google's recently announced plan to set up trial fiber-optic networks in the US with ultra-high-speed Internet connections puts the long running national debate over Net Neutrality back into high gear. A hot topic of discussion and debate in government and telecom circles since at least 2003, Net Neutrality, actually involves a broad array of topics, technologies and players. Here's a primer for those looking to get up to speed fast."
... or even the most important thing to worry about. Watch for big cable-companies to impose bandwidth caps and raise the price of data transfer to protect their regional video monopolies at the expense of Internet-accessible video content. Bandwidth caps are outside of the purview of NN as it's traditionally defined.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Thats just as horrible as electric utilities making you pay per Killowatt/hour of power.
Honestly.. I would prefer a $X per Giga or Megabyte over $x for unlimited*
*Where we define unlimited, who gets throttled when and can cut you off for exceeding any internal threshold that we will not tell you about.
Seriously.. If I am curious about my power usage, I can walk outside, look at the meter, and figure out pretty close to what I owe.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
One of the most common arguments that I hear out of net neutrality opponents is that competition will somehow keep most ISP's net neutral without any messy government regulation. But what happens if all the major ISP's start blocking certain sites (like Pirate Bay)? With most people (in the U.S. at least) having at most 1-3 broadband providers to choose from, exactly where are you supposed to you go when all the big ones agree on a blacklist? And how can you open up a competing provider when all the wire and fiber are in the hands of monopolies like AT&T, Time-Warner, etc.? It's not like you can just start up a Mom & Pop broadband provider and start laying hundreds of miles of cable. Even Google will have a hard time competing with the big telco's and cableco's with the relatively minor bit of fiber optic they own.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I have no problem with doing that with the way things are done now.
But when there is a new guy running Google (and it will happen eventually) - I don't know if I want to be fully dependant on Google services.
I think you might have heard that euphemism about eggs and baskets...
If Google provides me from everything from a computer to internet to applications... It's a scary thought if someone else starts running the show, with the only goal of seperating me from as many dollars as possible.
The big cable companies should be allowed to do whatever they want with their networks. They paid for the networks out of their own pocket, free from any tax-payer subsidies, right?
Wait. What's that? They didn't? Oh. My mistake!
At least we're not throwing 7 billion dollars of taxpayer money in their general direction in the form of "stimulus".
Really? We're doing that too? You're kidding?
The net neutrality argument is one that should never have been.
The baby bells in the US were required to carry competitors traffic over their networks and this is the way it should have been for all utilities.
Then there is the question of what exactly to carriers own anyway.
The Internet was paid for by tax payers so why should they get the right to profit off of what the public has paid for?
Right now they arent legally considered common carrier. They get all the benefits of being a common carrier. Legally force them to be a common carrier and all these problems go away.
Only reason for them to restrict what is being transmitted.
1. illegal: child porn or ddos/spam; only with applicable legal implications of getting the law involved.
2. Act of the flying spaghetti monster destroyed the packet.
3. The transmitter sent a fragmented or broken packet.
4. Their network is being attacked.
Otherwise they are liable for the cost of the damage.
Japan has done this. Surprise surprise they have reasonable and good quality internet access there. $45 will get you 45mbit/5mbit unlimited. or $75 for 100mbit/100mbit unlimited.
Comcast initiated RST attacks on users and denied it for ages. Bandwidth caps began applying, except to the streaming services provided by the carriers themselves. But if you're willing to trust a corporation not to fuck you over, well, that's your own game of russian roulette.
And the end result is people wont' get the service they want and will find alternatives. And you can make the same comparison to cars, which is a lot more appropriate. But in general, the free market works well to protect the consumer. why, because the consumer must willing pay for the service. So they're not gonna pay for something that doesn't work. Adam Smith's invisible hand is well at work, even when you're not aware of it.
So it's a monopoly, but not a monopoly. Because there are other, often inferior, alternatives to a monopoly granted by the municipality. You're saying that because dialup is available in the area, they have carte blanche to abuse their customers, am I right?
it's not really a monopoly is my point, unless you make your definition only to a narrow market. And again, the market protects customers, even with the smaller threat of dialup/satellite, it's not ideal, but it's good enough, becuase they still have to have costumers and the best way to keep/make more customers to treat them right. Most places know this, even if it doesn't always seem like they do.
You act like it's easy as it is. No, it's hard. The incumbents love how difficult it is now, they just don't like it when people get sick of their shit and apply legal pressure.
So you're saying because it's hard now, why not make it even harder?
Comcast is not legally a monopoly or a duopoly. There is no regulation prohibiting a second, third, or even fourth cable company from setting up shop. Most smart cable companies were very careful not to sign exclusive franchises anywhere.
In fact, Comcast faces stiff competition from satellite and telco providers.
The only competition Comcast doesn't face is from competing cable companies, and that is not because of regulation, it's a cost issue. Those same smart cable companies that signed non-exclusive franchises know there just isn't enough demand from potential customers to merit the cost of two supply chains. I.e., system buildout costs can't be recovered from sufficient customers. That's a defacto but not legal monopoly, but even then, wireless services are eating Comcast's lunch already.
Cable companies used to be subject to strong local regulation (I was a member of two such cable regulatory groups), but the FCC released them from that due to the increased competition from satellite and greater regionalization of companies (i.e., the first cable commission I was on regulated a local company, which eventually got bought out by a national one.)
All that said, I agree they ought to be regulated. Comcast in particular. Especially Comcast scum. But good luck with that. Even when they are shown federal law requiring them to do something, they ignore it, and the FCC has to date ignored it, as well.