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."

Comments

Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry about

[FooAtWFU]

... 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.

Re:Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry ab

[QuantumRiff]

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.

Common argument

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Common argument

[NeutronCowboy]

Here is the biggest issue with the competition argument: in the vast majority of markets, there is at best a duopoly (cable and dsl). If you're completely out of luck, you only have one high-speed provider; generally ATT. The idea that free markets will magically keep the ISPs honest is ludicrous to the point of being a flat-out lie. At this point, I have to believe that anyone claiming that competition will do anything in the high-speed ISP market is just lying.

The only competition that exists is in the cellular high-speed internet access, and even that is incredibly limited competition: the high costs of terminating a contract prematurely make sure of that.

Re:Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry ab

[Anonymous Coward]

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?