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Congresswoman Writes On Broadband, Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat representing parts of Silicon Valley, has written an op-ed defending net neutrality and pushing the administration to take more steps to speed up US broadband. From the article: 'A climate of openness and innovation has been the hallmark of the Internet. A decade ago, it's what allowed a startup named Google to compete with better-funded, less technologically advanced competitors. Today, Congress has the responsibility to preserve this climate for the next Google, and for the consumers and the economy that will benefit from its success.'"
To begin talking about Net Neutrality, it helps to clarify what the internet is. It’s simply data sent via TCP/IP (the protocol for sending data through routers). Some people host web sites, others connect to their company e-mail, others do other things - it’s all the internet.
Understanding that the internet is just a connection using TCP/IP, then Net Neutrality is simple, too. Net Neutrality simply means that your ISP may not interfere with the internet. They may not censor your packets (the data that is sent via TCP/IP). This means they can’t censor your news, keep you off of Skype, or otherwise interfere with your TCP/IP communications.
Any compromise on this is wrong for two reasons: 1) Your ISP should not have the right to interfere with your free speech, and 2) ISPs should not be able to tax the value creation of the media industry.
ISPs should not be able to interfere with consumer access to media companies, nor tax those companies for access to consumers. ISPs should not be able to interfere with our speech or block our access to the speech of others.
ISPs are in the business of providing internet access, but they don't own the internet; any attempts to eliminate net neutrality would violate our consumer rights and hurt the economy.
Better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.
The internet has flourished precisely because the government regulators (aka nannies) have stayed out of it.
It has flourished because all the major players considered that neutrality was a good idea and just went along with it, making government involvement unnecessary. Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
The internet is going to be regulated. The only question is to what degree and by who.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I'm sorry, I would have loved to read your comment, but I wasn't able to. Comcast had throttled the speed at which your comment loaded, since its content was determined to not be in the best interest of Comcast-NBC. Maybe next time say something about 30rock or Outsourced at the end of your comment so it loads a little faster for me please.
Congress has a responsibility To support America's richest fatcat aristocracy from upstarts and mushrooms. Puppets work for those who pull their strings.
That is what it exists to do these days.
They don't want anymore Googles. They'd rather such things were strangled in their cribs.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Notice that the parent doesn't deal with any of the issues at hand. It's just talking points and ideological scary-talk (Oooh, "bureaucrats," "control," "clowns," "nannies!")
>>>Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
Since when? Have there been sites you could not access? I haven't noticed ANY change in how my ISP acts now, or five years ago, or even back in the beginning (1993).
Actually now that I think about it, the ISP were more closed at the beginning (the internet was walled off or limited), and have moved towards *more* openness not less.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
...devalues Citizens United.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The nannies are already involved. In most locations cable is the one technologically superior option, and the operators have been granted monopolies by the state (natural monopoly kind of thing).
Alternatives exist, but they have disadvantages. DSL is slower, WiMax/4G/etc. are nice but tend to have caps, Satellite is expensive and has major latency problems, and fiber is costly to deploy so doesn't have significant penetration.
If you consider the cable companies as agents of the state (since their monopolies are sanctioned by the state), then the enforcement of network neutrality is simply a codification of first amendment rights. If you consider them as monopolies than its a pre-emptive description of how anti-trust laws will be applied to ISPs.
I admit, I think Net Neutrality has its issues: it limits innovations in consumer-friendly QOS implementations, and who knows what else. However, I'd rather have that than let the cable companies stop new business models from growing on the internet (I'm sure Comcast is salivating to be able to legally crush Netflix through 'helpful' throttling). A better solution would be to treat internet providers as common carriers and enforce line-sharing, create a real market and let the invisible hand do its thing. But if we can't do that, net neutrality is the best way to keep the internet as the dynamic force it is today.