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Net Neutrality Alone Won't Solve ISP Throttling Abuse, Here's Why

MojoKid writes Net neutrality is an attractive concept, particularly if you've followed the ways the cable and telco companies have gouged customers in recent years, but only to a limited extent. There are two problems with net neutrality as its commonly proposed. First, there's the fact that not all traffic prioritization is bad all of the time. Video streams and gaming are two examples of activities that require low-latency packet delivery to function smoothly. Email and web traffic can tolerate significantly higher latencies, for example. Similarly, almost everyone agrees that ISPs have some responsibility to control network performance in a manner that guarantees the best service for the most number of people, or that prioritizes certain traffic over others in the event of an emergency. These are all issues that a careful set of regulations could preserve while still mandating neutral traffic treatment in the majority of cases, but it's a level of nuance that most discussions of the topic don't touch. The larger and more serious problem with net neutrality as its often defined, however, is that it typically deals only with the "last mile," or the types and nature of the filtering an ISP can apply to your personal connection.

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  1. Re:tl;dr by JasonGoatcher · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    tl; dr: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

    Democracy is a buzz word politicians use to make voters like them. Democracies are dangerous unstable things.

    Luckily, the US hasn't fallen in this trap since we have never been a democracy at any time. The US is a constitutional republic, a nation of written law(or at least we're supposed to be) with the dominant document(supposed to be) being the constitution.

    I think the problem we have in the US is that we've forgotten what we are because of this buzzword democracy and that's why politicians and judges are able to abuse us so efficiently. We need to remind government workers that they exist FOR us, and ultimately they answer TO us.

    Laws exist to be applied directly to everyone, so I would encourage you to actually read the laws that most apply to you to see what they actually say. You might be surprised to find that what the public believes and what is actually true are two very different things.