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Sir Tim Berners-Lee Makes a Last-Minute Plea To Save Net Neutrality in Europe (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the world wide web, is calling on regulators in Europe to protect net neutrality and "save the open internet." In a letter released this week, Berners-Lee, Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, and Harvard law professor Larry Lessig urged European regulators to implement guidelines that would close loopholes in net neutrality legislation that the European Parliament approved in October 2015. They also called on internet users to voice their opposition online, before the public consultation period on the guidelines ends on July 18th. "Network neutrality for hundreds of millions of Europeans is within our grasp," the letter reads. "Securing this is essential to preserve the open Internet as a driver for economic growth and social progress. But the public needs to tell regulators now to strengthen safeguards, and not cave in to telecommunications carriers' manipulative tactics."
People do want "dumb pipes". They just don't realize it. It is in their best interest to do so. The vast majority doesn't even know how networks work.
Even in the cities ISPs use public right of way for their access and equipment. If they had to buy/lease that land it would cost them many billions. Once companies start paying for the COMPLETE cost of doing business we won't ask them for anything.
The laws preventing local ISPs/community ISP's and competition are rampant in the US. Therefore competition is stymied from the onset. Remove those barriers to competition and then what you are asking is valid.
False question. The question isn't whether bureaucrats should be allowed to shape traffic, the question is whether ANYONE but the two endpoints should be allowed to do so. Net Neutrality means exactly that NOBODY meddles with the flow of bits, which includes that ISPs are just transporters of bits and not arbitrators on whose bits go where with what priority.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
NN usually allows QoS.
As it should. NN is tricky. (I can't tell, did the sarc tag apply here also? If it did, ignore my post)
I'm sorry, but that is a mistaken belief. NN and QoS are in direct opposition to each other. You can have one, but never both. The internet must be made agnostic to be neutral. QoS is just the cheap way out of building robust infrastructure. It is done for expedience, not to raise "quality". It can serve well in a private intranet, but on the WAN QoS is pure politics to prioritize big money, and the client/server monopoly we are under today probably precludes anything else. There is a way and plenty of money to do it right, with neural, ad hoc, whatever-net, but there is little will while most people think what we have is "good enough". All hindrance to a better system is politically based. The technology already exists.
And also a good start would be to declare internet service as a public utility. Content is absolutely nobody's business, outside the sender and intended recipient. Try telling that to a European (or any other, for that matter) bureaucrat though. They'll try to control face to face communications.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”