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Steve Wozniak: Net Neutrality Rollback 'Will End the Internet As We Know It' (siliconbeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Silicon Beat:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak penned an op-ed on Friday with a former Federal Communications Commission chairman, urging the current FCC to stop its proposed rollback of Obama-era net neutrality regulations. In the op-ed published by USA Today, Wozniak and Michael Copps, who led the FCC from 2001 to 2011, argued the rollback will threaten freedom for internet users and may corrode democracy... "Sometimes there's a nugget of truth to the adage that Washington policymakers are disconnected from the people they purport to represent," they wrote. "It is a stirring example of democracy in action. With the Internet's future as a platform for innovation and democratic discourse on the line, a coalition of grassroots and diverse groups joined with technology firms to insist that the FCC maintain its 2015 open internet (or 'net neutrality') rules."
In the joint letter, Wozniak and Copps write that "We come from different walks of life, but each of us recognizes that the FCC is considering action that could end the internet as we know it -- a dynamic platform for entrepreneurship, jobs, education, and free expression."
"Will consumers and citizens control their online experiences, or will a few gigantic gatekeepers take this dynamic technology down the road of centralized control, toll booths and constantly rising prices for consumers? At stake is the nature of the internet and its capacity to transform our lives even more than it already has."
In the joint letter, Wozniak and Copps write that "We come from different walks of life, but each of us recognizes that the FCC is considering action that could end the internet as we know it -- a dynamic platform for entrepreneurship, jobs, education, and free expression."
"Will consumers and citizens control their online experiences, or will a few gigantic gatekeepers take this dynamic technology down the road of centralized control, toll booths and constantly rising prices for consumers? At stake is the nature of the internet and its capacity to transform our lives even more than it already has."
If the wire isn't filled, it's under utilized. Once the capacity is built, it's no skin off their noses whether a bit flows down the wire or not save a comparative minuscule cost in electricity.
It matters which wire you're talking about. For wires the ISP owns (e.g., cable infrastructure and internal networks), that's absolutely true. For upstream wires receiving data from the world at large, more data flow due to the ISP's customer demands will cost the ISP more. That's at least one reason why ISPs want to offer their own content since the distribution cost to them is low and it reduces the collective demand for external bandwidth, which allows them to better predict their costs and keep customer prices stable.
The ISPs have long figured out data rates. If you want 'unlimited' you pay a handsome monthly fee, at least here. Otherwise, there are caps past which one is charged per GB.
I presume "here" is across the pond, and if so I agree that the concept of metered data is a lot more mature there than it is in the U.S. (Unsurprisingly, as far as I can tell Netflix et al. usage is a lot lower there as well.) Caps and pricing in the U.S. are very fluid right now as streaming services become more of a viable alternative to conventional TV and as content resolution increases.