Net Neutrality it will affect us ALL

[hilld]

Yuck. Cringley increases my gut feel that this is not a problem that exists and the Congress will make a mess out of this. They should just leave well enough alone. If my ISP starts filtering sites from me I'll find another ISP that won't. ISPs already provided tier service. What is the big deal. I pay for a home DSL connection. If I want faster more reliable service I pay more. If I don't like what I pay now I get another ISP.

Later,
Dan

While that sounds fine and dandy, some of us don't have a choice when it comes to ISP. The one drawback of living in Rural areas is the lack of choice when it comes to communications and/or TV choices. When we lived in the city, we had DSL and Cable Internet available to us both at pretty good high speeds, now that I am living in the "country" ~ 5 miles away, all I can get is slow DSL or "dial up" (not really an option). In the city, Verizon is even adding a 3rd options with their FIOS (fiber to the home) services, however, I won't be seeing that anytime soon.

Less regulation is better, that way the vendor (ISP) cannot force their "values" on their customers that might not have a choice.

Derek

 

[dmccarty]

While that sounds fine and dandy, some of us don't have a choice when it comes to ISP. The one drawback of living in Rural areas is the lack of choice when it comes to communications and/or TV choices. When we lived in the city, we had DSL and Cable Internet available to us both at pretty good high speeds, now that I am living in the "country" ~ 5 miles away, all I can get is slow DSL or "dial up" (not really an option). In the city, Verizon is even adding a 3rd options with their FIOS (fiber to the home) services, however, I won't be seeing that anytime soon.

Less regulation is better, that way the vendor (ISP) cannot force their "values" on their customers that might not have a choice.

Derek

I too live in the country and I'm using DSL to type this up today. I have no cable access. While I have not tried to use another DSL service they call from time to time to get me to switch.

Is less regulation better? Well that is the point. The FCC loosened the reguations which started the debate. That is less regulation. Which regulations do you want? Reguation created by CongressCritters who are nitwits at best. Read the articles posted in the thread and tell use what is the right answer. I'll be danged if I know but I'll be very surprised if Congress will have the correct answer for me. Some of the groups pushing for so called Net Neutrality I dont trust. The groups for and against Net Neutrality make me very paranoid on this subject. I don't trust ANY of them to have the right answer.

Of the four incidents used as example of the Coming Horror, two are in Canada, one is from a small NC ISP that I have never heard of, and one was from Time Warner. All were very specific blocks on one site each for very specific reasons. Not good reasons but I would not have been going to any of the sites blocked.

And what exactly is the language of the bill for Net Neutrality? What does it say? And will the law really do what people are being sold?

Later,
Dan

 

[riptides]

now that I am living in the "country" ~ 5 miles away, all I can get is slow DSL or "dial up" (not really an option).

Hail Derek!

Amazing how the silent majority feels! I too am less than 3 miles away from a cable trunk, less than 2 miles from DSL. Endpoints.

One would think you build out the infrastructure first and worry about upgrading it second. And don't yap at me about cost effective.

They need a wake up call, and fast.

-Mike Z.

 

[getut]

The long and short of it is this.. the people who control the main pipes of the internet are wanting to control the internet at the service level rather than bulk. A good example of what they envision turning the internet into is the current cell phone market where each individual service is sold seperately back to the consumer.

One big change that they want to do though is to charge both ends a fee. They are whining because people use services such as Google and Ebay and they don't get a cut of the profits. They leave very major details out of the argument that they are starving because of it.

If John Doe buys his network connection (internet service) from say Time Warner cable, and Google buys their internet service AT&T, Time Warner is saying that they should get some money from not just you as they currently do, but they say they should also get some money from Google.

They want to break the internet up into individual fiefdoms fully controlled (and levied against) by each fiefdoms "controller". They want money both coming AND going and if they get their way, the internet will get much more expensive, much less useful, and you will pay fees by the service instead of buying general "internet access".



As additional information, this also plays into the hands of the eventual need to get internet service classified as a common carrier utility by the government. Basically regulating the fact that ISP's should do nothing but carry the data... any data... from any source, to any destination, with equal priority. Just like the phone system, ISP's should not have any say over what communication you use the internet for. Their job should be SOLELY to make it work. Period. They do not want that to happen because it would severely break their dreams for future pay per service revenue model if they get their way.

 

[hilld]

All I am trying to say is that the current system has worked since the 60's when Arpanet was created. It is true, that the explosive growth of the Internet didn't really start till the late 90's, but the lack of restrictions helped fuel the growth and the content increased exponentially. While keeping the status quo is not necessarily in the interest of the ISP's, it is in the interest of the consumer that uses the tools available without being nickeled and dimed to death with fees here and fees there or being censored because a content provider is not on an ISP's approved vendor list.

Just my 2 cents.

Derek

 

[getut]

All I am trying to say is that the current system has worked since the 60's when Arpanet was created. It is true, that the explosive growth of the Internet didn't really start till the late 90's, but the lack of restrictions helped fuel the growth and the content increased exponentially. While keeping the status quo is not necessarily in the interest of the ISP's, it is in the interest of the consumer that uses the tools available without being nickeled and dimed to death with fees here and fees there or being censored because a content provider is not on an ISP's approved vendor list.

There is no doubt after your post above that we agree 100% on the goal of having a 100% open internet, but we differ on what it will take to get there.

Frankly, it is a miracle that the internet, once released by the government into the hands of corporations has survived the way it has because there has been a LACK of regulation keeping them from trying to charge for everything. There needs to be hard/fast regulations stipulating that the internet is off limits.. just like the phone system. Regulations that dictate that they CANNOT treat business calls differently than calls to grandma... or demand an additional fee if you communicate with someone other than them or one of their partners.

They really do want to emulate the cell phone market with their internet services and there is nothing currently (technically speaking) stopping them from doing it. Given the fact there are no laws/rules/regulations prohibiting it, the only reason that it hasn't already happened is because there are political ramifications of doing so since the internet is a global medium. AT&T really can't be charging Australians for accessing google and getting routed across their network.. so there are some logistical problems to solve with what they want to do. Don't let that fool you though.. they WILL pull it off if allowed to do it.

 

[hilld]

I guess it has already been happening. Here is a quote from an article on news.com.


Another hot spot has involved Net neutrality. Telecommunications and cable companies have hinted that they may charge companies that eat up more bandwidth than others. Net neutrality proponents, including Newmark, want every Web site to be treated equally, and don't want big businesses acting as gatekeepers. In the end, it's consumers who may end up paying the price. Craigslist has become a poster child for neutrality proponents after Cox Communications recently blocked access to the site. Cox, owner of cable and newspaper operations, blames an unintentional systems glitch for the problem. The problem is still unfixed after more than 100 days and that's made conspiracy theorists of some in the neutrality camp.


Here is a link to the article.

http://news.com.com/Craigslists+Cra...ce+Guy/2100-1024_3-6088810.html?tag=nefd.lede

I really hope that this doesn't become the norm, but is only an exception.

Derek

 

[dmccarty]

I will play devils advocate for a moment.

Devil's advocate on:

First the Customer(us) always pays. That is life.

We already pay for tier services. Right now I'm on DSL I get a certain speed to and from the house. If I want faster service I pay more.

If you pay to have a web site its common to limit how much storage you get and how much traffic you get during a period of time. If you want more capacity you pay more.

I think the sataliite services also limit your traffic over a period of time. Or at least I think they did when I was looking at having to use the service years ago.

If the use of bandwidth goes up because we are not using it efficiently the pipes will get clogged at some point. Supposedly people with cable access are more prone to this than DSL. I THINK I saw this in our old house which had cable access. If we use too much bandwidth then the provider will have to upgrade their service. We will pay for this.

Why should a site like TBN which I would think has very low bandwidth requirements subsidize a site that is really chewing up capacity?

Is Craigslist fighting for Net Neutrality to protect ME or is he doing it to protect HIS livelyhood? Sounds like he might have to pay more. Not sure that I would.

If someone is running a file sharing server and eating up bandwidth why should I pay the same as him? He is the one eating up the capacity and maybe impacting my usage. Why should I pay for him. Why can't he pay for himself?

Right now I would like to have alacarte pick of the channels I get. I have absolutely NO use for anything on ESPN, Golf Channel, VH1, MTV, shopping channels, etc. But yet I have to pay for them. I subsidize the people who do watch that stuff. Why? I have to pay extra to get the channels I want. Why do I have to pay for what I don't want?

Devil's advocate off:

Personally I just wish EVERYONE would just stop and leave what is working alone. I don't want the Congress critters to start messing around with the Internet. The FCC needs to reset the regulations to what they where before. Changing things right now all but says we will go down the road of Unintended Consequences....

 

[sendero]

It absolutely astounds me that anyone would not be for Net Neutrality. What will happen if the ISPs get their way will not be pretty, and higher fees will only be a start. They also wish to control the bandwidth certain sites get and what it is all about is MAKING YOU SEE WHAT THEY WANT you to see, I.E. let sites THEY have a financial stake in load quickly, and their competitors sites load slowly. How is that good?

As for the "just get another ISP" argument, well it isn't that easy. I've tried to do just that in response to AT&T deciding that all internet records belong to them and guess what - there are precious few if any choices, unless I want to go back to dialup, or pay through the nose for satellite. It is no surprise that the folks who broought you $3 a gallon gas and 50%+ increases in electric/gas bills are now working to bring you $100 a month DSL that works crappy, but it is a surprise that anyone would fall for it.

This isn't even close, there aren't two sides to this question. The internet should have common carrier status like any other utility and no ISP should get to control it.

 

[hilld]

I understand what you are saying, however, I am not necessarily opposed to the "pay for what you use" model. I do have a problem with censorship and this is what is happening in the craigslist model. The article clearly states that newspapers have lost a lot of ad revenue from their classifieds to craigslist and others like it. Cox communications also owns newspapers and if their customers cannot access craigslist, obviously they can't post ads or buy stuff from craigslist ads.

While not as extreme as lets say the Chinese government blocking access to certain sites (not government approved), it works out to be a similar situation. If a service provider does not approve or get fees from a content provider, their site becomes "unavailable" to those customers. This is already happening today. A large CBS affiliate was blocking cable companies from carrying their HD signal unless those cable companies were going to pay the affiliate.

Link to article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOIN-TV

This is just the beginning, who knows where it can go.

Tomorrow content will be blocked because it is hosted on a competitors backbone. Something like this has happened a few years ago with a dispute with Level 3 communications and Cogent communications and this ended up causing problems for customers until lawmakers got involved and told them to get along (oversimplified).

Link to that article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/06/level3_cogent/

Who knows where this will end up, but we don't need any form of censorship, if we have to pay for our bandwitdh that is ok, even with cell phones we are not restricted on who we call, however, we do have to pay for the minutes used.

Just my 2 cents or a little more.

Derek