15 replies to this topic

[GeniusInc]

This is an important debate in the US.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw

 

The video in the NYTimes link presents the other side (kinda) of the debate

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/technology/fcc-road-map-to-net-neutrality.html?_r=0

[AngelCruzdelaSant]

Too bad that we're too sluggish to actually do something. Nice knowing you Internet q_q

[Blaskowicz]

Unfortunately, it does not seem to be going in favor of us.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/15/fcc-approves-plan-to-allow-for-paid-priority-on-internet/

[7HersH7]

Lobbyists doing the hard work to proceed screwing smaller companies in favor for major corporations. It's business. 

[AngelCruzdelaSant]

Nothing says "free market" like allowing major corporations and monopolies screw everything else out of existence. BRING BACK STANDARD OIL!

[Lysistrata]

I like that video.

I have Cox Cable and I get my internet, phone, and TV from them. Now I know why I pay much more for faster service.

And the bill keeps getting higher as time rolls on.

Thank you Sir.

[onbekende]

lets nuter all of the internet!

[Icewolf]

The issue is not net neutrality. The issue is the lack of competition in the market places. Because I live in a city in the good old UK, thereby a location which has a choice of providers, any provider that tried to limit my google access in favour of bing would find itself without a customer. (Bing sucks...let no one tell you otherwise)

 

Losing net neutrality does allow for more efficient use of existing infrastructure. For example, your cat video you are streaming will run fast even though your nieghbour is currently downloading 600gb of porn to his hardrive*. this is a good thing, Cats > Porn. 

 

The abuse comes from where you cannot switch, in which case you have a problem. But you already have a problem, and by getting you to fight over net neutrality the ISPs are getting you to treat it as normal that you cannot just switch out of their contract and to a better company. 

 

*If you live in a shared house and your internet seems strangely slow, install a porn filter on the router. It can be very entertaining and massively speed up the internet. 

[Lysistrata]

I use Bing because I really don't like any company that gets too power hungry. Google is just sucking up too much and they support political positions that are just flat dangerous to a free market Republic. So I want Google trimmed with some good old fashioned competition. Facebook too. Cell phones are awful. Twitter is also a sesspool and all these things are turning the world mean and lazy.

 

I don't have a problem with Bing. Tell me why it sucks?

[Lorikz Kain]

Honestly net neutrality isn't so black and white and the FCC actually usually does a pretty solid job here of defending the consumers on internet related issues. While the internet is not the property of a single entity the connection to it is. It costs billions of dollars to build, maintain and upgrade the infrastructure to the internet so by no means can it be free. Also I think people here are missing some key points from that article.
First, it is companies, mostly those such as netflix, amazon prime, and sites with very heavy internet traffic that would have to pay more. Reason being largely because the most data heavy traffic on the internet is all the videos people are streaming, especially HD videos. If I recall correctly from a few years back I had saw that video streaming was accounting for some 60% of total internet traffic. That is a lot of data coming through the ISP's infrastructure potentially slowing down the rest of the internet traffic. In order to prevent that millions of dollars go into upgrading and expanding their infrastructure constantly to support the increasing demand put on their network by us the consumers. By forcing companies with high data output to pay for more of that infrastructure it could actually help prevent the ISP's from turning around and having to raise their consumer rates to pay for the infrastructure improvements.
Second, this has only been approved for a step forward in which the FCC has opened it up for open communication and discussion in order to better understand what the consumers and other businesses think about it. The FCC has a job to protect us, the consumers, and they are asking us, the consumers, what we think about this issue, that kind of transparency from a federal agency is more than you usually get.
Third, it says that the FCC will intervene to prevent ISP's from throttling sites and will make sure us the consumers aren't negatively impacted in any way. They won't allow any content blocking and to pull a direct quote, "There is one Internet. It must be fast, it must be robust, and it must be open," Wheeler said. "The prospect of a gatekeeper choosing winners and losers on the Internet is unacceptable."

So really pending further investigation and close watch by the FCC so long as the prices for the businesses are at a fair and reasonable rate I see no reason they shouldn't have to pay more money if they want a faster connection, so long as the baseline speeds stay the same across the board. Unfortunately it doesn't really say in detail what exactly the companies will be paying for or how the ISP's will do this.

I am not against this, just cautious of this.

If you want a true net neutrality issue to be concerned with then you need to follow the TPP. It has a greater potential for negatively impacting the internet globally: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

[Lysistrata]

Thank you LK for this well thought out and informitive post. Good reading.

[Lorikz Kain]

Thank you LK for this well thought out and informitive post. Good reading.

Thanks, it is a topic I periodically read up on and am subscribed to multiple internet rights groups newsletters. I also work for an ISP so I am aware of both sides of the debate to some extent. That is why while I agree that the internet needs to be open I am also a realist that understands it can't be free. It's a hard balancing act and like many things technology related the laws are desperately trying to keep up and adapt to an ever changing landscape. I actually kind of feel sorry for the FCC who has to be at the front lines of it all.

[Icewolf]

I use Bing because I really don't like any company that gets too power hungry. Google is just sucking up too much and they support political positions that are just flat dangerous to a free market Republic. So I want Google trimmed with some good old fashioned competition. Facebook too. Cell phones are awful. Twitter is also a sesspool and all these things are turning the world mean and lazy.

 

I don't have a problem with Bing. Tell me why it sucks?

Generally, I can find things quicker with Google than with Bing. This may be partly because I am used to google and know which combinations of words to use to trigger a result. At the same time, I suspect Bing is just less good. I spend a lot of time searching for very specific things. Bing generally doesn't find them (and Bing is the default on my offices system so 90% of the time it gets first try) and Google tends to throw them up at the top. 

[Lysistrata]

Thank you Ice... legit reason for sure

[Baldr]

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver covers Net Neutrality.

[Robert2424]

oh wow. I litterlly laughed at that last one. Now, if the Internet trolls united, and attacked this, it be really funny. While see all those comments saying f everything. I think FCC would shut down cause there feelings were hurt...lol.