Internet Neutrality Threatened

[zoobyshoe]

"Internet Neutrality" Threatened

Net neutrality is about to have its day in court at last -- but that might not be a good thing for its supporters.

Back in September at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Verizon spoke its piece about how the Federal Communication Commission had allegedly exceeded its authority by enacting network neutrality relations on ISPs like Verizon.

If Verizon gets its way, the court will strike down the Net neutrality provisions adopted by the FCC in 2010. Those rules were set up to keep providers from creating "the equivalents of tollbooths, fast lanes, and dirt roads" on the Internet, as Marvin Ammori of Wired put it.

Verizon and many other Internet providers have been longing to put up those tollbooths and fast/slow lanes for some time now...

http://www.infoworld.com/t/net-neutrality/verizon-attacks-net-neutrality-in-dc-court-230248

This sounds bad. Another article I read said it would mean slower internet at higher prices. We may all have been enjoying a kind of golden age of internet that will soon end.

Net Neutrality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

 

[Evo]

http://www.infoworld.com/t/net-neutrality/verizon-attacks-net-neutrality-in-dc-court-230248

This sounds bad. Another article I read said it would mean slower internet at higher prices. We may all have been enjoying a kind of golden age of internet that will soon end.

Net Neutrality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

This is such nonsense. (not you zoob, the net neutrality nonsense) The internet is not a "thing". It is thousands of individual owners and governments that just have agreements to hand off traffic to each other. This is misinformation run amok, spread through fear and lack of understanding. No one owns or rules the internet.

Net neutrality is trying to tell ISPs and IXCs that they can't sell QOS to companies to provide better service on their websites, that's ridiculous. It would be like telling Greg that he can't buy more bandwidth if the site gets too slow.

I used to work for the largest IXC and part of what I did was advise companies on QOS. Customers were the ones that requested QOS.

 

[AlephZero]

This sounds bad. Another article I read said it would mean slower internet at higher prices. We may all have been enjoying a kind of golden age of internet that will soon end.

That's ironic, if you compare internet speeds and costs in the USA with the rest of the world. You are already near the bottom of the comparison charts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383

 

[zoobyshoe]

That's ironic, if you compare internet speeds and costs in the USA with the rest of the world. You are already near the bottom of the comparison charts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383

Interesting insight from your link:

"Americans pay so much because they don't have a choice," says Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy.

Although there are several national companies, local markets tend to be dominated by just one or two main providers.

"We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight."