oh SH!T - net neutrality
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- mrghost
what you know about it
http://bit.ly/a2UYzR
"Before Tuesday's midterm elections, there were 95 House and Senate candidates who pledged support for Net neutrality, a bill that would force Internet providers to not charge users more for certain kinds of Web content.All of them lost -- and that could mean the contentious proposal may now be all but dead."
It seems like this should be a big deal for me but I don't understand what net neutrality means. Why doesn't Facebook like the FCC? It seems like some big changes are coming in the ways that we access information.
- kgvs720
Don't forget that shady Google Verizon Pact on wireless.
- mrghost0
oh, maybe they can raise prices on broadband so that more people will consider going wireless
- mrghost0
like a cell phone instead of a landline.
- Uglyfreak0
Shiiiiit
- SteveJobs0
- Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.MrT
- < lol yupsofakingbanned
- lolgeorgesIII
- ukit0
@mrghost
Basically net neutrality is what we have now. When you access content online, whether it's Comcast's website, CNN, YouTube, streaming music, Bittorrent, whatever, it's delivered with the same speed by the internet provider right? You might get faster overall speed depending on what kind of connection you paid for, but the speed of individual "stuff" isn't regulated in any way.
Broadband companies would like to move away from that and give themselves the power to speed up or slow down access to different websites or types of content. They say that overall web traffic is getting overloaded to the point where they need to be able to prioritize traffic. People in favor of NN, which includes most people in the tech industry, will respond that a better solution would be to just add more bandwidth, and that the power will inevitably be abused by corporations that might own many of the businesses that are being accessed. There's also the worry that it would prevent the next startup from getting off the ground the way say, YouTube did, because things like streaming video could become prohibitively expensive for a small company.
Comcast actually tested the waters by crippling bit torrent downloads for their customers across the board. The Obama administration took them to court over it, but the court ultimately ruled that the FCC didn't have the authority to regulate broadband (since apparently Congress never gave them that authority). So the logical step would be to pass a bill making net neutrality official. Unfortunately some Democrats and pretty much all Republicans are against it because they are corrupt motherfuckers.
In the meantime, Google made their own "deal" with Verizon that basically guaranteed net neutrality for traditional internet service, but not for wireless internet. People got pissed because they thought this pretty much undermined the entire principle since everything's more or less expected to be wireless someday.
- cliffs:
fire bad!!!
net neutrality goooood!SteveJobs - thank you for explaining that so well!!!mrghost
- Holy cow. You have no idea what you're talking about.VikingKingEleven
- wireless gives you cancer thoughPupsipu
- cliffs:
- VikingKingEleven0
You can learn more here.
- sherm0
I already pay to access the web through my android phone, and they want more rupees?
fuck, off to the bush then:
- scarabin0
so, next on our plate is how to pirate internet access.
- ukit0
Of course the sell out politicians need a way to explain their selling out to the voters so you get crap like this.
Net neutrality is...what else..."Marxism." How dumb would you have to be to believe this guy? But for people who are hearing about the issue for the first time they probably will believe it.
- scarabin0
at least we got to live in the wild west of internet history
- autoflavour0
bring back BBS ..
- Boz0
yep..ukit put it very well..
what this means if it gets sold out is that if you have a great startup and you have ideas.. you will have to pay something that none of the startups we know today as huge companies had issues with.
It is the most disgusting example of corporate control over something that should be completely free and where they should compete by investing more into their infrastructure and not trying to milk what they have already.
- lukus_W0
It's a pretty complex situation - and 'net neutrality' was a bad choice of term to describe it.
If you're an ISP, you have the ability to give favour to some types of traffic over other types of traffic - which is known as 'traffic shaping'. The main question revolves around whether ISPs should be able to engage in this practice traffic shaping; and - if so - to what degree.
Why would they want to? Well, I think there are legitimate and non-legitimate reasons for allowing an ISP to do this...
To a degree, I think most ISPs must need to employ 'balancing' to ensure that service is good for the consumer.
They might choose to supply less bandwidth to peer-to-peer networking, because they feel that the majority of the traffic being used by application like bit-torrent and kazaar is dubious on legal grounds, and it's negatively affecting delivery of other forms of traffic. While I don't think this is a great situation I can appreciate the reasoning.
I think problems come when an ISP responds to commercial pressures - and tried to exploit and extract value from them.
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For example, an ISP might feel that too much of their bandwidth is being taken up by streaming video. Youtube, iPlayer and Hulu all put a relatively high strain on networks - they might choose to limit the effect that these services have on their networks. Image that one of these sites might become aware that their users are unhappy about the limits in place - e.g. Hulu might be launching in a new territory and decide that if users in the new territory don't receive their streams via a higher bandwidth pipe, they're be less likely to make a strong impact.
So, in a case like this - should the Hulu be able to pay the ISP to supply a higher bandwidth service?
In an extreme case, an ISP could actually block services and sites from their customers when it suits them - either because they have a competing product, or because they're being paid to do so.
Deals between major corporations could possibly happen without the knowledge of consumers - but could potentially go a long way to shaping the commercial landscape for years to come.
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Apart from the corporate angle - there's another avenue to the net-neutrality debate that affects consumers in a more obvious way.
Different ISP customers have varying needs and different preferences.
For example, some people are into gaming. The ISPs could become wise to this fact and might choose to allow gamers less latency when playing first-person shooters. The ISPs could probably easily alter their traffic profiles to allow for this.
In cases like this, the ISP might feel that they're able to charge the user more money to receive an especially tailored 'gaming package' .. and - in my opinion - this is where the main trouble begins.
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If an ISP is reckless and decides to cut out a rival site from the internet, or gives obvious preference to one site over another, there's a strong likelihood that people will complain and protest. I think this provides an adequate safeguard against the worst from happening.
However, if ISPs start offering varying packages to consumers under the auspice of 'choice' - protest is far more difficult. All ISPs are in the business of making money, and - imo - most ISPs would be happy to change the way they sell their services if it's profitable to do so.
So, in the worst case scenario, we have a situation where we have to pick and choose which sites and services we want to have access to - and we have to pay extra to be provided with what we have now. The ISP would no-longer be seen as a passive-gatekeeper .. as it would be actively filtering, and shaping traffic - with the full consent of paying customers.
The basic brilliance of the net has been its ability to provide a reasonably level playing field for all. If this changes, the world will be a much darker place.
- Boz0
This picture says it all:
- ukit0
LIsten to a guy from the new Republican Congress explain net neutrality and then listen to Tim Berners-Lee explain it. This is the view taken by the Republican party - that net neutrality amounts to a "government takeover" of the internet.
