Coalition Sounds Off on Net Neutrality Legislation

DarqFallen writes to tell us that lately everyone has been talking about a tiered internet, though it seems there are other problems on the horizon as well. PCMag has the latest sound-off from the new SavetheInternet.com coalition. From the article: "Vint Cerf, so-called 'father' of the Internet, is among the big names and organizations that have come together to create the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which hosted a national conference call [yesterday]. [...] [yesterday's] conference call is one of the coalition's many campaign tactics to emphasize the importance of 'Net neutrality,' the concept of a free and open Internet." The main topic of conversation was the latest bill from congress, the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancements Act of 2006."

Vint *who*?

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

Vint Serf, so-called "father" of the Internet, is among the big names and organizations that have come together to create the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which hosted a national conference call today.

Just when you thought the ramblings of John C. Dvorak weren't enough reason to stop taking PC Magazine seriously, they go and misspell the name of the Father of the Internet [wikipedia.org].

While the misspelling was corrected for some reason in the story summary, it's still right there in the first sentence of the PC Magazine article.

The rest of the article is well-enough written, but misspelling Vint Cerf's name pretty much sucks the credibility right out of it. Pity.

Split the net

[malraid]

Would it be feasable to create a giant peer to peer network based off wireless access points? Something that's more organic than the current net where a few carriers can make or brake the whole net. A net that's not under the control of the FCC (at least for the time). A net that least in some form can survive the war against Eurasia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H terror.

Google would do fine on a tiered internet

[roystgnr]

Their primary services work fine on low-bandwidth and high latency connections, so an extortionist ISP would have to threaten to cut their customers off from Google entirely.

If an ISP tried extortion, Google could afford to pay, because they're an established company with lots of cash, not a struggling startup anymore.

If an ISP tried extortion, Google could afford to not pay, because they're an established company with a household name, and many people would go back to dialup before they'd lose access to Google search and GMail.

Squint as hard as you can and you might see "vested interests", but the real threat of a crippled (why call it tiered, except to spin the discussion the way the telcos want?) internet isn't to Google, it's to the next Google. If anything, Google has a vested interest in helping telcos lock new competitors out of their networks; luckily for us Google hasn't yet become a "cut off their air supply" sort of company.

Re:Vint Cerf works for Google

[walt-sjc]

I wouldn't call the DMCA and the (un)Patriot(ic) act "submarine legislation" - they had quite vocal critics that had damn good arguments, but the people in power were not listening to the critics.

Re:Net Neutrality Makes Sense

[gzearfoss]

Why? Probably because they've been misinformed, or have misconceptions about how it works.
In just about everything else, we have tiers. High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on highways, premium cable channel programs, priority mail at the post office. People are used to the concept that if you pay more, you get more or better service. Heck, even internet access has tiers - you can pay $10 for dial-up, or you can pay $40 for much faster broadband or DSL.
If you think of the internet as a limited capacity system, the idea of tiered service becomes much more reasonable. Would you want the critical business document you're loading from the central office held up because some other person is hogging all the bandwidth downloading movies? People want to make sure that critical files get where they need to as soon as possible, and are used to spending more to this end.
Picture what would happen if your ISP said that because of increased traffic, not all messages will be sent with equal priority. You'd want to be able to make sure that your stuff got through when you needed it to, even if it meant paying an extra five dollars a month.

Fight for Network Neutrality at the local level!

[tlabetti]

I am pushing our town to include a Network Neutrality provision in Verizon's cable TV franchise agreement. I feel this is the best way to advance the Network Neutrality issue. The telecoms will steamroll the politicians at the state and federal level, but we stand a chance at the local level.

It's simple. We say to the telecoms: If you want to run a cable franchise in our town then you need our permission. If you want out permission then you will agree to respect the tenets of Network Neutrality.

Please visit my website to follow what we are doing at the local level.

http://www.redbanktv.org/ [redbanktv.org]

Tom@redbanktv dot org

.com ?

[47Ronin]

Does it bother anyone that this coalition decided to publish their opinions under a dotcom (.com) TLD? So they're a for-profit company? Shouldn't they use a .net or .org ? It's okay to register a domain under multiple TLDs but they should point to the main one and in this case I disagree with .com being the catchall TLD.

That being said, I see a lot of missing children websites being registered under .com TLDs... hmmmm are they actually selling kidnapped kids to slavery as a for-profit business model?

Re:Not exciting enough

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Troll? Hardly. Nobody is ALLOWED to respond to my comments. I said so. That is the opposite of trolling.