Senators, ISPs, and Network Neutrality 174
Polarism submitted a good article about
net neutrality that is currently running on Ars. It's a good explanation of where the pieces of the problem are, the government issues, the industry issues, etc. Worth a read.
Why the red herring? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:3, Interesting)
I began to read up on this net neutrality looking for information and expanding my opinion. I personally came to the idea that net neutrality isn't all its cracked up to be. I understand the arguments for it, but I cant help but think that different types of data deserve different treatment. I am not talking about bandwidth here but rather latency.
As a case in point I share a house with 5 others, people use VOIP, people browse pages and I personally play a lot of online games. I don't need a huge amount of bandwidth but my latency needs to be ultra low to get the responsiveness I need to play, if the network was totally neutral would each of my game requests be given the same priority as someone requesting a web page where a second of lag would not matter a jot?
Please note this is not the same as charging large web sites for higher throughput to their service, but it is part of the issue that needs to be addressed sensibly with none of this religious zealot manner. It is not good just because it has the word "neutral" in it.
Monkey suits... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Confusion is almost all on their side of the argument. It would be nice if congress would look at how things work before they try to pass laws about technology.
My understanding (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is that we are probably better off with no new laws at all. Let the companies who screw with traffic go broke, and let the market force neutral access and not the government.
Net neutrality looks dead (Score:4, Interesting)
TV over IP / FIOS (Score:4, Interesting)
In general, competition for cable is a good thing. However, what is not often discussed is that TV content would come over a dedicated connection from verizon that you the subscriber would not have access to directly (at least, this is my understanding). The really really bad thing about this is that it would let verizon do what companies in the mobile space are doing: mixing transport (delivering the bits) with content control. In the mobile space this has been a terrific failure for most customers as the wireless companies control the delivery channel and the portals (what applications and ring tones are available).
I think the critical issue here is that we need to insist that the delivery pipe from verizon is a level playing field and that others can delivery TV content if they so choose. The pipe would still be seperate from normal internet access but I would be able to choose my HDTV provider who would let me pick the "geek" bundle of channels (plus oxygen for the wife) and who would undercut both verizon and comcast.
Verizon and the cable companies are natural monopolies: there is no way around that. Verizon is sinking tons of money into deploying FIOS: they should be compensated for that deployment. However, that compensation should not comes with strings attached - they should bill the customer for access to a high speed pipe dedicated to video and that's it.
So, out of curiousity.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason I'm asking is cause, as the article points out, I don't pay $$$ for a fat pipe, I pay $$$ for a fat pipe to these sites.
And if necessary, I'll pay someone else $$$ for a fat pipe.
So...if we lose net neutrality, what prevents Google (or others) from extorting AT&T?
Pipes for free? Hell, before we're done, we'll charge AT&T to use their pipes!
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Big web sites should pay because they're such a load on us.
Big web sites, like Google, are, in fact, the reason that any ISP large or small even has residential and small business services. Without these portal and the like, it would be like selling a pipe that doesn't connect to a water supply.
2. We have to do this to assure the majority of our customers aren't unduly effected by a few big downloaders.
Traffic shaping has been around for years. The small ISP I worked for regularly throttled down P2P traffic, using nothing more than a couple of Linux boxes. This argument is a non-starter.
What it boils down to is that Congress is once again whoring itself to telecom giants who, rather than evolving their business models to fit the Internet, are using their money and their knowledge of just how willingly politicians will prostitute themselves. These guys are simply electronic mobsters, using IP traffic as their weapon of choice to push their weight around. It's despicable, but expected. What's sad is that Congress is so gleeful in selling out the average Internet user. There truly is no shame, no sense of civic responsbility or any ability to understand the incredible information tool which is now threatened by ugly old behemoths.