The entire "Net Neutrality" issue is a touchy subject.
There are a good number instances where an ISP has blocked access to a perfectly legal website or service because it was simply not in it's own best interest.
The claim by ISPs that it would not be "fair" to allow competitor ISPs (startups, etc) to have equal access to these broadband pipes "because they built them and should not have any right to equally use something they do not own" is also an audacious claim (see also the 200 billion dollars of tax money from the government they used to build it all)
Regulation, to a degree, is a good thing. There are federal laws that prohibit monopolizing and unfair business practices, why not extend such laws and regulations on the flow of information?
It *should* be illegal for a Telco or Cable company to restrict or outright block information access at their own discretion. This is unfair business practice, and a method of creating a monopoly in the digital age.
But as it stands such practices are *not* illegal, and any backlash they get is merely from the public. If multi-billion dollar corporations are more willing to break the law because the fines are less than the costs of compliance, what on god's green earth would make a person believe that the public will have an effect directly? (this is in response to the post about balanced market)
There is also the red hot debate about VoIP, Digital Video, and a host of other services. If a company online, let's say YouTube.com is very popular and one day decides to offer movies for a price, without legislation in place, what will stop the Bells and Comcasts from deciding one day to block the competition?
Nothing. And this is the problem we are trying to correct. If somebody figures out a better way to do something than a major corporation, they should be allowed to reach the world via the Internet about it.
Without such regulation, it would be as if Microsoft, hearing about an amazing grass roots Operating System called Linux, decided to all but disconnect users within it's scope from ever seeing the site or downloading it.
Net Neutrality is just that. It sets in motion the regulation in the digital age to prevent monopolies of information traffic that would benefit the bottom line of Larger ISPs.
Without it, completely biased and unfair business practices will get worse. No regulation in this area is the same as giving Telcos and Cable Companies the "all clear" to continue with these actions in full force and with little or no backlash or penalties.
This article itself is rediculous, and I am completely in shock that a "news" site like C|Net would have the audacity to publish it without a moment of full disclosure (aka: this guy's clientel lineup includes Major ISPs, telcos, cable companies... all the companies that would benefit most to see this regulation shot down)
While allowing it to be published is fine, doing so without the disclosure to their audience is both in poor taste and constitutes horrible journalism, not to mention insults the intelligence of it's readers., (and to attempt to justify non disclosure of the background of the writer to the readers is simply immoral).
Telling only half the truth while omitting damaging information is the same as lying.
Umm, the FCC regulated THE LAST mile for the Telcos for the level of service - did the FCC dictate that people using touch tone phones could get better service vs analog phones when calling long distance? No.
The law quoted in the article by Congress is also geared toward that last mile - not the long haul circuits.
The Telcos want to charge companies who will use more bandwidth extra money to use the faster back end pipes - else that data will be dumped onto the "regular" pipes and all consumers will suffer due to overbooking of these pipes - thus creating a "need" to charge for the faster circuits.
However, these back end pipes costs are already factored into the costs of getting connected by consumers to an ISP when they lease a line - and the line the ISP gets to the long haul system.
To allow the Telcos to move the "last mile" premium costs (56K, DSL, Cable or whatever) pricing onto the long haul COMMON CARRIER circuits is creating a faulty business need.
This is like reserving one lane on every interstate just for truckers which pay a premium to use it - even though everyone paid for the road construction.
To continue the example, if the truckers want to build their OWN ROAD exclusive for them to use that is parallel to the interstates fine, then ONLY they should pay for it.
If the Telcos want to build and charge a premium to firms to deliver content faster then just remember that they can NEVER charge people any costs for research, construction, operating, repair, service, research costs from ANYONE OTHER than for firms that want to pay for it.
This means the end CONSUMER gets refunded all the money already spent in building it (since they don't get to use it) and all costs from the lowest washer in the system rack to the switches which are needed to route the data in the future.
Either we all share the benefits of having paid for it, only those who use it have to pay for it, and avoid going Communist: "We all equal -- just that I am more equal than you."
Umm, the FCC regulated THE LAST mile for the Telcos for the level of service - did the FCC dictate that people using touch tone phones could get better service vs analog phones when calling long distance? No.
The law quoted in the article by Congress is also geared toward that last mile - not the long haul circuits.
The Telcos want to charge companies who will use more bandwidth extra money to use the faster back end pipes - else that data will be dumped onto the "regular" pipes and all consumers will suffer due to overbooking of these pipes - thus creating a "need" to charge for the faster circuits.
However, these back end pipes costs are already factored into the costs of getting connected by consumers to an ISP when they lease a line - and the line the ISP gets to the long haul system.
To allow the Telcos to move the "last mile" premium costs (56K, DSL, Cable or whatever) pricing onto the long haul COMMON CARRIER circuits is creating a faulty business need.
This is like reserving one lane on every interstate just for truckers which pay a premium to use it - even though everyone paid for the road construction.
To continue the example, if the truckers want to build their OWN ROAD exclusive for them to use that is parallel to the interstates fine, then ONLY they should pay for it.
If the Telcos want to build and charge a premium to firms to deliver content faster then just remember that they can NEVER charge people any costs for research, construction, operating, repair, service, research costs from ANYONE OTHER than for firms that want to pay for it.
This means the end CONSUMER gets refunded all the money already spent in building it (since they don't get to use it) and all costs from the lowest washer in the system rack to the switches which are needed to route the data in the future.
Either we all share the benefits of having paid for it, only those who use it have to pay for it, and avoid going Communist: "We all equal -- just that I am more equal than you."
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There are a good number instances where an ISP has blocked access to a perfectly legal website or service because it was simply not in it's own best interest.
The claim by ISPs that it would not be "fair" to allow competitor ISPs (startups, etc) to have equal access to these broadband pipes "because they built them and should not have any right to equally use something they do not own" is also an audacious claim (see also the 200 billion dollars of tax money from the government they used to build it all)
Regulation, to a degree, is a good thing. There are federal laws that prohibit monopolizing and unfair business practices, why not extend such laws and regulations on the flow of information?
It *should* be illegal for a Telco or Cable company to restrict or outright block information access at their own discretion. This is unfair business practice, and a method of creating a monopoly in the digital age.
But as it stands such practices are *not* illegal, and any backlash they get is merely from the public. If multi-billion dollar corporations are more willing to break the law because the fines are less than the costs of compliance, what on god's green earth would make a person believe that the public will have an effect directly? (this is in response to the post about balanced market)
There is also the red hot debate about VoIP, Digital Video, and a host of other services. If a company online, let's say YouTube.com is very popular and one day decides to offer movies for a price, without legislation in place, what will stop the Bells and Comcasts from deciding one day to block the competition?
Nothing. And this is the problem we are trying to correct. If somebody figures out a better way to do something than a major corporation, they should be allowed to reach the world via the Internet about it.
Without such regulation, it would be as if Microsoft, hearing about an amazing grass roots Operating System called Linux, decided to all but disconnect users within it's scope from ever seeing the site or downloading it.
Net Neutrality is just that. It sets in motion the regulation in the digital age to prevent monopolies of information traffic that would benefit the bottom line of Larger ISPs.
Without it, completely biased and unfair business practices will get worse. No regulation in this area is the same as giving Telcos and Cable Companies the "all clear" to continue with these actions in full force and with little or no backlash or penalties.
This article itself is rediculous, and I am completely in shock that a "news" site like C|Net would have the audacity to publish it without a moment of full disclosure (aka: this guy's clientel lineup includes Major ISPs, telcos, cable companies... all the companies that would benefit most to see this regulation shot down)
While allowing it to be published is fine, doing so without the disclosure to their audience is both in poor taste and constitutes horrible journalism, not to mention insults the intelligence of it's readers., (and to attempt to justify non disclosure of the background of the writer to the readers is simply immoral).
Telling only half the truth while omitting damaging information is the same as lying.
The law quoted in the article by Congress is also geared toward that last mile - not the long haul circuits.
The Telcos want to charge companies who will use more bandwidth extra money to use the faster back end pipes - else that data will be dumped onto the "regular" pipes and all consumers will suffer due to overbooking of these pipes - thus creating a "need" to charge for the faster circuits.
However, these back end pipes costs are already factored into the costs of getting connected by consumers to an ISP when they lease a line - and the line the ISP gets to the long haul system.
To allow the Telcos to move the "last mile" premium costs (56K, DSL, Cable or whatever) pricing onto the long haul COMMON CARRIER circuits is creating a faulty business need.
This is like reserving one lane on every interstate just for truckers which pay a premium to use it - even though everyone paid for the road construction.
To continue the example, if the truckers want to build their OWN ROAD exclusive for them to use that is parallel to the interstates fine, then ONLY they should pay for it.
If the Telcos want to build and charge a premium to firms to deliver content faster then just remember that they can NEVER charge people any costs for research, construction, operating, repair, service, research costs from ANYONE OTHER than for firms that want to pay for it.
This means the end CONSUMER gets refunded all the money already spent in building it (since they don't get to use it) and all costs from the lowest washer in the system rack to the switches which are needed to route the data in the future.
Either we all share the benefits of having paid for it, only those who use it have to pay for it, and avoid going Communist: "We all equal -- just that I am more equal than you."
The law quoted in the article by Congress is also geared toward that last mile - not the long haul circuits.
The Telcos want to charge companies who will use more bandwidth extra money to use the faster back end pipes - else that data will be dumped onto the "regular" pipes and all consumers will suffer due to overbooking of these pipes - thus creating a "need" to charge for the faster circuits.
However, these back end pipes costs are already factored into the costs of getting connected by consumers to an ISP when they lease a line - and the line the ISP gets to the long haul system.
To allow the Telcos to move the "last mile" premium costs (56K, DSL, Cable or whatever) pricing onto the long haul COMMON CARRIER circuits is creating a faulty business need.
This is like reserving one lane on every interstate just for truckers which pay a premium to use it - even though everyone paid for the road construction.
To continue the example, if the truckers want to build their OWN ROAD exclusive for them to use that is parallel to the interstates fine, then ONLY they should pay for it.
If the Telcos want to build and charge a premium to firms to deliver content faster then just remember that they can NEVER charge people any costs for research, construction, operating, repair, service, research costs from ANYONE OTHER than for firms that want to pay for it.
This means the end CONSUMER gets refunded all the money already spent in building it (since they don't get to use it) and all costs from the lowest washer in the system rack to the switches which are needed to route the data in the future.
Either we all share the benefits of having paid for it, only those who use it have to pay for it, and avoid going Communist: "We all equal -- just that I am more equal than you."