They just keep trying don't they? If I were a customer of AT&T Verizon (Cingular) or Comcast, I'd cancel my service and tell 'em why..

Given the nature of this community----the very essence of this site----I'm a bit saddened to see that a freakin bug-eyed rodent gets more votes than this.

But I guess that about sums it up.

Dig that Tron suit (at least I think it was Tron). Could someone please explain the issue a little more? I'm not sure that video captured the essence of what's going on, and I'm too lazy to visit their site.

the internet is dying!
regulate the internet!
don't regulate the internet!
argh!

"Think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as a sidewalk. The question is whether the sidewalk should get a cut of the value of the conversations that you have as you walk along. The traditional telephone model has been that the telephone company doesn't get paid more if you have a particularly meaningful call -- they're just providing a neutral pipe.

This argument is about whether companies selling highspeed transport mechanisms for the internet should be allowed to price discriminate -- charge different "content providers" (like YouTube) for the privilege of reaching you and me. Because Americans have so few choices of broadband access providers, allowing these providers to leverage their market power over transport in order to have exclusive control over "programming" online is a matter of great concern.

The risk is that the network providers will keep everyone who hasn't paid protection money to them at 2001 (slower) speeds." More...

Thanks, mix, that explains things a bit.

This whole issue fills me with disgust. Does everything have to be for profit, every single goddamn thing about greed? For once just leave it the fuck alone! I say without jest that if this goes through, I honestly hope it starts a revolution.

Excuse me while I go vomit.

I like to think of it as a story much like cable TV. At first you paid for Cable because it had exclusive programs (or in our example websites.) Not only were cable programs free of advertisements, but had a much wider channel base. Eventually some channels became exclusive to specific providers and commercials began to creep back in.

Since the massive liftoff of the internet cable tv subscriptions are tapering off. And now to adjust to the market ISP companys are trying to grab a hold on the internet to make a profit.

I really don't know what they think they can control but sites that are massive (i.e. You Tube, MySpace, Facebook, etc.) Could be bought by said companys and come exclusively to the highest bidder.

This won't work for several reasons: 1. You can't smash the internet into bite size meals for the American consumer. 2. The massive and large website that sell exclusive rights will eventually begin to dissipate as they begin to exclude a large part of the populous. 3. Because if you want to make money you have to have something people have a hard time doing without or feel a strong need to have. If you have 3 sites out of 30 Billion others... Well your not cornering too much of a market.

I dread the day it comes to that. I think most peoples fears about this are not sound or reasonable. But that's just my opinion.

P.S. On a side note, too many people make money from a free internet and anyone who would regulate that would be bad for business. Google knows this and is one of the major opposer's to what the large telecom companys are attempting.

It gets worse. These ISPs will be able to give their users directed or filtered content, perhaps not let them go to a particularly high bandwidth site like youtube, for example, if that site doesn't pay them off.

grrrr.

There is always going to be some upstart company that will bypass that restriction and then come out number one. That is if Ted Turner doesn't buy them out first. You need a dedicated company that will screw "the Man"

I'm kinda with gorgonheap, although I don't know the full story i'll attempt a bit of devil's advocate (I am naturally skeptical about "save the internet" scaremongers).

If you listen to economists or IP engineers about Net Neutrality, you hear a different story. Ron Paul is against Net Neutrality for a reason.

As far as I can see, it's about the OPTION to pay more for a guaranteed level of call quality on Skype for example, or IPTV that doesn't say "buffering" every 5 seconds, instead of relying on a congested neutral "series of tubes" (!) which was never designed for this stuff.

I don't think it's about pavements, it's about finding a way to offer different levels of service for different needs. I also don't believe scare stories about AT&T suddenly charging me $2000 to get my email and making all anti establishment websites run at 56kbps. There's actually a lot of money in disestablismentarianism on the internet

At the moment, if you are an ISP, you are delivering people all this varied stuff without being able to charge more for the heavy stuff. Therefore other people downloading movie torrents are getting in the way of my "meaningful" Skype session. That actually does fuck up the economy because I can't work as efficiently, and nobody can take my money to improve the service.

Now you could say it's bad to give good quality internet to only the people who can afford it, but your alternative is either a)give the same bad internet to everybody or b)communism.

Let me risk an analogy: Imagine if a supermarket sold random quality tomatoes at a single fixed price and on some days you had no way of getting a good tomato however much you paid. Wouldn't make sense, would it? Ahh but it would be soooo egalitarian and "fair" wouldn't it (but nobody would have an incentive to grow nice tomatoes... and we're back in the USSR).


Sure, if someone tells you Net Neutrality is about freedom, and you don't look to closely at the technical side or the economics, then you are outraged by this stuff. But just because it SOUNDS like the kind of thing you support, doesn't mean it actually is. You might be fighting on the wrong side out of a misunderstanding.

It's taking something that is currently free and open and creating a way to exert control over it. Where things go from there is usually not a good direction.

MINK, you have a good point, except I think you missed one thing: Even if you could pay a fee to be guaranteed good tomatoes, everyone else who couldn't afford that fee would be left with even greater assurances of WORSE tomatoes.

In the same way, allowing these 'internet backbone' companies to support alternative networks, which takes potential and already existing resources from the 'generic' or free network.

If some ISP's start filtering our content, what's to stop people leaving AT&T and Verizon in droves to another ISP?

I have one choice for broadband where I live. DSL is not available here, satellite service is too expensive. I could use dial-up, but would rather not. So if this passes and my provider decides to charge extra for more bandwidth or to access specific sites...I guess I either pay up or go back to dial-up.

Good points by MINK and mlx.

So, is this essentially a case of a tax being levied to lay the groundwork for a more advanced multi-tier system? As-in, are we all going to pay so that some may have the choice to pay more later?

I have friends who split off T1 lines and a friend with nice satellite connections, and I know businesses with OC-1 and OC-3 connections. Is this just a matter of the cost-benfit ratio being artificially pulled down by taxing heavy users of the lower-cost connections to pull down the cost for the higher end?

(upvote to keep the discussion going)
(neat-o-rama cheap ultra high speed internet post http://www.neatorama.com/2007/07/12/really-high-speed-internet/ )

MLX, if fiber optics ever become available in your area, GET IT! And assuming this bill doesn't pass, try to get it from Verizon. I've read that their service is excellent.

viewer_999... as i understand it, it is net neutrality which requires regulation, to force things to be neutral. the natural "free" situation would be tiered service.

so if you like freedom, why would you support a crippling regulation stifling development of new services?

yes, some people can't pay more. that is not the fault of the internet or its neutrality. you could argue that if the internet was allowed to flourish instead of being crippled by misguided kneejerk legislation, then the economy would grow and enable more people to afford the internet. the price of these services would be "the price people can afford to pay" and low bandwidth services like email or surfing might actually work BETTER if they weren't fighting torrents.

statueofmike: maybe look at it another way, rich people get tomatoes, and so do poor people. it's just that the poor people's tomatoes are class II and not quite as fresh, but at least they get something. If all tomatoes are forced to be the same price, producers will only sell at class I price, to high margin rich people, and poor people couldn't even afford class III. Perhaps the class I price would come down a bit, but you'd more often than not get class II tomatoes anyway for that price. Some days you would get lucky, some days not. And the Soviet Union collapsed from that sort of thing.

just a thought, 2 cents, devils advocate etc. MINK is not an economist, neither are you probably

It's July 19th.

So... is it saved?

lol legacy

i just realised that and came here to post the same thing i guess... it didn't explode yet.