Jay Talbot’s Ramblings

The Register has a story about Net Neutrality. Actually, it’s a piece that pokes fun at a stupid little cartoon made specifically to confuse people on what Net Neutrality really means.

Note: I’m not directly linking to the cartoon because I don’t want to send them direct traffic. A link is included in the referenced story.

Net Neutrality is a philosophy that revolves around an open and free Internet. It is basically an unspoken rule saying that all providers will allow all Internet traffic to flow through their system unhindered. Ma Bell would like to change this. Not only do they want to charge their customers for the bandwidth they use, but they would also love to charge content providers (Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Joe’s blog and video) for the same bandwidth. This is what I call “double dipping.”

Ma Bell would love to convince you that an open and free Internet is a bad idea. They would love to have you believe that in order for a better Internet, they have to charge content providers. They want to build a network based on discriminatory service, using high bandwidth “lanes” to guarantee a faster service to content providers. These “lanes” will take up the lions share of bandwith for their own services and selected partners. Anyone who doesn’t pay their fees will be left to a slower and degraded bandwidth “lane.” It’s hard to believe that Ma Bell’s executives don’t stand to make a fortune if Net Neutrality is obliterated. Oh, and by the way, this would also give the IPS’s veto power over what you, their customer, can experience on the web. They would be able to block any website they wanted to. I don’t pay for a partial Internet connection, do you?

Those of us who support Net Neutrality, believe an ultra high bandwidth Internet can be built using the same principles that has brought it this far. The Internet2 project has pretty much proven this theory. Openess and freedom has been important; fostering up and coming online buinesses like eBay, Google, Flickr, digg, Slashdot, YouTube, and Myspace. It’s hard a hard bite to chew, thinking that the next big service would probably not happen, or be seriously hindered due to Ma Bell’s extortion fees not being paid. What a sad day that will be indeed.

You know what? Why don’t you make up your own mind? Here are some links.

http://www.itsournet.org/
http://www.democraticmedia.org/issues/netneutrality.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
http://www.freepress.net/deadend/=neutrality
http://www.savetheinternet.com/
http://www.slate.com/id/2140850/fr/rss/
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003410.shtml
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1234951

Yeah yeah, I know these links are all either neutral (pun intended) or in support for Net Neutrality. I had a hard time finding articles that supported the otherside of Net Neutrality. It seems the only one’s in support are either Ma Bell, Ma Bell’s paid for Congress-critter, or part of the money trail, go figure.

I guess that’s about it for now…. Maybe more later….

Tags: Technology, Technology News //