[ironknee]

support it? don't support it... why?

[shifuimam]

I'm on the fence.

There's the part of me that says, "But i run my own website too, and I don't want to have to pay extra to service providers so that my viewers (all four of them) can easily access my content!"

There's also the part of me that says, "I don't want the government regulating the Internet that closely, because it could open up avenues for further control in the future."

The problem is multifaceted, just like every hot political, social, and economic issue today. Service providers have to spend billions of dollars to create, maintain, and upgrade the infrastructure that gives us the Internet as we know it today. While I don't doubt that some of this is government subsidized (or, at the very least, the service providers get some kind of tax cut for providing such an infrastructure), the fact remains that it is not a publicly-owned system. The Internet is a series of connections that, at least in the United States, are all privately owned. If AT&T wants to levy a fee against Hulu, for instance, because of the disproportionate amount of bandwidth that site consumes, it's their right to do so on the infrastructure they own.

However, because of the monopolistic nature of Internet service providers in the United States, it's not that easy. While AT&T owns the infrastructure, they are many times one of two high-speed Internet providers in a given area, competing only with whatever cable company has a monopoly on that same region. If AT&T and Comcast both want to charge Hulu a premium and Hulu doesn't want to pay, you've just blocked out an enormous portion of the continental United States from reliably and easily accessing Hulu.

I don't think it's irrefutably accurate to say that bandwidth must be content-neutral. There are certain protocols and services that suck bandwidth like it's going out of style - like BitTorrent. If a service provider doesn't throttle such connections to some extent, bandwidth costs can skyrocket. That cost is then passed on to us, the consumer. I'm unconvinced that ISPs want to go the route of charging the little guy to make their little sites accessible. It seems like they're more interested in making the big guys - Hulu, YouTube, etc. - pay some dues in order to ensure that the ISPs can provide reliably fast service to high-bandwidth services, sites, protocols, and applications.

Net Neutrality isn't going to do anything to deal with the much bigger and longer-running problem of the monopolistic nature of the telecommunications and Internet industry in the United States. Don't get me wrong - the big telecom breakup in the 80s was idiotic, as has been shown by the fact that they've all re-merged since. At some point, regulation is going to be necessary because of the nature of the industry and its service providers. However, simply mandating that service providers have to make bandwidth equally available to all protocols, connections, services, etc. isn't going to solve the bigger problem. As bandwidth usage continues to rise, the service providers' operation costs will rise accordingly, and we're going to be the ones paying for it. It seems like a controlled tiered mechanism from the ISPs might be a better solution than everyone paying more per month just because certain services they may not even use are retardedly bandwidth-heavy.

[OAW]

Support it. I do think that bandwidth should be content neutral. As well as "destination" neutral. As consumers we are paying for access. What content I'm accessing or where I'm accessing that content from is none of an ISP's business IMO. I pay for a pipe. That's it. If I want a faster pipe I pay more. That's only fair. I can even see an ISP implementing a surcharge for those users that are true "bandwidth hogs". Having said that, I don't think it should be up to the ISPs to determine what that is. Seeing as how competition in the industry is between the local phone and cable companies in most markets (both of which are monopolies) ... and in some markets nonexistent ... I think it's only fair for this determination to be a point of neutral regulation. For example, I don't think the cable company should be able to define excessive usage artificially low in order to provide a disincentive for people to watch TVs and movies over the internet and drive them to their shoddy cable service. They should have to compete fairly. But when they own the playing field there's no way to do this without government regulation. There needs to be clear, unambiguous rules. No one advocates putting two NFL teams out on the field and just letting them go at it and letting the chips fall where they may. There are referees on the field to ensure that the game is fair and the rules are followed. Now certainly a good referee isn't overly intrusive in the game. But to argue that there shouldn't be a referee at all doesn't make a lot of sense IMO.

OAW

[turtle777]

Don't support it.

Definitely, getting the government into this will kill the internet.

Look at how well the government has "fixed" the student loan and the mortgage market. Ugh.

-t

[OAW]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Don't support it.

Definitely, getting the government into this will kill the internet.

Look at how well the government has "fixed" the student loan and the mortgage market. Ugh.

-t

Interesting how you feel that the government merely formalizing existing practice will "kill the internet". We have net neutrality on a de facto basis and the internet is thriving. But let you tell it, if the government mandated that the practices that have allowed the internet to thrive must continue then the sky is going to fall.

IMO, this is a classic case of ideological opposition for the sake of ideological opposition.

OAW

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Interesting how you feel that the government merely formalizing existing practice will "kill the internet". We have net neutrality on a de facto basis and the internet is thriving. But let you tell it, if the government mandated that the practices that have allowed the internet to thrive must continue then the sky is going to fall.

IMO, this is a classic case of ideological opposition for the sake of ideological opposition.

OAW

Well if it is an existing practice then what's the problem? Why do we need a mandate?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

Well if it is an existing practice then what's the problem? Why do we need a mandate?

Because the CEOs of the major telecommunication and cable companies have been grumbling about changing existing practice. That's why. When the CEO of AT&T (SBC at the time) started b*tching about Google, Yahoo, and other internet companies "using my pipes for free" ... that's what set of the alarm and made net neutrality an issue.

Originally Posted by Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC

How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

Now first of all this is pure comedy on its face. Google and Yahoo pay for bandwidth for the content they host like anyone else. And most companies like that are charged based on the amount of bandwidth they serve up. So where this "free" stuff came from is beyond me. Even Google's search business isn't "free" because the end users is paying for a connection and the website that Google provides a link to is paying its connection too. Sounds like Mr. Whitacre is simply advocating "double dipping" to me.

Online Extra: At SBC, It's All About "Scale and Scope"

OAW

[OAW]

Here's the deal.

If you think a cable company should be able to charge you more money to access Hulu over the internet because they'd rather you get your TV service through them ... then be against net neutrality.

If you think a telecom company should be able to charge you more money to access Vonage or Skype over the internet because they'd rather you get your phone service through them .... then be against net neutrality.

If you think a telecom or cable company should be able to charge you more money to access Pandora over the internet because they'd rather you listen to streaming music over some service that they provide ... then be against net neutrality.

If you don't ... then you really ought to consider supporting the other side.

OAW

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Because the CEOs of the major telecommunication and cable companies have been grumbling about changing existing practice. That's why. When the CEO of AT&T (SBC at the time) started b*tching about Google, Yahoo, and other internet companies "using my pipes for free" ... that's what set of the alarm and made net neutrality an issue.

Here's the irony of the situation, and both Google and Yahoo knew this: AT&T didn't pay for their pipes, we paid for them through our tax dollars. AT&T is also paid through municipal bonds to maintain the equipment. AT&T's overhead for installing and maintaining "their" pipes is negligible.

For all intents and purposes, they're not even their pipes.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by OAW 

If you think a cable company should be able to charge you more money to access Hulu over the internet ...

They already do. Comcast is implementing an automated throughput cap on their internet access. If you use 70% of your bandwidth for more than 15 minutes, they will cap your bandwidth down to 20%; except from services from Comcast.

That means that, despite paying for a 12 Mbit line, you'll only get 2 Mbit if you want to watch a movie from Netflix or iTunes. If you watch any sort of regular streaming video service, you're screwed. You're going to be paying for a 12 Mbit line but only get 2 Mbits. Comcast is essentially charging you money to access content that isn't theirs.

[The Final Dakar]

Once again, how is that not some type of truth in advertising violation? They're not providing the service they're claiming to offer.

[OAW]

^^^^

Now see that's the type of BS that net neutrality rules are designed to prevent. It amazes me that any internet savvy individual would be opposed to it. It's just so .... obvious.

OAW

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Once again, how is that not some type of truth in advertising violation? They're not providing the service they're claiming to offer.

Sure they are, they're providing up to 12 Mbit.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Once again, how is that not some type of truth in advertising violation? They're not providing the service they're claiming to offer.

Simple. Three little words. Terms of Service. That 10 page document of legalese and fine print that no one ever reads. They just slip it in there before they start doing this and it's their automatic CYA card if they were to ever get sued.

OAW

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Simple. Three little words. Terms of Service. That 10 page document of legalese and fine print that no one ever reads. They just slip it in there before they start doing this and it's their automatic CYA card if they were to ever get sued.

OAW

That's why I said advertising. I realize the terms of service are date rape.

(Just watch, sooner or later some senator is going to get ****ed by comcast and try to enter some type of resolution changing this)

Edit: olePigeon may have me there.

[OAW]

I see your point. But olePigeon made a good one too when he mentioned the "up to" shenanigans. That's definitely in the fine print in their advertising.

OAW