Debate over net neutrality


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Thread: Debate over net neutrality

  1. #1
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    Debate over net neutrality

    Article from WSJ.com (The Wall Street Journal Online)
    Should the Net Be Neutral?

    The article features a discussion between
    Craig Newmark (of Craigslist) who a proponent of net neutrality
    and
    Michael McCurry (anti-net-neutrality lobbyist) who opposes net neutrality

    Newmark argues that net neutrality will protect the small businesses and websites from unfair competition. McCurry argues that the telecoms need to be able to charge different rates for different levels of service in order to support the internet infrastructure.

    What do you think? Personally, I'm all for net neutrality. It seems to me to protect freedom and diversity. Giving too much control to the telecoms is a scary thought to me. Also, if the telecoms got more money, there's no guarantee that they'll use if for infrastructure. They will simply count it as extra profit for all I know.

    Wikipedia article on Net Neutrality

  2. #2
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    This is irrelevant rubbish. None of this will matter in Web 2.0. The internet will be held together by P2P networks and no one will have control over it.


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  3. #3
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    It's the size of the pipes they want to differentiate, Company A has a 20MB/s transfer rate for you to browse with, Company B has 5 MB/s for you to use. This will be important when you are watching a movie brought to you by Universal Studios for $8.95 over your cable connection.
    And if Company B has a torrent that will only max out at 5 MB/s, and Company B has the same torrent brought to you at 20 MB/s, which one are you going for? They will be able to control the torrents and p2p via coded signatures, at least the legal ones, and if they have no legal coded signature, then your ISP will not let it pass through.
    That's one reason the media companies are siding with ISP's to really bear down and discourage open community wireless networks and municipal networks.
    Wireless Communiity Network List
    Free Press:Community Internet
    Texas Telecos Want To Kill Municipal Internet
    Last edited by hard candy; 05-25-2006 at 07:45 PM.
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    I guess I don't really understand what it entails to run a website, but I thought that the ISPs already offer different prices for different bandwidth. At least at the consumer level, you can get phone line, cable, DSL, and even different speeds within those categories. Also, the companies that offer hosting services often offer different packages with different storage capacities and bandwidth. If I've got this all wrong, please let me know.

    Aren't there other ways to prevent the spread of illegal software and media? Those methods are probably more difficult than giving the ISPs control over which packets to send through but maybe it's worth it to preserve freedom over web content. I would hate for the Internet to become another TV, which is largely based on content that can generate a profit. Not to say that profit is bad but it would really suck if justlinux.com and wikipedia.org was displaced by Elimidate, Survivor, or LOST just because the ISPs would rather give them more bandwidth.

    From a consumer standpoint, community broadband would be a good thing. But how would the ISPs get their money. Maybe, the cities would pay the ISPs themselves. In that case, we'd be paying with our tax dollars anyways and the telecoms will still get their money.

    There is something I am not seeing here.

    (YAY! There are wireless community networks in San Diego)

  5. #5
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    This cartoon seems relevant:

    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060521



    Quote Originally Posted by Sepero
    None of this will matter in Web 2.0.
    Hmm, I can't help but wonder if you might be a bit confused there. I've never heard of "Web 2.0" referring to anything other than basically AJAX code running at the client. (Everything from gmail to Google Maps to that horrible ripoff at Windows Live Local is calling itself "Web 2.0".)

    Perhaps you're thinking of Internet2? Though that's more of an entire second high-speed network between the large universities; it doesn't really have anything to do with P2P networking or information freedom.

    That Freenet thing sounds a lot like Tor (which is distributed by the EFF).

    I guess I'm just confused about what you meant...

  6. #6
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    Web Neutraity Act a pdf file, this is the act that passed the U.S.A. Judiciary Committe of the House of Representatives by a vote of 20-13 just today. Still has to go to the floor and pass and then a Senate version has to be approved and passed and then the differences worked out.
    "The "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006" would amend antitrust law to include provisions banning incumbent broadband providers from discriminating against unaffiliated services, content and applications."
    The idea is that say Bellsouth could have, as an example, Universal Studios movies going through a dedicated server while Warner Brothers (WB) movies would be passing through another server that would aslo have all the other traffic going through it. As a consumer you can order different levels of bandwidth but this would be the ISP throttling the bandwidth at their end.
    Another example, you open Firefox and choose Google. It would take say 10 seconds to find "Justlinux.com" and then you click on the link, another 10 seconds to connect to Jupiter networks, and another 10 seconds to load up the page. But say Bellsouth has an aggeement with Microsoft, you are instantly connected to MSN Search, in 2 seconds you find Justlinux.com, then in another 2 seconds the page is loaded. 30 seconds versus 6 seconds, not much difference but since we like instant gratificatiuon, we may tend to use the MSN Search more frequently. And MSN Search would benefit by having their "Ad views" increase while Google has their "ad views" go down.
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  7. #7
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    Thanks hard candy. Very illuminating. I'll give the Web Neutrality Act a good read.

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    I think tiered content is a great idea. The ISPs can give different sites different priorities and, in return, they lose their common carrier status. It will take a while, but eventually they will be buried under a constant barrage of lawsuits for failing to censor pornography and violence. Once all the ISPs are forced to declare bankruptcy and liquidate their assets, Google can swoop in, buy up all the infrastructure, and give us all free, neutral Internet access, just as long as you agree to have a small AdWords box on your screen. I think it's a win for everyone... except maybe the telcos and cable companies.
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    Quote Originally Posted by nabetse
    Also, if the telecoms got more money, there's no guarantee that they'll use if for infrastructure.
    Before they complain about a lack of money that prevents them from upgrading their scarce resources/bandwith, they better take a tougher grip on all those crackers and spamers that are blocking the lines.

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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by nabetse
    I guess I don't really understand what it entails to run a website, but I thought that the ISPs already offer different prices for different bandwidth. At least at the consumer level, you can get phone line, cable, DSL, and even different speeds within those categories. Also, the companies that offer hosting services often offer different packages with different storage capacities and bandwidth. If I've got this all wrong, please let me know.
    Well, yes one can order diffrent speed packages on the consumer level, but thats you choosing your speed. Other than that though, all internet traffic should flow at, more or less, equal speeds. See when you order bandwith for a website or something, its not the speed your are ordering its the amount of data transfer per month. So the cheap package gets the same speed as the expensive package, the expensive package just gets more data transfer per month.
    but really, i dont know what im talking about.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by paj12
    but eventually they will be buried under a constant barrage of lawsuits for failing to censor pornography and violence
    Americans are sue-happy. Maybe -- just maybe -- it'll work!! (pinky finger at the corner of mouth)

    Quote Originally Posted by ArgPirate
    its not the speed your are ordering its the amount of data transfer per month
    Yeah, I guess {amount of data}/month and {amount of data}/second is a big difference.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by paj12
    I think tiered content is a great idea. The ISPs can give different sites different priorities and, in return, they lose their common carrier status. It will take a while, but eventually they will be buried under a constant barrage of lawsuits for failing to censor pornography and violence. Once all the ISPs are forced to declare bankruptcy and liquidate their assets, Google can swoop in, buy up all the infrastructure, and give us all free, neutral Internet access, just as long as you agree to have a small AdWords box on your screen. [...]
    ...and as long as you use Windows, of course, since Google's AdWords software will only run on Windows. (The high bandwidth mission-critical AdWords servers will all run on Linux, of course.)
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    ...and as long as you use Windows, of course, since Google's AdWords software will only run on Windows. (The high bandwidth mission-critical AdWords servers will all run on Linux, of course.)
    I must be thinking of the wrong thing. What is the small, unobtrusive box in web pages that contains text-only ads from Google? I thought it was called AdWords. Maybe I'm mistaken.
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    Quote Originally Posted by bwkaz
    Perhaps you're thinking of Internet2? Though that's more of an entire second high-speed network between the large universities;
    Isn't that because it is still in the testing phase? I thought it is supposed to start to become available to the public by the end of the decade.

    If this is the case, Internet2 scares me. The coming of a new internet and new infrastructure will mean all those telcom and media companies who missed the money train the first time around will make Internet2 a much more restricted place. Governments will be all too willing to help so that users will be protected from those scarier downsides of the net.
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    Internet 2 initiative

    "Internet2 is a government controlled internet style massive network for primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and museums to extend new technologies, applications, middleware, and content to all educational sectors, as quickly and connectedly as possible."

    From my understanding this is never going public outside of a public school or library, and this is as well just an american thing, or very limited international.

    As far as NET neutrality, Not all will jump on the band wagon to raise rates, from some searching and and questioning it looks mostly like the telcos with their dsl are the ones who will be the jerks and control your bandwith, I emailed comcast and their rep says they don't have plans to restructure the current system if this passes, I actually trust this for the time being as they have been the most decent cable provider to rule the denver area in the past 10 yrs I've been here.

    Untill a decision is made hold on to those land lines and don't go net/voip for phone service just yet
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