Thursday, July 06, 2006
Net Neutrality -- The system is at risk
I've been reading and thinking alot about Net Neutrality lately. The idea is that ISPs shouldn't be allowed to determine what information is more important than other information and treat that data differently.
Stripping Neutrality out of the equation could affect consumers and Internet based companies in a highly negative way. For example, lets say we have "Massive ISP Corp" , "Mini Content Provider LLC", and "Mega Corp News Agency". Neutrality dictates that when an information request comes from Jane Internet User who is using Massive as her ISP that if she requests a page from Mini and Mega, that the packets are treated exactly the same. There is no priority of that information transfer. Sounds fair right?
The House Commerce Committee justset the stage for carriers (ISPs) to control this information flow. This means that they could legally say to both Mega and Mini, you have to pay a surcharge and then you will get priority of information transfer. If Mini can't afford to pay, then the request that Jane makes through Massive ISP will be lower in priority effectively stiffling Mini's ability to communicate and do business.
This seems, an awful lot like the Commer Committee is setting the possibility for protectionism to occur legally.
If you want to read Sentator Ted Steven's thoughts on this (he is the committee chair), get ready for some rather bizarre logic.
If you care about keeping the Internet open and flat, contact your legislators. It can still be stopped--the measures need to make it through the House and Senate now--but time is short. Don't email your legislator, send mail and/or call.
Stripping Neutrality out of the equation could affect consumers and Internet based companies in a highly negative way. For example, lets say we have "Massive ISP Corp" , "Mini Content Provider LLC", and "Mega Corp News Agency". Neutrality dictates that when an information request comes from Jane Internet User who is using Massive as her ISP that if she requests a page from Mini and Mega, that the packets are treated exactly the same. There is no priority of that information transfer. Sounds fair right?
The House Commerce Committee justset the stage for carriers (ISPs) to control this information flow. This means that they could legally say to both Mega and Mini, you have to pay a surcharge and then you will get priority of information transfer. If Mini can't afford to pay, then the request that Jane makes through Massive ISP will be lower in priority effectively stiffling Mini's ability to communicate and do business.
This seems, an awful lot like the Commer Committee is setting the possibility for protectionism to occur legally.
If you want to read Sentator Ted Steven's thoughts on this (he is the committee chair), get ready for some rather bizarre logic.
If you care about keeping the Internet open and flat, contact your legislators. It can still be stopped--the measures need to make it through the House and Senate now--but time is short. Don't email your legislator, send mail and/or call.
