Net Neutrality - Why Should You Care? - Comments Page 2

I could care less about VOIP, I got plenty of phones, could care less about video chat, there are many free video chat sides, yahoo, AOL etc.

"And that users who want to download pirated movies should either get lower priority, or pay more for faster service"?
How about spending more brain cells stopping criminality. Best regards, john.
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Oh Bob, I think you stepped in it this time, "Should the Internet be regulated?" This isn't a technical issue; this is both a political and business issue. Do we need to force or regulate businesses to "do the right thing" or is business competition sufficient to ensure an equable outcome?
Unfortunately, "do the right thing" is not good business practice. Imagine that, oh, say Real Estate wasn't regulated. We'd have 'Purple-only' communities (substitute your own color) or vastly different prices or mortgage rates depending on your color.
You make three anti-net-neutrality arguments: all are wrong.
First, you suggest that VOIP packets be prioritized over bit torrent packets. There is nothing inherently illegal (immoral or whatever) with bit torrent, why should VOIP be given a free ride over any other type of packet. And yes, I think it's wrong that Comcast reserves a channel for *their* VOIP packets over any other VOIP packets so that their phone calls work better than say, Vonage.
You suggest that bandwidth hogs should be throttled. I agree, but not by false advertising. If an ISP advertises "Unlimited Bandwidth" (taken as download as much as you want) then they should be held to that. Again, Comcast has quietly dropped that phrase (Verizon FiOS has not) and are imposing a cap of 350 GB/month on cable customers in my area. This is absolutely apparent in Cell phone traffic, it is not in cable/fiber traffic. An ISP that advertises unlimited bandwidth should supply that.
Your suggest that IPSs "might" try to block or slow competitive services. There is no "might," Rogers cable in Canada absolutely did, and may still do, exactly this. There is no FCC in Canada. When a cable company has competitive services (I'm looking at you Comcast!) they have every incentive in the world (e.g. lots and lots of money) to slow down, interfere, or other screw up Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other video streamers because they want those dollars. Unless, of course, they get their cut.
Ok, so if 'they' do that, why not just switch ISPs? BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY REAL COMPETITION … IT'S A CABLE MONOPOLY! Huh buddy ... you want your TV from somebody else? Put an antenna on your roof. :-(
That said, wired internet services (Cable, Fiber) is a different market from wireless (Cell phone 4G, etc.) which does have competition. But to my mind, there should not be different rules for the internet regardless if one receives it by a wire or a radio – it should be all the same Internet.
As one of a Libertarian bent,I believe it is necessary to regulate, not the Internet, but the Internet Service *Providers*. And that's the difference – I want free access to the Internet unfettered by my supplier to that resource. Without Net Neutrality it's the third, four, fifth … etc. tier web sites that will lose out. A TWiT, a Revision3, or a Carolla Digital might not be possible without a neutral supplier. Or, an AskBobRankin.

Cable TV providers, electric utility companies, gas companies (cooking and heating fuel via pipe), water and sewer services, telephone companies, and ISPs are all basically public utilities. In most places they exist without any competition, in places where there is competition, they have only one or two competitors. That is not enough competition for market forces to effect consumer-driven outcomes. A pair or trio of service providers are going to make their own laws unless they are restricted by government regulation. That is one of the many reasons why civilization requires government.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

One need look no further than the FDA and USDA to understand that, regardless of the persuasion of the occupants of the White House, Senate, or Congress, big business has absolute control over government agencies and virtually all elected representatives. If you put your faith and future in the hands any part of government then you might as well just bend over and kiss it goodbye.

The problem arises when there are only a few internet "backbones", and they collude among themselves to increase value for their shareholders. I've heard there are six major players, and every year there are fewer as one corporation buys out another. The less competition, the higher the prices and the less the choices.
The internet started as a government project (ARPANET) migrating into the TCP/IP it has become. This was to share knowledge among universities and research facilities. If the internet becomes tiered, this sharing of knowledge may be available only to those who can afford it.

Mediacom and centurylink already limit the web. I can not get espn3 or ABC because my providor doesn't allow it. Sounds like somebody asked for money to either be carried or provided. What is the story.

Congratulations. Yours is the only article on the subject (other than my own 'blog post: http://archivale.com/weblog/?p=694) that I've seen so far that actually mentions that Net Neutrality is a coercive solution to a nonexistent problem.
But give the government the power to directly control content forwarding, and you WILL have bias in content handling - and it won't necessarily be the bias that you want. So far, Comcast is the only carrier who has throttled bittorrent traffic, and I have a strong suspicion that the market has since stopped them from doing it because - surprise! - the end users (you know, the people whose money actually pays for the Internet) want to use bittorrent. The Internet is now mostly sustained by private investment competing for private purchases of Internet services; as long as that continues to be true, providers can't get too creative in handling traffic or they will lose revenue.
Imagine your reaction if you went shopping online for a book, say, and the only functional page you could get was Amazon.com. I like Amazon, and frequently buy from them, but if they were the only bookselling resource on the Net I would stop shopping for books online. I would not completely cancel my Internet service as long as email continued to work, because I need it to communicate with clients, but I would buy the lowest and cheapest grade of service that I could get, because the value of the Net would have declined to a tiny fraction of that of an open Net. Multiply my individually inconsequential decision by millions, and you have an economic force to be reckoned with.

Elizabeth - I with ya baby. Anyone who didn't sign it is a fool and deserves what they get!!
Stand up for your rights people. Don't let the man dictate what happens to your rights!

You have to be living in Neverland to believe that entities such as Google, Microsoft or some upstart ISP would actually do the right thing rather than play a little cut throat to get an edge. Why should they be any different than any other part of American. That's the equivalent to posting a speed limit and hoping everyone will observe it without the threat of a trooper around the next bend in the road.

Salim asks for Bob to put together a form letter on this subject and I agree - what do you think of the following?:
Adapting from what Bob wrote I came up with the following -
Senator XXXXXXXX
Representative XXXXXXXX

On January 14, 2014, a U.S. federal appeals court struck down the FCC’s Net Neutrality directive.

Since Net Neutrality assures that Internet service providers should not be allowed to speed up, slow down or block certain types of Internet
traffic. That means that my services might be impaired by an ISP who decides that a content provider's services can be arbitrarily delayed, enhanced or otherwise interfered with.

Please create or support legislation to assure that the FCC has the power to block abuses of market power caused by the bad behavior of Internet service and content providers.

This can be done either through limited regulatory powers (with Congressional oversight) or by the application of anti-trust principles. Please assure that the FCC has the necessary power to prevent abuses by Internet service and content providers.

Demand that they consider the possible unintended consequences, and consult with unbiased technical experts before doing so.

Thank you,
Name
City, State
==============================
Comments anyone?

Hi Bob: I agree with the previous comment by Narada that your contrasting arguments for Pro and Anti-Neutrality were not balanced. The pro-neutrality arguments were alarmist rather than some more thoughtful ones that I have below:

Small Startups Could Be Hurt:
If network neutrality is killed, small companies and startups could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Internet service providers would have to offload the cost of major sites to smaller ones, effectively limiting the chances for small Web companies to grow into giants. Perhaps that's why so many in Silicon Valley are so upset with the recent ruling.

Competition on the Web Could Suffer:
If service providers start throttling bandwidth or increasing bandwidth costs based on usage, some smaller companies could have trouble growing their traffic or paying the higher costs. If the ruling stands, it effectively paves the way for ISPs to charge companies for their bandwidth usage and could conceivably slow down connections to certain sites.

Big Web Companies Will Prosper No Matter What:
There's a general belief in the industry that major Web companies, like Google, could actually prosper if network neutrality is struck down. There's a sense that Google, Facebook and others, being the service providers' best customers, won't have to deal with any bandwidth restrictions and can afford to pay any increased service charges in any event. Only smaller Web companies will suffer.

Lets face it - the big guys almost always behave badly without regulation - history shows us that
very clearly! We need to protect the small entrepreneurs to encourage innovation and competition in our free market system. This is not a new idea - the anti-trust laws were first passed almost a century ago.

Bob, I can say your article was informative.

I don't agree about VOIP. It should not be prioritized on the internet, nor should video-chat or the like.

I am not a fan of prioritzing anything that would bog down the flow of the bit-rates on the Internet; if that includes Netflix, then so be it.

I also do not favor any form of throttling by any ISP, for any reason.

I agree with Maggie. In the area where I just moved from, Comcast had the monopoly on internet service. If you wanted to use any other ISP, ie Click Network, Verizon, etc you could not get a signal in the Comcast "zone".

As for Bit Torrent, it was a convenience for some people who - surprise - can't get broadband in their areas. They could get a movie, or music or pdf. It's funny how people who never used BitTorrent have an opinion on what it was used for.