Poll Says No Voter Support for Net Neutrality 337
Giants2.0 writes "A survey conducted by the Commerce Committee says that Americans don't know what net neutrality is, and they don't want it. Ars Technica reports that only 7% of respondents had ever heard of net neutrality, but the report questions the fairness of the survey, which was crafted by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to assess support for the current version of the Telecommunications Act of 2006. The survey suggested to respondents that net neutrality would prevent ISPs from selling faster service or security products, both of which are not true." From the article: "The very brief net neutrality description used by the pollsters is somewhat misleading insofar as it suggests that net neutrality would bar Internet Service Providers from selling faster service than is available today. Strict net neutrality does not concern itself with ultimate transfer speeds available to subscribers, but instead focuses on how different kinds of Internet traffic could be shaped by ISPs for anti-competitive purposes. For instance, strict net neutrality would not prevent an ISP from selling extremely fast 35Mbps connections, but it would prevent ISPs from privileging traffic for their own services for competitive advantage, or degrading the traffic of competing services."
Commercials (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Commercials (Score:5, Informative)
St Louis huh? It's been a while since I was there. Have a soda at Fitz's for me =]
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Re:Commercials (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Commercials (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ncta.com/ContentView.aspx?ContentID=35
transcript: Are you google-eyed with confusion over net neutrality? No wonder, it's all just clever mumbo jumbo. Net neutrality is nothing more than a scheme by the multi-billion dollar silicon valley tech companies, to get you, the consumer to pay more for their services. Forget all their mumbo jumbo, net neutrality simple means, you pay.
Paid for by The National Cable & Telecom Assn.
Biggest crock of s**t I've ever heard. http://www.ncta.com/ContentView.aspx?ContentID=35
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ISPs can charge the users whatever they want to. The problem is that they don't want to raise prices on their customers, they want to charge the other end of the line regardless of whose customer that end is, and how much they are already paying their provider.
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I don't care if it's a tech, pharmacutical, or national parks bill. If a group chose to communicate like that to me, I'd take enough offense to instinctively oppose their viewpoint.
Re:Commercials (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this commercial is simultaneously infuriating and saddening.
Infuriating because they basically gloss over the whole issue under the guise of "Computers are hard, don't try to understand," and then lie about the conclusion.
Saddening because the majority of people that watch it are thinking it's true.
Side note: How much does it cost to run a commercial? I want one that just shows a clip of the commercial, and then some guy sitting there going "Really? The telecom industry wants to save YOUR money? When was the last time your cable bill went DOWN?"
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HUSBAND and WIFE are watching fondly as a procession of household items float down a road. They are approached by THUG.
THUG: That's quite a nice internet business you've got there.
HUSBAND: Yeah, our website has really taken off. Things are looking up.
THUG: Aww, ain't that sweet. In that case, it'd be bad if I did this. (Stops floating items)
HUSBAND: What are you doing?!
THUG: You come in here, you gots to pay the
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Anyone know the PR firm who produced these ads?
Re:Commercials (Score:4, Insightful)
What even sadder is that I don't have even a remote clue of how to answer this problem. No matter what I think of, someone will find a way to absorb resources allocated for any project, and ultimately ruin it. What's there to do with a population that blatantly REFUSES to educate itself, and an upper echelon that uses that to bone the rest of us?
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Educate yourself, get the the upper echelon and bone the rest of us.
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Push poll (Score:5, Funny)
The only question I have (for the committee members touting these results) is, "Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?"
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Senator, please restrict your response to the following question to only "Yes" or "No":
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Don't know what it is, don't want it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, that's amazing. I wonder if that could be because almost all the media in the US is owned by ten megacorporations, and they don't report on things that they don't want us to hear about?
If this subject interests you, I suggest watching Orwell Rolls in his Grave [hyperlogos.org]. (ObDisclaimer: link to a review on my website, amazon referral link if you clicky from there. You know what to do if you want to find it somewhere else. I do not sell ads, I don't get money for page views.)
Don 't know what Common Carriage is either (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't know what Common Carriage is either, but benefit greatly from it. Net Neutrality is basically trying to re-frame Common Carriage as something new, unnecessary and unproven rather than old, essential to business, and time tested. It was what allowed all the small ISPs and software companies to flourish in the last two decades: it prevented newer business and services from being locked out by more established ones, it prevented ISPs and hosting companies for being liable for the content produced by their customers.
Now that a handful of megacorps have crushed or absorbed all of the small ones, and it's really hard for these to crush or absorb each other using the same methods. Going back to the pathetic crumbly, balkanized patchwork of non-interoperable, 1960-style proprietary networks seems to be what these want to try again. It gives exponential advantage to larger market share. Common Carriage is preventing these megacorps from balkanizing the net. So far...
How about a poll phrasing it this way:
"Are you in favor of equal access to the net or would you prefer to allow groups and businesses to be closed out by the big players and to allow ISPs to give you slower service unless you pay extra?"
Let me get this straight (Score:2)
How can anyone have an opinion on something if they don't know what it is?
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't stop creationist ministers who don't study biophysics, self-righteous atheists who attack religous people, race-baiting anti-immigrant types who don't full understand NAFTA and GATT or people jumping the anti-welfare bandwagon without knowing anything about how public assistance works.
Its usually the least informed who have the most to say.
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I kid, I kid!
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hold on a sec (Score:5, Insightful)
self-righteous atheists who attack religous people.
For one, in my experience, it's almost always the other way around. In particular, one of the preferred attacks is to claim that atheists are always attacking them and trying to repress their beliefs, which is laughable in a country like the US where 80%+ of people are Christians, and an open atheist stands no chance of getting elected to national office. There is a minority of new atheists who are obnoxious asshats, but they usually calm down after a while, and they're no worse than born-again Christians, who (on the other hand) tend to never get less shrill.
Its usually the least informed who have the most to say.
For another thing, most atheists I know are quite familiar with the commmon arguments for and against the existence of God and knows at least a bit about the history of Christianity and the Bible. (Often weak on other religions, but hey, Christians are the majority religion here and are often big proselytizers.) Atheism is not a position most people come to passively or inherit from their parents -- unlike most religions. The atheists I know are well read, thoughtful, rational, highly informed people.
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They were talking about atheism, not secularism. While it's true that the genocides in Russia and China were secularist acts, it's completely wrong to claim that the primary reason was to persecute religious people. Those governments were trying to establish power and religious organisations were in strong opposition; the genocides were mos
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I don't know, but i'm all for it.
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That's easy (Score:2)
It's the core principle of advertising.
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A great number of people in this world have an opinion on any subject you ask them about even if they have never heard of it before. Logic and common sense are not a prevelent as they should be.
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Well, most people probably assume they are being sold something, so if you don't know what something is, the safest answer to 'do you want $FOO' is No.
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Did telecoms design the survey? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that it is extremely unethical for a committee to try and shape public opinion through the misuse of untrue information on their survey.
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Interesting to see cunning use of questions (Score:5, Informative)
Do you want an ID card? 85%
Do you want an ID card if you have to pay for it? 7%
So the govt reports 85% support and that will cost you GBP150 pounds each please.
Re:Interesting to see cunning use of questions (Score:5, Insightful)
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But seriously who is going to say they want a government mandates thing they have to pay for. But 150? Thats like a US nickle.
HAHA Sorry couldn't resist
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You always have to pay for it of course, but paying for it through your taxes is much less painful than having to pay up front. In France the ID card is free as well. It's not much use though...
Net Neutral = Fair (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not only that, but it's a company that you're already dealing with. You'll have one fewer bill to keep track of, one fewer account to remember, one fewer tech support line to call, and that alone, all other things being equal, will give them an advantage. Plus they can offer bundling deals, like a lot of cable companies are trying to do now with TV, Internet, VOIP.
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I remember someone reporting that a team of pro-NN programmers were working on a FireFox plug-in that 'polled' various servers on the net with different protocols, to give the user the ability to see if his internet was 'biased'. I haven't seen or heard of it since..... Anyone??
Perhaps the Tel-cos are so hell-bent on getting more money out of their existing infrastructure that they are
It all depends on how you ask the question (Score:5, Insightful)
For comparison, Cato [cato.org] has similar things to say about polling for support of school vouchers. When you imply in the question that other countries are doing it with great success, people are in favor. When you imply that it would hurt the public schools, people are against it. Shocking.
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Great fuckin' point there. We should all oppose vouchers for that reason.
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I need to work on my sarcasm...
Key insight about polls (Score:3, Informative)
That's a separate issue from "push polls", which are meant to change what people think as opposed to simply getting the desired answer. An example push poll was a telephone "survey" in the 2000 South Carolina primary asking "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" [sourcewatch.org].
Some Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
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Ignorance kills (Score:2)
How can US voters make wise decisions if they don't know who borders whom, or the difference between Sunni and Shi'a [washingtonpost.com] (read to near the end)?
I keep six faithful serving men
Who teach me well and true
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why an
Probably not malice (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Eh. Hm. Actually, our species is more than capable of it; our particular culture (a sub-group of the species) is not.
Indigenous cultures managed their affairs very well for tens of thousands of years before our culture came along. And in less than a planetary blink of an eye, we've spread across the planet and brought ourselves to the brink of destruction MORE than once.
It seems the proble
Question 1 (Score:5, Funny)
And that's how you skew a poll. Funny or insightful, I'll take either.
+1 Sad But True on the MQR standard (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd give you both, but I don't have either at the moment, so I'll have to offer one of my home-brew mods, a +1 Sad But True.
At the rate we are going I would not be surprised to see that level of push po
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I wonder if there were any "Given that Sen Lieberman could rape your children and kill your pets, will you vote for him in the Primaries." Last month.
New poll (Score:4, Funny)
Do you support net neutrality or do you support terrorism and child pornography?
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Can I choose the CowboyNeal option?
I can confirm the statistics firsthand... (Score:2)
Typical. They had never heard of ICANN, either.
Um. (Score:2)
Call me old.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I just feel this being segmented, sliced up, analized, commercialize, and legalized. Don't get me wrong, some of it has been good. Would have never gotten outta dial up days if nothing happened to it but the face of the internet in another 10 years scares me.
Am I gonna nee
Re:Call me old.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Big business will charge you any way they can. And they'll usually make you watch ads at the same time. Ads that they charged someone else to put there.
Inherent Flaw? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Inherent Flaw? (Score:4, Informative)
Its more like your ISP would be able to contact imdb and say "Hey your users like to download movies, pay us and we will make sure to send the packets as fast as we can, if you don't pay us, we will throttle the connection for your users."
The end user would have no idea why imdb is slower than the roadrunner site.
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The only ISP I can get in my area is Road Runner. They want me to use AOL Search, so what they do is throttle all of the other search engines, so that I get so disguested I end up just using AOL Search.
Another example would be:
My ISP sees that a lot of traffic is going to MySpace. MySpace is making a lot of money on ads. They approach MySpace and basically say "our customers are going to your website. Pay us $x,000 a month or we
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Points to the uselessness of surveys... (Score:2)
Net Neutrality needs to happen
Yikes (Score:2, Insightful)
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What's in a name? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe we can call it "Not being sodomized by the bastards" or "Not paying extra for crap service" or "Leave my Skype alone!"
Well WE know what it is (Score:4, Informative)
Start here:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=senatetally [savetheinternet.com]
Most Senators are not on record and so are more likely to be open to influence from their constituents. Your best bet to describe, in simple terms, why it is important and why it is a major voting issue to you. It does not have to be a magnum opus, just a short e-mail, letter, fax, or phone call.
And if you one of those who don't understand or care, I invite you to read this:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=faq [savetheinternet.com]
What's this, biased political surveys?! (Score:2)
It's been said before: Write your Senator! (Score:3, Informative)
Democracy at its finest (Score:2)
Just how much more blatant can you get with "buying" votes? Unfortunately, people don't want to be informed, they want to be led. They want someone to tell them "That's the way it is, swallow it!", and they even get away with it.
Is free press really that bad? In countries where censorship is running rampart, people distrust government and press, and they try to find the truth. Often with their life at stake should they be discovered
Bias unclear (Score:2)
Well, not to take sides here, but that is exactly how S.2917 [gpo.gov] proposes net neutrality should be defined: A prohibition against offering tiered Internet services.
The problem here is that there is no one definition of "net neutrality" that is accepted by either side of the issue. Spin is put
Just get sites to advertise (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe if the poll was online (Score:2)
Arrrrr-genius. (talk like a pirate)
Does no one see where this leads? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me try and break this down into small, understandable chunks:
Scenario A: The Die Hard Gamer
Johnny plays Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 4 almost religiously. He has a nice DSL connection and usually sees ping times under 30ms to his favorite servers. His DSL provider contacts him and informs him that due to a restructuring, his $54.95 a month now only allows him 'Standard' service. He notices that his ping time has risen to over 200ms during his gaming sessions, significantly impacting his ability to play online games, but sees no other real latency issues while surfing. Another phone call to his ISP informs him that for the low, low price of $14.95, they will stop prioritizing his gaming packets lower than all other traffic. They would call it the 'Gaming Extreme' package. Now, Johnny is spending $15 more a month, just because his ISP has the ability to prioritize his traffic as they see fit.
THAT SUCKS.
Scenario B: The Mom and Pop Shop ISP
Mom and Pop start an ISP and have a big contract with Concentric, one of the bigger backbones. A high percentage of their customers are in the SW, and a lot of what their customers do involves servers in the NE. In order for the data to get from Customer to End Server, it passes through Mom and Pop, Concentric, Cogent, and Level3. (I know, I know, it wouldn't likely go through that much.) Cogent and Concentric are at odds, because Cogent wants to charge Concentric $1.00 per megabyte for priority speeds. Concentric told Cogent to stuff it, so now every packet going through Cogent has 4x the latency of 'priority' traffic. As Cogent is a bunch of idiots in this example, it's not much of a stretch to assume that Level3 dislikes them as well. Level3 won't pay Cogent for priority traffic, either. So now, Level3 is slowing down Cogent's traffic, and Cogent is slowing down Concentric's traffic. This results in your latency being between 500ms and 750ms, instead of 30ms to 50ms. All because some assface in a suit at some table wants his $1.5M salary pushed up by another $250k/year.
If reading THAT doesn't make you understand that 'waiting to see' is the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas, GET THE HELL OFF THE INTERNET. No one wants you here if you don't have the slightest of interest in the longevity and perserverence of the network.
Daily Show Explains Net Neutrality (Score:3, Informative)
This is the wrong fight. Here's what we need... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's what needs to happen...
The big problem in the US is that there is no competition between broadband providers. In most places, if you're lucky, you have a choice between DSL and Cable. That usually means getting service from a monopoly telco or a monopoly cable provider. Sure, there are companies like Earthlink that sell broadband services, but they have the uncomfortable position of having to be both the customers and competitors of the monopoly providers. This is never a good arrangement.
For true net neutrality, we need to divorce the companies that own the copper and fiber (local loop) from the ones providing dialtone. This means breaking up the monopoly providers into 2 or more entities each. One monopoly company that owns/services/maintains the wires, and one company that rents these lines from the monopoly provider and provides dialtone. The first one is regulated as any monopoly should be. The second is essentially a peer with all other dialtone providers.
This would put all the dialtone providers in the US on an equal footing, and give some serious incentive for them to add value since changing broadband provider wouldn't necessarily mean dealing with a company that has to buy stuff from their competitor.
There is clear precedent for this. Look at the deregulation of long distance in the 80's.
If we could ever make this happen in the current regulatory environment, then all this net neutrality stuff would go by the wayside. Any provider that wanted to pull this garbage of trying to charge both ends for traffic on a pipe would be writing out their own corporate suicide note, since people would just drop their inferior service.
QED (except for the part of overriding the lobbies of the monopoly companies)
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Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, you are on the west coast with ISP A.
The server you want to talk to is on the east cost with ISP B.
Backbone provider C sits in the middle, and your packets want to cross over their network.
C decides that B hasn't payed them enough money, and thus slows down packets to and from B that cross over C.
From your end, it looks like service is degraded and your ISP sucks. What do you do? Switch ISPs? It won't help if you still have to cross C to get to B. So there's really no way to "vote with your dollars" in this case -- as if that would work anyway, because like I said you won't know the root cause.
Network neutrality is a basic part of the net's design. So basic nobody thought to codify it until it became clear that certain money grubbers want to eliminate it. Sorry GP, but regulation is the only way to fix this problem.
Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:5, Insightful)
A big problem is that whenever one of these massive companies notices a potential regulatory threat to their cash cow, they simply sponsor a few senators and their parties and get the entire thing stopped.
Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, yet. Are you implying that therefore the ISPs might not actually want to? Then why are they fighting so hard against net neutrality? It certainly isn't because they're averse to government regulation, seeing as how that's why most of them exist as localized monopolies! There's clearly a desire to implement tiered services, and to target packets to slow them down. They will do it, it is only a matter of time.
Personally, I prefer to fix issues before they become a problem. Kinda like fixing your tire design before the first SUV flips over. But waiting until the obvious problem actually bites you in the ass sure is the typical market way of dealing with things.
I say at least let the market try first (may or may not work), then if an actual problem arises, try regulation.
I'd be interested to hear how it could work. Where's the market incentive? As I was pointing out, it's not like end users can actually affect anything, assuming they can even tell what is going on.
Once regulation starts, it's only going to get more pervasive. There is a good chance that regulation will be worse than the problems that may arise without it.
There's already regulation. Regulation is why the internet exists in the first place. Internet is better than no internet, and net neutrality is better than no net neutrality. Even if the legislation that brings it about has its own negative side effects. The balkanization of the internet is a terrible problem. I do not see a good chance that even particularly bad legislation would be worse, so long as it enforced neutrality.
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A) If the telecoms don't intend to implement tiered services, then how are they going to pay for all of this magical, mythical, better Internet, which net-neutrality would supposedly prevent? They argue that they won't be able to "upgrade the Internet", but doesn't that directly imply that they want to use a non-neutra
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I maintain that this whole thing is way overblown and that geting the government (note correct spelling) involved in regulation based on speculation is not a good idea.
Okay, then, to pick a nit, what is your logical basis (founded in solid evidence, of course) for maintaining that this whole thing is overblown?
It's one thing to say that you don't believe that it's likely, but a statement like that reads as if countless hours of research and/or thought had gone into solidifying it into a personal faith.
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Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:4, Insightful)
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So if some sort of packet prioritizing is enabled by the providers, it's likely that most users will quickly hear of it through the grapevine. Whether they will be able to do anything about it besides whining remains to be seen though.
Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't block Net Neutrality on the grounds that it introduces government regulation to the net, when the very existence of the infrastructure on which the net runs is due to a whole raft of government-granted monopolies, government claims of eminent domain, etc.
The day I can start charging Verizon rent for the lines they keep on my property, instead of just giving them those rights for free because the government tells me to, is the day I'll buy the "no government regulation of the net" argument against Net Neutrality.
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Re:I don't know what it is either (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'm not suggesting this as a workable solution. If Verizon had to actually deal with the free market, and obtain the right to lay line on everyone's land, they wouldn't exist. The logistics would be impossible. That's the point. The internet is a public good, like the road systems or sewer systems. The only way these systems can be created is through government circumvention of the fundamental property rights of citizens. Thus, its stupid to argue that government regulation will destroy free market competition, because there is no free market involved.
Even for a capitalist, regulation isn't all bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Those cases mostly arise when the market either has already, or threatens to create a situation that prevents future competition in the market. For this reason, you have anti-trust laws and lots of other regulations; the goal of them is to create a basically level playing field on which various firms can compete for business. This is how the system is supposed to work. Let the market work when it can, but when it won't produce the desired outcome on its own (where the desired outcome is determined through the democratic process), then there's a place for regulation to step in and create the environment where it will.
Now I think we can all agree that the outcome that most users want is not one where there is nothing but a series of regional monopolies, dispensing to users your telephone, cable TV, and internet, and charging exorbitant rates to do so, far in excess of what other people in other parts of the world pay. Therefore, if this seems to be the likely result of noninterference, then the government has a mandate to inject itself and regulate.
Although the government does have a history of mucking things up where it's not needed, history does show that there are times when regulation by some sort of governing body is both necessary and in the long run, beneficial. (E.g., securities markets.*) Also, governments have been engaging in infrastructure-development projects since probably the beginning of recorded history, and in the 21st century, the Internet is as much an important economic thoroughfare as the Interstate Highways are. Allowing a small number of companies to control and manipulate our electronic "tubes," would be akin to handing over control of the highways to Ford, GM, and Chrysler in 1955, so that they could prohibit Japanese cars from driving on them.
* - For a pro-capitalist analysis of the development of the U.S. securities markets prior to regulation, I recommend reading The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street; I think most people who advocate complete deregulation aren't quite appreciative of how rough things were prior to its introduction.
Your wallet is worthless. (Score:5, Informative)
You dial into (or are connected to) Ma and Pa ISP
Ma and Pa ISP connects to some local back bone
local back bone connects to a national back bone
national back bone connects to major ISP
major ISP connects to Google
Now, let's say that the national back bone ditches out on NN. That national back bone sends Google a bill saying "pay this much or your service will be degraded." So, if Google pays them, great. Except then the Major ISP is going to tell Google that if they want premium service on their side, they'll have to pay them more as well. No biggie, at this point Google is just shelling out a few extra checks a month. But then it hits the local back bones. Networks all over the world demand that Google pay them directly to get non-degraded service. And then it comes to Ma and Pa, they get the best of both worlds, they can bill you an extra fee for "preferred services" and the can bill Google for it's traffic.
Even if you switch from Ma and Pa to another ISP, you'll still hit non-neutral traffic in between you and Google.
The infrastructure industry is demanding more money. Fair enough, there are two ways of getting it: The NN way, increase your bill rates. Or the non-NN way, bill the providers and users an extra fee.
Using the NN way, the implementation process is simple, you increase your bill rates. No new technology to implement, no new personnel, no new sales, etc.
Using the non-NN way, the implementation process is incredibly complex. You need to first implement new hardware over the network to take advantage of the performance. Then you need to establish a billing system for the new services. You need to increase your staff to manage the new billing and sales requirements. You need to advertise and educate. You need to spend a whole lot more money to get the extra income. Which means it is significantly less efficient.
NN or non-NN, either way the infrastructure will get the money they need/want. The question is how much will it cost the customers (consumers and businesses). And from what I've seen, implementing a non-NN solution is going to have significantly more overhead, costs, and problems than just raising the rates.
Not to mention the inevitable use of unfair practices to leverage business opportunities. Imagine if AT&T choked all VOIP traffic to a snails pace. Just by disrupting VOIP on their back bones they could literally crush the VOIP industry overnight.
-Rick
Re:Your wallet is worthless. (Score:4, Insightful)
They are spending huge amounts of research money on this... when the switch flips they will make back the research spending in DAYS! that's how much money is at stake here.
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People don't care until a problem directly involves them. And the kicker is, even if you can explain why they are impacted, they will still give precedence to the short-term benefits.
And the worst thing of all, if anyone truly cares about an issue, how can they be certain that any data or conclusion given is valid. I have a limited amount of time, and a limited skull, I'
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Despite the crassness of parent, it's a pretty accurate representation of what a good portion of the rest of the world is feeling. TV and media distract the average American suburbanite into not thinking about what actually matters. As long as they can drive to their office job in their SUV and come home their TV, everything in the world is fine. They don't have to think because they pay to have someone think for them.
You're welcome here in Canada. We're far from
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Hopefully you see the fallacy in these statements.
Jesus, Canada is looking better and better by the day.
If your above comments represent how you truly how you feel about 300 million of your countrymen (I am assuming you are currently living in the US), then perhaps you are correct that moving to Canada would be a solution, although I imagine any location's citiz