Net Neutrality Links
I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
Fight For the Internet Freedom Heats Up [via 3quarksdaily]
As the return of Congress loomed, however, the Alaska senator took a poke from the largest daily newspaper in his state, the Anchorage Daily News, which bluntly declared in a September 4 editoral that: “Net Neutrality is a good idea. Sen. Ted Stevens should support it.”
“Sen. Stevens has said he doesn’t see an immediate problem that requires regulation. In other words, he’s reluctant to have the government set the playing rules until more companies are caught cheating. Apparently he thinks competition can be counted on to prevent any abuses,” explained the editorial. “Only problem is, local Internet service is not a fluid, totally free market with a lot of competitors. Many markets are served by only one or two high-speed Internet companies. Switching providers is not as easy as driving to the next gas station or grocery store. Special expertise and special equipment are required to switch. Many consumers may not even be sophisticated enough to know when their Internet service is playing favorites in sending content.”
The Anchorage Daily News concluded that, “Net Neutrality is hardly a heavy-handed government intrusion into the free-wheeling world of the Internet. It is a simple antitrust rule that protects consumers by keeping Internet companies from exploiting their control over connections. Congress should get ahead of the curve and ensure net neutrality before abuses begin to spread.”
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE
Good morning Liz! It’s starting to seem like the tide is turning. There are more and more of these clearly postive stories and editorials and fewer corporate rationalizations.
Or it’s all an illusion designed to lull us….
Hi Katie,
The sun is shining in Chicago.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. 🙂
I guess we’ll only know for sure when the story is over.
Well, I’m always happiest when I put feeling discouraged off until tomorrow. The sun’s shining here in Kansas City, too. And I can’t even see a man behind the curtain! 🙂
I’m laughing out loud!
What great response on sunny Friday!
I would disagree with the Anchorage Daily News’ assesment that net neutrality isn’t “heavy handed governement intrusion.” Although, I will tell yuo that I work with the Hands Off the Internet Coaltiion in opposing net neutrality regualtions. While I agree with net neutrality supporters that Senator Stevens isn’t quite and internet(s) expert neither are Senators Snowe and Dorgan who are the supposed champions of net neutrality. Frankly, we don’t need these regualtions and the FCC and FTC have already pledge to study the issue and they have the authority to step in and address and potential violations by the ISPs.
I believe net neutrality will only hurt consumers in the end as the costs of upgrading to a fiber network will be passed on to the consumers and not the large content providers who use most of the available bandwidth. For anyone interested, the Chicago Sun-Times had a very good and fair op-ed this week that is worth a read;
http://www.suntimes.com/output/commentary/cst-edt-edits06a.html
Consumers will pay in the end whichever company foots the initial bill, whether it’s the telcos or the content providers.
Only thing is, there’s open competition in the marketplace of content providers, while the access providers in the US have either local monopolies or at best duopolies, making competition in that marketplace at best a mirage without local-loop and CLEC unbundling. Which you won’t be seeing any time ever if the telcos/cable companies have anything to say about it. Which leaves the option of either letting the telcos pick the winners in the marketplace or forbidding the telcos from market interference and have them raise prices to consumers or initiate badwidth caps if they feel they aren’t profiting enough from the free use of public lands that they’re already getting.
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Yeah, AdLib, I think they’re going to have to change that old saying to
“There’s no such thing as a free . . . Internet.”
Of course, we always paid, but it’s getting interesting how my telco is offering me lower- priced, faster service suddenly.
Well, over here in Norway we HAVE local loop and CLEC unbundling, and I’m buying my broadband access from a provider who has only minimal physical infrastructure of their own. Over the past three years, I’ve been paying the same amount for my access (NextGenTel Echo/Free) and the available bandwidth has quadrupled…
At the same time, over in your next of the woods, nothing much has changed. I’ve noted with interest that the cheapest offer from my provider is the Basic at 1800 kbps while for example Verizon’s starter package is 768Kbps, and the package I have gives me 6500/750 Kbps – while Verizon’s top offer is 3.0 Mbps or roughly half mine.
In other words, Verizon’s basic offer is considered so crap you can’t even sell it around here…
Do you think any of the bandwidth issue has anything to do with the size of the population? My new service will be 6Mbps.
Seriously doubt it – we’re 4.5 million people here, in a country with 118,244 sq miles land area and more mountains than flat land, and building infrastructure is orders of magnitude more expensive than just about anywhere.
(I’m considering moving to the next tier offer, ADSL2+, giving 20 Mbps when I move as my new apartment is in an area where ADSL2+ is an option…)
All right then . . . no wonder there are so many bloggers in your part of the world. . . .