Posted on 05/05/2006 3:15:11 AM PDT by directorblue
In most places around the country, consumers are limited to zero, one or two choices for broadband connections to the Internet. I, for example, live in a metro area and have two choices: DSL from the phone company and cable from -- er -- my cable provider. My neighbors to the north have exactly one choice for broadband: DSL.
And with the mergers among the carriers, we're down to two telephone companies and a handful of cable operators. Which doesn't leave anyone interested in competition with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
In point of fact, the telcos have spent most of their energy attempting to reduce choice for last-mile services, even down to battling the city of New Orleans over its deployment of WiFi during the Katrina reconstruction.
We must also ask ourselves why the carriers spend so much on lobbyists and lawyers rather than value-creating applications like Skype, YouTube, and Vonage? The answer is that the carriers believe they can magically legislate value-creation by exterminating net neutrality and erecting tollbooths all over the Internet. And, of course, they are wrong.
Meanwhile, Cisco and other networking vendors are hawking hardware to the carriers that is utterly ominous in nature. It appears designed to analyze, block, filter, meter, and otherwise meddle with Internet traffic to financially benefit the carriers. In fact, they almost come right out and giggle over the capability of degrading applications that are competitive to the carriers' offerings.
Despite the attempts to portray it as such, this is not a Democrat vs. GOP issue. It is a Democracy versus Communism issue. Do we want the continued invention of thousands of new, diverse applications like Skype, Google, and Vonage? Or do we want a centralized planning committee at the carriers' headquarters to decide which startups live or die?
Plenty of conservatives -- from the Gun Owners of America, to Right Wing News, Instapundit, etc. -- support net neutrality. And more are joining the cause every day.
It's easy to see why. When net neutrality was violated in Canada recently, the results weren’t pretty. In that case, a telco blocked access to a political website whose views ran counter to its opinions. Consider that for just a moment.
Furthermore, such an environment destroys innovation. Even today, with a political landscape that seems to favor the carriers' stance, innovation has stalled. Stifel Nicolaus, an analyst quoted in Business Week, stated, "Right now, I would never invest in a business model that depended on protection from Net neutrality."
So who will fund the next great Internet idea? The answer is: no one. The result of killing off neutrality will be more censorship, less innovation, and will place America's Internet leadership position at risk.
Bob Kahn (co-inventor of TCP/IP), Vint Cerf (Godfather of the Internet), and Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the web) all favor network neutrality. But I suppose the telco lobbyists know more about the network then they do.
America's leadership in Internet innovation (and, by extension, its national security) hangs in the balance. Go to SaveTheInternet.com today and take action.
I'm sure that our Washington representatives will make the wise choice about Net neutrality and such stuff...they're the best that money can buy.
Right now, people who use more bandwidth pay more to have that service. Ever hear of DSL and cable Internet? Under net neutrality, we could all be forced into a high-cost, one-size-fits-all internet service where the low-bandwidth user subsidizes high-bandwidth users. Why shouldn't a business that runs applications over the Internet and transfers terabytes of data on a regular basis be charged more to do so than a home user who merely checks email and reads the news online? Even in areas where there are limited numbers of providers, there is ALWAYS the ultimate choice: if you don't like the price, don't buy it. Simple. I, personally, don't think the cost of cable television is worth the service provided, so I don't have it. If cable providers allowed me to purchase it on a per-channel basis, then I might.
To claim that telcos and service providers will en masse block or limit competitors' content is preposterous. Any service provider that does immediately gives his competitors an advantage, as they can offer unlimited, unrestricted Internet for a similar price. Back in the early days of the Internet, online service providers like Compuserve, Prodigy and Genie charged per-minute rates to access only the content on their networks. Users often paid additional fees to access the Internet proper. Then businesses found that customers flocked to service providers who had flat-rate unlimited Internet use. That and the development of the Web put the final nail in the coffin of the limited access providers. We've already seen those days, and they're gone for good.
Besides, net neutrality also shuts off the potential market for innovation where limited access is a feature of the service provided. No one could develop kid-friendly networks parents could buy so they wouldn't have to hover over their kids' shoulders while they surfed. This could be a package offered for a lower price than full, unrestricted access. Maybe someone could develop an online-gaming service where bandwidth is optimized for - and limited to - that purpose. In short, innovation is in the eyes of the beholder. To claim "net neutrality" is the last redoubt of innovation is utter nonsense.
Certain services could disappear altogether. Ever notice "sponsored links" on many search engines? Advertisers pay to get their website displayed prominently on a search results page. Someone who can't afford the price of a "sponsored link" can accuse a search engine of non-neutral practices by enabling a competitor's website to load earlier in the search than theirs because the rival paid for that privilege. Net neutrality could eliminate this as a revenue source for companies such as Google and others, forcing them to make up those costs in other ways - like charging for searches which are now free or not researching new innovations. Free online games could be a thing of the past, because advertising could be viewed as a form of "discrimination." I can see lawyers salivating over all the new lawsuits that would be filed over charges of "violation of net neutrality laws" - and prices going right through the roof as companies have to pay legal fees to sort things out.
"Net neutrality" laws have just as many drawbacks, if not more than the current state of affairs.
The doomsayers have been wrong before. In 2003, the FCC mandated that telcos would no longer be subject to "line-sharing rules." In other words, the telcos could charge whatever they wanted to competing services for delivering DSL over their lines. There were dire predictions of limited choice and higher prices for DSL. In fact, exactly the opposite happened. Prices have FALLEN since the FCC ruling. Despite the constant cries of the "lack of competition," by net neutrality proponents, prices for high-speed Internet have fallen. Verizon is offering DSL for what, $18/mo now? Consider only a few years ago you had to shell out almost twice that - in 2002 the mean price of DSL was over $40/mo, which was HIGHER than cable Internet at the time - and it's hard to see that the lack of net neutrality or competition has driven prices up. Thus, enabling telcos to charge as they will for use of their networks does not necessarily lead to limitation of choice and an increase in prices.
They've been wrong before, and they're wrong this time.
For an interesting essay on the historical prices of telecommunications and high-speed Internet, see Regulated Unbundling of Telecommunications Networks: A Stepping Stone to Facilities-Based Competition?
To claim that telcos and service providers will en masse block or limit competitors' content is preposterous.
Sorry; they're on record as wanting to do precisely that.
Any service provider that does immediately gives his competitors an advantage
Government-protected monopolies don't have competitors. Look up the word "monopoly" if you don't believe me.
Network neutrality DOES have to do with bandwidth, because that is EXACTLY what the telco's want to do - charge providers more for high-bandwidth services. If they can't charge the provider, they charge YOU, or don't build the capacity to provide the service - history, not rhetoric, proves this.
Your line is still 1.5 Mbps no matter what, regardless of how you use it. You can buy a 1.5 Mbps line, split off 768K or so for a DSL connection, and use the rest for a dedicated VOIP system. The line is still 1.5 Mbps. You're paying for a certain capacity connection to your provider, not to any given site or service. Actual throughput is much lower for technical reasons, all of which have nothing to do with restrictions by IPs, so that argument means nothing. Read your service contract - it no doubt says throughput and service availability is NOT guaranteed, because there isn't any way to do so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.