Posted on 05/15/2014 6:26:13 AM PDT by dayglored
The Federal Communications Commission thinks the Internet in the United States can be run at two speeds. Backtracking from an earlier proposal, the FCC now believes it will be just fine to let Internet service providers (ISPs) control what you access online, with a few exceptions that the FCC would police.
While this new proposal might not kill the Internet, as it exists now, it would certainly cripple it at least for American consumers and businesses.
Multiple leaks about FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to the commission, which will be presented on Thursday, indicate that the agency would not allow ISPs to give preferential treatment faster Internet access to their own subsidiaries. But it would allow other companies to pay for faster, more reliable access. (No matter that such a similar restriction has already failed in the case of Comcast giving preferential treatment to its own Golf Channel.)
Unfortunately, there is no halfway approach to how data should flow over the Internet. It's a binary proposition: Either access to the Internet is equal, no matter the type or size of the business, or it is not. Letting Amazon have better access because it can pay and because it is not owned by AT&T will not make the situation more equal.
If the Internet does not maintain net neutrality, wherein all digital data is treated the same, countless businesses tech companies in Silicon Valley, auto companies in Detroit, health care providers in Houston, startups in New York will suffer. And, of course, you and I will pay for diminishing service and be denied the option of choosing what we want to read, view and listen to at faster speeds.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The "fast lane" proposal is the death knell for sites like FR. Do you think the big liberal media outfits are going to give a conservative political forum a fair chunk of bandwidth, when their liberal buddies have tons more money to pay for faster/better/more reliable access?
If you think so, you're dreaming.... because this FCC proposal is the coming of the nightmare.
Have at, fellow FReepers....
tech pings?
I forgot what the anti-net neutrality case is - can anybody refresh my memory?
Just wait until a Lois Learner is in charge of which web sites are allowed to vend bits.
Ping!
I think the government and the major carriers are less interested in privileging certain content providers than they are in suppressing certain protocols - e.g. bittorrent.
Why do we even need an FCC?
That the government shouldn't tell private property owners what they can do with their own property.
Except of course the telecommunications industry isn't very private. It's both one of the most regulated and one of the most privileged industries in existence.
I think it boils down to the service providers such as Netflix are heavy users of the infrastructure, and that their willingness to pay extra to ensure an acceptable service quality for their users will fund ongoing upgrade and maintenance of the infrastructure, which will subsidize the "slow lane".
Of course, if you buy that line of reasoning, I've got a bridge to sell you.
FreeRepublic would not be affected by a system that permits Netflix and Amazon to pay extra for a high speed delivery of HD video. Most web browsing experiences don’t need multi-megabit throughput. Emailing and reading news web pages can tolerate multi-second delays that would be distracting to movie viewers. This is not the end of the world. My first FreeRepublic visit was via a 9600 baud dial up modem. I don’t remember the experience as painful.
Example is the way the cellphone companies limit you to small amount of data like 5g per month and restrict you from tethering the cellphone to your computer so you can see the website on a bigger screen.
Right now there are ways around this using “user agent” and a plugin for IE and Firefox but that could be blocked in the future.
T-Mobile blocks tethering and puts up a page that tells you to pay more money for very limited 1gb for mobile hotspot for $10 more. You can pay more and more for each GB up 11gb for $70 per month. 11gb is not much if you watch video. If you go over your artificially capped data plan your speed drops to 2g which means like dial up speed.
There is no limit for the bandwidth, it is artificial just like charging you for texting when a phone call uses far more data.
Now imagine the democrat party deciding which sites will be blocked or slowed down just as they are using the federal agencies now like the IRS stop democracy!
Even such leading Lefty Journ-O-Listers as Ron Fournier think that if the FCC goes ahead with this, the Millenials are going to go absolutely ape-dung and tear Democrat heads off at the ballot box.
True.Also, AMZN is currently a free rider, bandwidth wise. There will be many unanticipated consequences here.
The libtard way - If it ain’t broke, fix it ‘til it is.
I seem to recall that Congress forbade the FCC from regulating the Internet. The FCC charter gives them control over “public” airwaves like radio on TV broadcasts, but not paid media like ISP or cable TV. Who the heck is letting them get away with this? This is just another ploy by Obama to have total government control of all media.
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...
My copy of Art 1 Sec 8 does not allow the FedGov to have an FCC...
Beginning to sound like a broken record, aren’t I...
The argument is that ISPs are generally net neutral already because of the demands of customers and that ISPs are more likely to respond better to the demands of the American public than FCC regulators. In other words, do you believe in the free market, or do you believe government regulators can best control the economy?
This argument is argued will at:
http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/19/reasontv-replay-will-net-neutrality-save
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