Can someone explain, in plain English, what 'NET NEUTRALITY' means?

11/13/2014 | maineman

[maineman]

I've researched the heck out of this BUT still don't get it. Just looking for a simple explanation for a simple man.

[HotHunt]

[Pikachu_Dad]

It means big government control of the Internet.

It means regulators checking Internet providers and making them dance to their tune.

[mikeandike]

Here's how I see it. If I am wrong, please chime in.

Net Neutrality would give the federal government the ability to regulate the internet under the guise that it would give everyone equal access to it. Their fear is that the free market system will give the internet service providers the ability to make a tiered system that would allow those with more money to have greater access. Net Neutrality currently only concerns bandwidth at this point, but I would not be surprised if buried deep inside there would be more regulatory power.

This would be the first step in giving the federal government full control over the internet rather than a free open system.

[Louis Foxwell]

Government control of everything you see and hear.

That is it in a nutshell.

Net Neutrality is government control of the Web. Since government is absolutely objective its control will be neutral. lol

[Boogieman]

It’s a regulation they want to impose on internet service providers. Different customers of the ISPs are using the service more or less, depending on what they do on the internet. Someone just browsing news sites, sending emails, or watching the occasional youtube video does not use much “bandwidth”. However, other users are playing games, downloading music, streaming movies, etc, and using a lot more of the ISP’s resources.

To combat that, some ISPs might throttle back your internet speed if you are using those traffic-heavy services. Net neutrality would prevent them from being able to do so. The consequence, naturally, is that the consequences of providing unlimited service to the hogs will have to be shared by everyone else. It’s really more like “net socialism”.

[Alex Murphy]

The most concise explanation I've heard is from Ted Cruz: "net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet". That's his short and to the point way of saying that it's a socialist redistribution of bandwidth.

I agree with the analogy, but I can say it even more succinctly:

Nationalizing the Internet.

[DJ MacWoW]

Donate And Keep The Lights On

[napscoordinator]

It totally confuses me too. I don’t care about net neutrality EXCEPT in the fact that they MIGHT give us a monthly streaming usage....that would be horrible and I believe they are talking about 500 which would be about 34 hours of Netflix which sounds like a lot but you have to take into consideration all the other computer usage that is done in a month. It would be awful.

The other part of net neutrality is too confusing to even care.

[Brandonmark]

[RetSignman]

Think neutralization.

[Vineyard]

You have it absolutely wrong.

To correct your analogy ....it would be like the water company charging everyone the SAME fee. ...but the restaurant and the auto car wash can use as much water as they want for the same total price per month as what you get charged. So you, the homeowner, might end up paying $200/month where you used to get charged $40....but the commercial establishments also get to pay only $200/month - even though they might be using 100 times the water you used.

ISPs would be forced to upgrade the ‘highway’ to allow all users to us it...and the home user who rarely streams videos ends up subsidizing the internet superhighway for those that stream Netflix videos all the time. With net neutrality - the user who uses minimal bandwith would be charged the same as the user who routinely wants 30 Megabits/second for hour after hour.

[Robert DeLong]

Excellent link. This say it all:

At the end of the day, those arguing for "Net Neutrality" in the context of today's submissions, are demanding the ability to use government force to compel the subsidization of a private, for-profit business service.

The FCC not only has the right, it has the obligation under the Constitution's demand for Equal Protection as found in the 14th Amendment to reject such entreaties and expose them as a sham argument and blatantly improper attempt to force consumer subsidization of their businesses interests.

[napscoordinator]

I absolutely hate your explanation of taking away freedom. In fact, I think we just shut down the whole dang internet is basically what you just need to say. Your explanation is so repulsive. Another us vs them tired explanation.

[MrB]

Yep, and democrat favored constituencies get nose jobs and sex change operations,

whilst grandma Freeper can’t get a hip replacement.

[VTenigma]

common core = commie indoctrination, chaos, student confusion

[VTenigma]

Oh, and personal information gathering and collection.

[jwalsh07]

Sure can.

MORE GOVERNMENT.

[defconw]

Oh yes, and board games!

[HamiltonJay]

Net Neutrality means simply this:

If you provide internet/broadband service you must treat all data going through your “pipe” the same.

IE: You cannot take packets from Netflix (for example) and slow them down, and let HULU packets go through at regular speed.

Basically you cannot discriminate against any data going over your pipe, you must remain neutral and treat it all the same.

[lacrew]

Don’t get bogged down in the details.

Whatever ‘net neutrality’ is, the government wants to be in charge of it.

Internet works fine for me. If something isn’t broken, I don’t want the government fixing it.