Posted on 6/4/2006, 5:52:42 AM by slightlyovertaxed
What if the Internet were like cable television, with Web sites grouped like channels into either basic or premium offerings? What if a few big companies decided which sites loaded quickly and which ones slowly, or not at all, on your computer? Welcome to the brave new Web, brought to you by Verizon, Bell South, AT&T and the other telecommunications giants (including PopSci’s parent company, Time Warner) that are now lobbying Congress to block laws that would prevent a two-tiered Internet, with a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Content restrictions should be at the level of the user. You should decide what should and shouldn't load on your computer and not some telecom who thinks its bribe...I mean, toll...isn't big enough. Too much like China for my blood.
If we don't enforce Net Neutrality Ed Whitacre will kill a kitten. Yes, that's right. It's part of internet tiering.
ehh, something about this sounds funky... I admit I don't know anything about what they are proposing lets just say that I'm skeptical.
WE know the big guys have been working on a way to shut down the Bloggers and FR etc - and they will not give up trying - and to get the LameStream Media the only game in town again. It's a matter of survival to them...
There's another election coming up =- they know what we, the people, can do.......cat's out of bags and all...
Thank God for Usenet!
Then there should be a massive demonstration in Washington about the time this comes to a vote. And ISP's should take heed of PO'd customers like anyone else who wants to stay in business. Why pay for a phone company that drops your calls? The same for internet.
fyi
I'm going to have to say that for now I'm on the side of the businesses that bring us the internet.
Profits drive innovation, and innovation and profit motive drive down prices. And it isn't as if the slow lane is going to be ridiculously slow. It can't be, because competition to carry the most traffic will force upgrades and speed increases.
Since when has conservatism sided with dictating to businesses how businesses should be run. If we have a problem with the way these companies are run, we should buy voting stock. We shouldn't legislate it.
I just avoid sites that load slow on my own. (that list grows daily since I am perpetually stuck on dialup). I don't need someone else to tell me which sites load slow and which ones load fast. I've found several of my favorite radio stations that I listened to frequently aren't worth going to anymore. Their audio streams have been enhanced for higher bandwidth connections. It's a never-ending battle and this idea of a "tiered internet" sucks.
Competition is good for everyone in the long run. Beats the hell out of having to deal with monopolies who want everyone else to play by their rules.
The reason a lot of popular sites load more slowly is because of all the ads, pop-ups and gunk they embed in their webpage. If they weren't so intent on loading their pages up with crap, the pages wouldn't be so slow.
ESPN's front page is almost worthless with all the ads, videos, polls, menus, etc they put on there. About 1/3rd of the time, my browser crashes.
That's not how it works.
You obviously don't know how protective of their turf cable companies are, especially the cable companies cited in this article. Many of them, TW for instance, own cable channels, and force other competing cable companies or satellite providers to pay top dollar to carry those channels on their systems.
There have been threads on FR on this very same issue, claiming that net neutrality is some kind of heavy handed government plot to regulate the internet/shut out conservative websites. IMHO it's part of a strategy by the telecoms to obfuscate the issue, and apparently that strategy has convinced a good many people. They'll find out too late just exactly what it's all about. Under the tiered system, a site like FR most likely would never have gotten off the ground. And IMHO it's a very open question whether sites like this will be able to survive under such a syste.
Congress is addicted to telecom money, and judging from the committee votes, the fix may already be in....meanwhile, a lot of people--including many on this site--who SHOULD be up in arms over this either aren't paying attention or have been hoodwinked by a clever PR campaign. Bottom line, be prepared for radical changes (and not for the better) in how you use the internet if net neutrality is replace by a tiered paradigm. And right now it looks as if it will.
You have it backward. Under a tiered system, those businesses would have little incentive to innovate. Instead, they'd be able to hinder or block startup competitors in favor of their own crappy offerings. Don't believe the hype.
sorry, but this sounds like one of those phoney "the government wants to charge you for using email" nonsense storys
uhhh....thats because people will spend a buck 50 for it. If people didnt buy it, it wouldnt be on the store shelves.
uhhh....thats because people will spend a buck 50 for it. If people didnt buy it, it wouldnt be on the store shelves.
That's irrelevant. That's still not how net neutrality works.
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