Internet Neutraility...Fight for it or lose it.

[WODIN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060201/cm_thenation/20060213chester

-- The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

 

[needtogetaas]

rally the e-troops.

 

[EnderJE]

What's wrong with that?


- paid for my Verizon wireless

 

[bigmann245]

why dont they just let it be. how much money is enough for these assholes. my cable bill is $100 a month i dont need my internet bill to follow suite.

 

[WODIN]

What's wrong with that?


- paid for my Verizon wireless

You, like I, are already paying a fee to our ISPs for internet access.
The ISP pays a fee to hook into the net.

Now they want to take what we've paid for with tax dollars, buy it for pennies on the dollar from the govt, then resell it to use at 10X the current fee rates.

 

[fistfullofsteel]

You, like I, are already paying a fee to our ISPs for internet access.
The ISP pays a fee to hook into the net.

Now they want to take what we've paid for with tax dollars, buy it for pennies on the dollar from the govt, then resell it to use at 10X the current fee rates.

not cool. quick wodin, blame it on the republicans

 

[WODIN]

not cool. quick wodin, blame it on the republicans

Already have.

 

[javaguru]

Grounds for a revolution?

 

[fistfullofsteel]

Already have.

why do we have retards running this country?

 

[JayC9]

Greed, power and control again and again. Suppress the masses by taking away their freedom bit by bit and selling it back to them. Land of the free...yeah right, if you say so.

 

[javaguru]

I'm a benevolent soul but if this comes to be I may have to wage war!

 

[Island Son]

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060131/0923209_F.shtml

AT&T's CEO Ed Whitacre was the one who kicked off all the US telcos publicly talking about ending network neutrality when he complained that it was "nuts" that Google, Yahoo and Vonage got to use his network for "free." Of course, he was ignoring the fees they already paid in bandwidth, along with the fees consumers pay for bandwidth (which they're only paying because they get access to various web sites and services). So, now, he's trying to better explain how, despite the fact everyone has already paid, these service providers are really getting a free ride. He does so by trying to split up how internet access is really sold:

"I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network - obviously not the piece for the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in internet access fees, but for accessing the so-called internet cloud."

He's actually suggesting that when we buy bandwidth, we're just buying the bandwidth from the end-point to the backbone... and everything else is just free. He's conveniently forgetting (again) that without the content and services provided at all the other endpoints, the value of connecting from the end to the middle is pretty much gone. No one is paying to connect from the end to the middle. They're paying to connect all the ends to each other. That's the value of network effects, and it's what makes it worthwhile to buy internet access. So, he's being both misleading and wrong when he says: "But that ought to be a cost of doing business for them. They shouldn't get on [the network] and expect a free ride." It's a very telco way of looking at things. These are companies that are used to providing centralized services with a government granted monopoly. To them, the only important thing is from the ends to the middle -- where traditionally the telco then provided all the services you needed. They'll conveniently ignore that the only value of connecting to the middle is if you have unencumbered connections to all the other ends as well. In the meantime, with all the big telcos so brazenly talking up how they're going to ditch network neutrality, how is it that FCC chair Kevin Martin can still claim with a straight face that there's no evidence that anyone is trying to break neutral network principles.