Net Neutrality Important! Time Warner Cable considering per-gigabyte plans

[keith]

Time Warner Cable considering per-gigabyte plans

Good blog article at this address:

http://www.ryanklein.com/?p=19

Regards,
Keith

[Kens Digital Media]

There were some isp companies that tried this in the past wasn't there?

Money, money, money, it's all about profit for these companies isn't it.

I bet there will be a spike in ad blockers if they start charging per gig.

Forget about watching any movies online, there goes 2 gig worth of bandwidth. I bet if you use 1.1 gig they will charge for 2 gig just like wireless phone carriers do.

[dgridley]

What I'm worried about is the prospect of tiered access.. ISP's charging for limited access to only certain areas of the Net vs full access. It's not like all of us have multiple ISP's to choose from. Where I live, my complex is serviced by one broadband provider. If they decided to limit my access, my only other choice would be dial-up! I'd have to shoot myself!

[Kens Digital Media]

Originally Posted by dgridley

What I'm worried about is the prospect of tiered access.. ISP's charging for limited access to only certain areas of the Net vs full access.

I remember reading something similar to this. How did it go, websites would pay isp providers so much $$$ so customers can access their websites. If you didn't pay the isp they would block people from getting to your website.

Only large companies with $$$ would benefit while small business would close it's doors. Reminds me of Wal-mart.

I'm not sure if this is 100% correct but that's what I remember. Guess I could do a search. I just did a search and found this below:

Advocates of network neutrality contend that any non-neutral scheme could allow ISPs to unfairly discriminate and control which data they prioritize, such as data from their own sponsors or media interests:

"[These companies] want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all"..."tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data."..."to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors"..."to reserve express lanes for their own content and services.[3]

On February 7, 2006, Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol (IP), and current Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google, in testimony before Congress, said, "allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."[35] At the same time, the nation's largest phone and cable companies have spoken out in media about their plans to violate network neutrality principles by filtering content and favoring Web sites and applications of companies that pay them an extra fee.


More info can be found below:
Network neutrality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[keith]

Hugely important, isn't it!

Tiered access, no access. The only losers would be consumers and small businesses. Sites like theBubbler, a free service, would be huge victims of any abridgment of Net Neutrality.

This is a critical issue to all of us!

Regards,
Keith

[Kens Digital Media]

Think about it, why would the average webmaster / small business buy domains / hosting if they would get limited or no traffic to their website. Google search would also become less important too.

[keith]

Originally Posted by Kens Digital Media

Think about it, why would the average webmaster / small business buy domains / hosting if they would get limited or no traffic to their website. Google search would also become less important too.

Google is prepared for such an event. They have three of the most active websites in the world, #1 Google, #3 YouTube and #11 Blogger

Google owns about as much 'dark fiber' (unused internet capacity) some say, as exists for the rest of us in total!

If Net Neutrality is abandoned, maybe Google would come to the rescue in some fashion (like, if you run Google AdSense?). Still, control with the giants, not with the consumer and small business (and Google started as a micro-business, hosting out of dorm rooms!).

Regards,
Keith

[keith]

Thanks for piquing my interest further, Ken.

Net Neutrality and Net Neutrality show Google's stand on Net Neutrality.

Then again, we should be assured that Net Neutrality will not be an issue in any way, shape or form. Google's vaunted "Do no evil" motto didn't do much good for Chinese consumers. If Google, acting on behalf of investors (which is their "responsibility") could always change their tune.

Is Google Changing Its Position on Net Neutrality? - GigaOM

Here's a neat, fairly recent post about a tool to find out if ISPs are trying to throttle your connection. Google on Net Neutrality; to develop ISP Throttling Detector | Startup Meme

By the way, a friend got a chance to "upgrade" their Time Warner connection for $20 or 30 a month and they declined. After having a beer with the installer, they were told that "everyone gets the same bandwidth anyhow". How's them apples?

Still, just a matter of time till big companies try to squeeze us if we give them the opportunity.

Regards,
Keith

[dgridley]

Losing the Net would push the bulk of us back to the old BBS days.. I used to sysop my own BBS back in the day (early 80's) beta testing a bbs software called TurBoard. Turboard used a proprietary graphical interface based on NAPLPS graphics similar to the Prodigy service and one of the very first to do so. I actually sometimes miss those days, but not the modem speeds.. I was elated when I went from 300 baud connection speeds to 1200 baud and then 9600 baud. Back in the earliest, text-only days, the text would literally appear on the screen a letter at a time!

Now, I gripe when my high speed broadband is a little "slow"..

[kwandtke]

So I've been reading bits and pieces about this for awhile. The question is what do do about it? My concern over the whole bandwidth usage thing is that it's a basic scam used by these guys to protect their own content. Why would I pay TimeWarner 3.95 (I think) per pay-per-view if I have a Roku box or Tivo and Netflix? Thats what they are worried about .. they are trying to keep you from getting content from anybody other than them ... and they are doing it with an argument that will work on un-informed people. The sound of pay for what you use sounds very reasonable ... but not if you allow TWC to exempt themselves.

When AT&T came in with Universe there was a change in the way that cable was "managed" by the the state ... it's now a state controlled thing rather than city-by-city which is the way it was. How would people feel about a letter writing campaign to the proper authorities?

IMHO we need a Bell-Buster kind of thing .. make the ISPs like AT&T, TWC, Comcast, etc. break into two or more companies .. an ISP function, and a content provider .... that would make it of no interest for the ISP to care where you get your content from.

Does that make sense to anybody?

[CarolsCritterCare]

Can't even get Time Warner out here where I live...........

Dish Network for Me