World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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Net neutrality: for or against?
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Well, I don't think they should do that because a lot of the schools and colleges puts a lot of the work online. My college puts a lot of stuff online, including some of the quizzes, and essays. We turn in some of the essays online. without the net neutrality, I don't think we'd be able to do some of the work. And it's not just school and colleges, it's other stuff as well.
I'm not neutral about Net neutrality: I'm for it, and I hope it continues.
How about book neutrality on Amazon making well-sellers much more visible than other books, for example, or google search results, putting more popular businesses on the first page and others in descending order?
Nik wrote: "How about book neutrality on Amazon making well-sellers much more visible than other books, for example, or google search results, putting more popular businesses on the first page and others in de..."Take the point but...
I wonder how Amazon will feel if Verizon and the others decide that users should pay a premium for accessing Amazon shopping or Amazon Music or Amazon Prime. That is what loss of neutrality allows.
How about Fox News on-line or Hulu. What about other media empires or even Verizon blocking access to AT&T's sign up page.
Would they block Facebook unless they got a cut of the Ad revenue or Google.
They may not block just limit bandwidth or traffic shape as has been carried out on torrent traffic thus blocking some pirated material but also Linux Distros and other peer-to-peer activity.
None of this is certain to happen but the loss of neutrality allows such action and CFOs will see a potential new revenue stream form the users (charge more for access) or the suppliers (charge more not to block access)
I'm not in the US but those carriers have global reach and if I access a US data centre for my Internet browsing my traffic could get blocked or shaped.
Nik wrote: "How about book neutrality on Amazon making well-sellers much more visible than other books, for example, or google search results, putting more popular businesses on the first page and others in de..."This already happens anyway, Nik. It is the position on a browsing list. Places like Apple do it even more strongly. In a neutral search, Google already puts Google friendly ads to the fore. You can't do anything about this because it is fair to charge more for a premier position.
Ian wrote: "You can't do anything about this because it is fair to charge more for a premier position. ..."But then why to expect ISPs to be neutral and all other internet players - not?
Why do people expect so much on the net to be free?
What's not less disturbing, if the info mentioned in BBC's article - that more than 50 mil homes had only one choice of ISP is correct, is that the market (at some places at least) seems to be monopolized and divided between major players.
As I understand it, the net prior to Obama was ungoverned, but remember that for a long time it wasn't making money, and then when it was, it was through advertising. It was not that long ago that downloading a program could take hours. It is only rather recently that the issue of throttling speeds etc became meaningful.
Let's be clear, all network providers (worldwide) shape and throttle traffic to manage the capacity on the network. This is also one with the number of subscribers allocated to a particular channel or cable (Contention) as well as maximum bandwidth. Certain Internet protocols have the ability to have Quality of Service markers on them which helps time sensitive protocols like Voice and Video go faster than a simple email. These are normally set at the router level to prioritise that traffic.What net neutrality removal allows is the discrimination on end site or service rather than protocol. E.g block Netflix but Allow Amazon Prime or Vice Versa. More likely it allows the ISP to charge the provider or consumer a premium to give their traffic priority. We already see this with some multi-players (TV, Voice, Mobile and Broadband) bundling additional (free) services in their offerings. The main carriers have so far been prevented from discriminating. This change allows them to do so.
As Nik points out it's not as if many users have a realistic competition to choose an alternate supplier.
If there is no net neutrality, there will be censorship and higher premiums on services you want to access. This is a big deal.
As understand it, the problem will arise at servers, not the net as a whole. Maybe a whole lot of competitive servers will arise?
Maybe but it's a capital project that includes laying down cabling for rural areas, correct? Or, if not cabling, then maybe long-distance wi-fi would be more cost-effective. Nevertheless, setting up data centers is an expensive endeavor.
(In another thread Melanie brought up VPN.)VPN (Virtual Private Network) isn't terribly well-known amongst residential users and it does cost extra, but, perhaps, it will become more popular with this repeal of net neutrality in the US?
Then again, the ISPs could throttle connections to VPN servers.
In NZ the cabling is not owned by the server, and more than one ISP will use the same cable. That would get around the problem Alex identified, but it might be a bit late in the day for the US. As an aside, this is another example of where free enterprise is not necessarily the most advantageous economically.
Net neutrality: The internet holds its breath http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-...
via npr: FCC Set To Repeal 'Net Neutrality' Rules For Internet Providers http://n.pr/2CcdeC2