sammybeans Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 http://www.freepress.net/blog/2014/01/15/net-neutrality-court-case-decoded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunc Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 Its not something I feel we need to be overly bothered about as I just don't see the provided propaganda in that one article bring the doom and gloom it makes out its going to, Since you posted this up I have gone on to read a few other reports about it and like me most just don't see the ISP'S committing suicide by doing things like Blocking or slowing the internet down. ISPs Compete For Customers Outcome one is based on the fact that ISPs benefit from happy customers, just like other companies. There isn’t an excess of competition in every area around the United States, but most regions have at least two options when it comes to Internet service. Unless there’s a vast ISP conspiracy to ruin the Internet, and thereby eliminate their own customer base, these ISPs will likely continue to compete for your business. That means you’ll see different pricing plans, and like it’s always been, the people who can pay for giant bandwidth allocations will pay for it, and the rest of us will make do with what we have. ISPs Ruin the Internet Outcome two: The Greedy ISP that doesn’t understand supply, demand, and competition. In the event that all of the current ISPs do band together to throttle the Internet access of the vast majority of users, for the benefit of a small, wealthy minority, that would create a huge market gap. Our nation is, like it or not, dependent on the Internet – and we’re nothing if not innovative. In the event of an ISP takeover, new technologies, and new methods of sharing information – potentially faster, more robust, and all-around better than our current Internet could easily arise to compete with those ISPs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueWolf Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 ISPs would love to slow down bittorrent traffic since it puts such a stress on their network. Sure Dunc, you can see that ISPs like to keep their customers but don't forget that this enables ISPs to make you pay for 'extra services'. For example, the basic packages gets you YouTube, Google and Facebook. But if you want to access more than that you'll want you to pay more. It's not entirely unthinkable either, ISPs for mobile providers are trying to do this currently with Skype and WhatsApp but they are not allowed yet because of the net neutrality. This also makes it much more easer for government-wide censorship since it's now much easer to give the ISPs a global block-list. Without net neutrality there is suddenly no rule against it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammybeans Posted January 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 (edited) I can see where you're coming from Dunc, but here in the U.S. there are maybe four major ISPs and if you live in an area like I do where you only have the choice of one you're screwed if they decide to set up their services like they do for cable. As Jos has pointed out if you want more than the basic package you'll have to pay for it like you do if you want more channels on your cable, think of the impact this would have on a site like HO. If you want people to be able to find the website in the U.S. you would have to pay be included in one of their packages. In essence if the ISPs do something like what is feared will happen a lot of websites will begin to lose traffic from the U.S. because we simply won't be able to see them, it kind of kills free speech and people who want to start businesses would then have to find another way to get word out about their ideas. Take away net neutrality and you kill a free market as well as a lot of free speech, which is not okay. Edited January 16, 2014 by sammybeans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 I will put my two cents here, since I worked for an ISP for over 5 years...Let me say, first I am against the ruling, and feel the internet should be equal, and not favor one site from another, or for ISP's to restrict access to certain sites. The ruling doesn't mean that it's decided, it's actually far from it. The FCC most likely will appeal the ruling, and it most likely will be determined by the Supreme Court. Also, it doesn't actually take away net neutrality, it simply says that because the FCC had previously placed broadband Internet service in a separate regulatory category from phone service, it lacked the legal justification to impose the Open Internet rules. The FCC could just re-write the rules and everything would be the same again. It's worth mentioning that all of the major ISP's stated publicly that they don't plan to change any of their rules, however you know how big companies are. They may say one thing and do another. However, none of the big companies would be wise to do so, risking upsetting their customer base. Even though some areas may only have one choice for an ISP, in general they would not want to loose customers. So, while it could certainly happen for ISP's to give preference to certain sites, and create a "fast lane" for higher costs, it really is unlikely that it would ever happen. I personally think that the FCC will end up rewriting the rules after it goes through the court system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammybeans Posted January 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 I'm hoping so Jason, I get the feeling that enough people throwing a fit over it would stop it in its tracks if they did decide to go through with such a thing but you never know as you said big companies here have a tendency to say one thing and do another. I just figured it was news worth sharing as it would be a huge problem if it happened. Several other articles have mentioned that the FCC director, or whatever the title of the guy who's in charge is, has said that he'll do something about it...but he worked for a long period of time for one of the ISPs so his statement's credibility is questionable to me. But we'll see what happens, I like to get other people's views on these kinds of things that's why I posted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 Excellent post too It is a huge deal and has the potential to change the way the Internet is used in the U.S. When these rules were created, most people had dial up internet access and most websites did not use much bandwidth, but things are much different. In my area, I do have a few options when it comes to ISP's but currently have AT&T. I wonder what it would do to the smaller local ISP's... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elyse Posted January 16, 2014 Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 Oh jeeze, I hope this doesn't travel up the border... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammybeans Posted January 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2014 I got stuck with Comcast and it's only competitor is Frontier, but since everything here is wired for Comcast it costs an arm and a leg to get Frontier because of course Comcast is like 'no they're our wires!' and so charges through the roof for anyone else to use them. Needless to say Frontier isn't doing too well in our area because of Comcast being well...Comcast. If their reason behind changing their structure is because of supposed bandwidth problems that's a load of crap, what they need to do is invest in their infrastructure not switch to a cable model of internet use. We can keep making more internet, it's not a finite resource, so it would be smarter for them to invest in making better infrastructure as our needs increase instead of limiting us, I'm interested to see what they end up doing and how the government handles this whole thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 An interesting update to this story. Looks like the FCC is going to rewrite the Net Neutrality rules to prevent ISP's from charging companies to have "faster service" or block certain sites. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/fcc-net-neutrality_n_4815957.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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