Net Neutrality versus $
p2p news / p2pnet: “What’s at stake is the internet in the 21st century,” says US senator Olympia Snowe. “This is the preservation of digital democracy.”
The US Senate Commerce Committee, “echoed the views of the House,” rejecting an amendment from Snowe and Byron Dorgan to the pending telecoms bill that would’ve, “required that all internet traffic be treated identically regardless of its ’source’ or ‘destination’,” continues The Times Online.
The Net is, “increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us,” World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee blogs. “The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true.
“Let us protect the neutrality of the net.”
Network Neutrality, “prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you – based on what site pays them the most,” says SaveTheInternet.com.
Nonethelesss, the US Senate Commerce Committee on has voted 11-11 on an amendment that would have resulted in network neutrality.
“The faster web users are able to access a site, the more likely they are to use it, leading to greater revenues for whichever company owns the site and the telephone or cable company that provides access to it,” states The Times Online.
“Smaller websites that cannot afford to pay for a faster internet connection will be the biggest losers if the provision becomes law. Those websites that contain video or audio content and use a lot of ‘bandwidth’ … will be particularly hard hit, analysts fear.”
If phone companies, “could wave a magic wand they’d have the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle passed, and get to open a bidding war between large Net users – Amazon, Yahoo!, Google, all those XXX and online gambling services nobody ever actually hears about but which are by far and away the most profitable things on the Internet and which’d quietly get way, way more profitable for whoever owns the broadband,” writes David Sims on First Coffee.
He goes on, “The phone companies are grinning, cackling and drywashing their hands in anticipation. The Washington Post reported in December 2005 that William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. told reporters and analysts that yeah, an Internet service provider such as his firm should, in fact, be able, for example, to charge Yahoo! Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc. A law allowing him to do so is a license to print money.
“But they have to find some way to spin it like they give a crap about you the consumer, so in typical pretzel logic they’re poormouthing about all the money they’re having to invest – billions! – in upgrading everything to broadband, and who’s gonna pay for all that? Of course you are. “It’s noteworthy that this argument is so threadbare that it only takes two logical jumps to get back to your wallet.”
Sims also points out, “Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List, recently held a Wall Street Journal Point-Counterpoint style debate with former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry, where Newmark was pro-net neutrality and McCurry wanted to throw orphans out in the snow, evict grandmothers from their homes at midnight and outlaw ice cream.
“Newmark pointed out that ‘ I also work with some of their engineers, talking about the way big telecoms operate and issues like network capacity. It turns out that they have lots of unused capacity for bandwidth, but the big telecoms have been very remiss in implementing the newer Internet protocols (IPv6) required for growth, due to bureaucratic inertia.’
“In other words, running out of fiber anytime soon is not a problem. Newmark quotes an article Fiber Optic Association President Jim Hayes wrote on StreamingMedia.com in late 2004 saying ‘The backbone was terribly overbuilt… ninety-three percent of all the fiber that’s been installed is still unused’.”
Meanwhile, “It wasn’t immediately clear when the measure will come to the Senate floor and, indeed, within moments of the commerce committee’s final vote, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, used a parliamentary move unique to the Senate that could effectively prevent any vote on the full bill ‘until it includes strong net neutrality provisions’,” says The San Francisco Chronicle.
But the chances of Verizon, et al, being stymied are small indeed. Because in the US, corporate control is almost complete, Money Rulz Über Alles and M$ney is what Net Neutrality is all about.
See:
The Times Online – Setback for Google in fight over faster web access, June 30, 2006
Sir Tim Berners-Lee – Neutrality of the Net, May 15, 2006
First Coffee – Net Neutrality: It’s Pretty Simple, Really., June 30, 2006
The San Francisco Chronicle – Panel rejects net neutrality, June 28, 2006
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June 30th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Net Neutrality is a VERY VERY good thing…
They just want to charge everyone more money for each indevidual service, and slip and destroy the internet… and I’m not buying that.
Net Neutrality MUST become a law… or else the internet is doomed… -_-