Net Neutrality

If you have been listening to the news at all over the last couple of months, you have undoubtedly heard something about Net Neutrality. The last few weeks have held some very important decisions and could very well effect the way that we do or do not use the internet in the future…

First off, what is net neutrality? Net neutrality is a terms used to describe the principle proposed for users’ access to the networks participating in the Internet with no restrictions applied. The apparent advantage to such a principle is that any average person can upload their own content to the web and have people access this content with the same speed and connectivity that you can any other content. Thus all people/corporations/ideas are equal and the net is “neutral”. The argued down side (aside from the lack of ability to increase profit margins and fatten corporate telecom company wallets) is that other companies like Netflix and YouTube that stream lots of digital media chew up more bandwidth and thus slow down the intent for everyone else (or such is the argument). Here is a clip that may better explain the issue:

So all of that is old news, right? Well what makes this my first blog post of 2011 is that on December 21st of 2010 the FCC approved a new set of rules banning cable television and telephone service providers from preventing access to competitors or certain websites (such as Netflix). The rules would not keep ISPs from charging more for faster access though… While this is something, it still leaves me wanting… And of course congressional Republicans have promptly replied to the establishment of these rules by stating that they plan to reverse the FCC ruling through legislation.

What does this mean to you the average consumer? Well in terms of your bills and thus your pocket, not that much really. If the rules stay as is, there may be increases in Internet fees from the telecom companies to make up for this lost revenue source, but that is not a given. What is of more importance is what happens if the rules get overturned (or ignored) and what will happen to mobile web due to the lax wording of these rules by the FCC. Both carry the same consequences, namely that the content you can access will be controlled by who is willing to pay the most.

If you are a small business or just someone with a passion that you want to blog about, your content will be shifted to a “slow lane” of internet traffic since you can not afford to pay the higher fees that gets you the preferred service. Thus the chances of you being found will be decreased and over run by the larger companies. Similarly how you consume will be dictated to you. If you enjoy using Hulu or another streaming website, it may very well be slowed down (or the fees will be imposed due to internet traffic demands) such that you will switch to say xfinity or another whatever service big corporation says you should use. Hence the services you use are being dictated to you and choice is an illusion.

Don’t just sit there and let the free-flowing Internet as we know it become a thing of the past. Get involved! Learn more about net neutrality at savetheinternet.com!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 11:21 am and is filed under Tricks of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.