Net Neutrality?

[Cash on Wheels]

Does anyone have clear understanding of what Net Neutrality does & what it means for this USA based site?

From reading the dumbed down articles of the interwebs it just says ISPs can now provide hammer lane & granny lane service to websites.

Our current Big Corp. Overloads are the googles & yahoo etc. If NN gets though the years of legal cobwebs will it be Comcast & AT&T instead?


Or is there more to it than that?

[Blackhawk]

For a smaller site like this it probably wouldn't have much of an effect. But the idea behind net neutrality is that the ISP should just be a "dumb pipe" and not know the difference between the data it sends.

Without net neutrality, they could regulate the speed of the data they provide. In simplistic terms, theoretically Verizon which owns Yahoo could slow the data from Google.com in an effort to get people to use the Yahoo search engine instead. Or if you are on Google Fiber internet, Google could decide to slow the data it sends to you from Amazon and its streaming services as it would rather you go to Youtube and pay for Youtube's videos. Or Comcast could slow data from Youtube as it might want you to pay for its own cable services or Hulu. Or maybe these ISPs make your data load at an acceptable rate as long as you pay them for that "privilege."

As for who will be the corporate overlords... who knows. Google has its search engine, phones, and is an ISP in some places. Yahoo is now owned by Verizon. At&t currently is attempting to merge with Time-Warner. Comcast owns its ISP but also owns several cable channels.

[Hawk]

Blackhawk pretty much nailed it, but to add to what he said; supposedly, if an ISP wants to slow down the throughput from a competitor, they have to make that information public, and it's supposedly monitored by the FCC.

That said, making the information public can be done in ways that the public may not be aware of it (mouse print, semi-hidden statement on the website, etc.), and that can be done by buying politicians, which can also result in the FCC turning their heads, as is done all the time in DC.

The government doesn't run this country. It's run by the people/corporations that own the politicians.

[Wolverine@MSU]

The biggest problem I see with not having NN is that in many areas of the country the consumer has no choice (or very few choices) in which ISP is providing service. As a result the ISP is free to do what they want and the consumer can take it or leave it. The infrastructure of the internet should be viewed the same way as the infrastructure for electricity or natural gas distribution. Even though each portion of them was originally built by a particular company, the systems as a whole are now open to use by all providers on an equal footing, so there is some semblance of "competition" among providers. We have several choices for natural gas and electricity now, but only Comcast or AT&T for ISP (not including satellite providers like Dish Network). It's time that the internet be viewed as a utility and regulated by state commissions as such.

[Hawk]

I thought eliminating NN was opening up competition - allegedly.