Yeah, the big internet providers like AT&T, Verizon, etc want to put a toll on the internet, deciding which websites load fast, and which ones load slow.
Have high speed internet access? Won't matter. If the websites you visit don't pay the fee, then their site may still load slowly for you and everyone else.
I believe the case is being moved to the senate. If you want all the info you can visit: http://www.savetheinternet.com/
As a website owner myself, I think this is lame. I have to pay for domain name + webspace, and now they'll want me to pay a toll just so that you can access my site at normal/high speed.
if the site you're accessing is on a high speed connection and it loads slow, that means you don't have a high speed connection. if your ISP says you do, sue their asses and switch to a different ISP. problem solved.
> switch to a different ISP.
If people could rely on competition, this wouldn't be a problem.
It looks like it'll be a problem.
>>1
a friend in the business says it won't happen, because the moment the ISPs start screwing with load times or website accessibility, they'll lose their status as a neutral carrier.
hello RIAA and other copyright lawsuits in the bag. not to mention the FBI probing them for CP.
I can see this failing really badly. If ISP's do this, then there will be those few who don't. Everyone will abandon the big networks and use the non-restrictive ones.
These free-market idealists like >>6 sure are cute.
Sadly you fail to realise that apart from IX's, to get from one part of the internet to the other over a country/land boundary you have to use a large tier 1 provider. AT&T, Verizon, Bell South, Level3 etc are all Tier 1 providers.
Either way, >>5 is right, they won't do it just yet, since it messes up their common carrier status. Sadly where i live that kind of rule doesnt exist :(
The US of A: Proudly killing off their IX since whenever.
Anyways, does anyone know how the respective laws are in the EU? All you hear these days is "zomg usa netneutrality!", but is the situation that bad in the rest of the world, too?
\?_?/ No fucking idea about the rest of the internet and neutrality etc etc, however, I know why everyone is making a stink about the net neutrality law's within the USA: because US upstream providers make up a very large portion of the internet interconnectivity.
It would be extremely egocentrical and racist to put fuckin toll on the internet sites :/
whats next, paying because you happened to load a certain image? Pay per words typed and sent in mails?
>>10
That's a very very yank-centric viewpoint. Besides being totally wrong. The US carriers may make up a "very large portion of the internet", but ONLY IN YANKISTAN.
Sheesh. It's like "world" means "the US", and "people" means "citizens of the US" to you.
DAMMIT YOUR CLOGGING THE TUBES THE INTERNET ISN'T A TRUCK YOU CAN JUST DUMP STUFF ON TO IT TOOK TWO WEEKS FOR MY INTERENET TO ARIVE
The site admin can decide what to publish but he can't decide what people are going to see, he can't take decisions for them. If you believe so then I decide you should pay me 1,000,000,000Yen, don't want to? Then goto freeloader hell!
>>8
True, to an extent, however the infrastructure of the internet is a very changeable thing. If the seven or so Tier 1 providers decide to start being assholes and content providers, the content providers will simply peer with more Tier 2 networks (most content providers already have these) and eventually they will all (hopefully) begin to allow each other to build routes to other Tier 2 providers. In this day and age, it would be possible, if not entirely feasible, to do away with the Tier 1 providers, and in fact nearly all Internet providers that are not content companies themselves. Naturally, ISPs could still pull this crap on the user end, but then one would figure out that they could get cheaper access to the content company/Tier 2 providers that they need to access the rest of the Internet by not shaping traffic, and from there economics would take over.
This is not particularly likely to happen, but it would be nice. But for now, be glad that (in the US) traffic shaping by so-called "common carrier" providers is still illegal. It's allowed in New Zealand, and a friend there hates how it wrecks havoc on torrents, as well as other content. He can't afford the special unshaped Internet connection. Welcome to perfect capitalism - a price discrimination monopoly where the people who just aren't rich enough get fucked over.
>>12
Greetings from yankistan. You've got a point, but Net Neutrality is a problem for everyone. Like your google.dk or .co.uk or .fr or what have you? Try a traceroute. I guarantee it'll go through at least two US carriers on its way. Yeah, it's an issue taking place on US ground. I'll remind you that the Nazi invasion at first took place in continental Europe. It wound up causing problems the world over - the Americas, Africa, Asia - everywhere. Granted, unfair internet use is nothing compared to the death of millions because of a charismatic sociopath with a superiority complex, but hopefully you get my point.
>>15
I don't know about you, but my google.dk goes straight to Denmark as it should. Far as I know, the servers (well, the WWW servers anyhow) are physically located in some vault down in Danesville or whichever, assuming they have room for something besides neo-nazi youth organizations' offices and porn shops... There's simply no need for a trans-atlantic round trip given that European countries are far better interconnected than the north american and european continents. (Which is why I called you US-centric. That's what it is, thinking that All Traffic On The Inurnets Goes Through The US Because The US Is Hueg.)
Frankly, my opinion on this whole net neutrality brouhaha is a pointed "geez, the US is going crazy yet again". It's like you people would sell the neighbour's poodle into prostitution for fifteen cents more, if you could get away with it or if the penalty was ten cents or less.
I say "yet again" because your tradition of paying for 'net use by the gigabyte is regarded as supremely braindead in most of western and northern Europe: it'd make sense if there were literally fleets of lorries moving data back and forth, and unused capacity translated directly into savings in the logistics department. Only there aren't, and it doesn't -- every kilobit of routing and transmitting capacity which goes unused every second goes to waste.
It's not that I didn't take the issue seriously, quite on the contrary in fact, I'd expect that if carriers were allowed to offer service that was differentiated by endpoint rather than by routing characteristics such as voluntary classification (i.e. bulk/interactive/etc), the European more or less privatized players would attempt to ape the US example real soon afterward. However, I'd prefer that we make up our own argumentation against the kind of thing that US carriers are pushing for, rather than relying on the rhetoric employed in the 'states, since you people make an utter and complete hash out of everything that ever comes in contact with your ill-defined free market rhetoric. So pardon us for not caring; it's not really our issue quite yet and since when has the US been taking a good example from Europe anyway?