Net Neutrality - Who needs it ?

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Why would Verizon or Comcast or whoever want to change this ?

Well I have Verizon. Let's say they decide they're going to start up a spiffy message forum--The Basement. What if they start de-prioritizing traffic from cellar.org and making sure all the basement.org traffic had a clear shot? Is that fair?

OK, let's say instead of Verizon, I'm the one starting up The Basement. Now Verizon says to me, they'll put my traffic at a higher priority--for a small fee. And they tell Undertoad the same thing. Verizon gets some extra cash, and cellar.org and basement.org have an advantage over all the other, scuzzier forums.

That's why the ISPs want to change this.


One way to think of it is this: Let's say tomorrow somebody out in the middle of nowhere, USA gets pissed off because his bread was put under a half dozen cans of soup, and he starts a blog dedicated to exposing the incompetence of supermarket baggers.

Do you think you should have the same opportunity to read this blog as you do to read cnn.com?

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Are the bandwidths actually a limiting factor now or in the near future ?

The answer IMO is a resounding "maybe." No matter how much bandwidth you have, you can always make a hypothetical that would use it all up. In the olden days (say 15 years ago) the consortium where I worked maintained a 3Mb link for three entire college campuses, including dorms. Now I have 20 at my house. Give us another 15 years, and I expect that 20 will look primitive too.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Also the big boys, like Verizon and Comcast, do more than just carry traffic, they also sell original content. Unchecked, these carriers can give priority to their own content, while slowing competitors content.

When they give priority to commercial outfits like Amazon, everyone else waits.