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06/11/2006 09:30:12 AM · #1 |
Regulated to the back pages of today's newspaper listing last week's key votes in the U.S. Congress :
The Network Neutrality Amendment was defeated 269-152!
Why should I care, you may ask? Simple, the shape and the face of the internet may change drastically.
This amendment would have prevented telecommunications firms from setting varying speeds and service levels in the delivery of broadband services. The 'net neutrality' amendment sought to prevent companies that control the last mile into homes from establishing different service tiers, with companies required to pay premium for faster transmission of their commercial services.
The big-wig companies would have access to the faster transmissions because they have the money to pay the 'gatekeepers' while the little guys, the common man, and smaller companies can/will be regulated to the slow roads. And think of this, this big name companies pay for this 'premium service' guess who this expense will be passed onto - the consumers whom purchase any participating companies products. I could go on and on why not passing this amendment is a bad thing, but instead would advise you to read up on it yourself. And if you are mad as hell, write to your congressman and tell him/her why you think Net Neutrality is vital. |
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06/11/2006 09:41:44 AM · #2 |
| Cannot say I am surprised - Just another nail really :-/ |
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06/11/2006 09:53:50 AM · #3 |
I can write to my congressman all day, and at&t can send him check (PAC contributions or similar), and you can take a wild guess who's he going to listen to.
And, don't give me the representation talk. You know it does not work that way. |
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06/11/2006 10:03:47 AM · #4 |
mores the pity, it dosen't affect only the US
much of our traffic is rereouted through the US than back north
& we can't write our congress'critter ..
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06/11/2006 10:23:07 AM · #5 |
You know what, I fail to see how legislation or lack thereof has any effect on me. I have (always have had) the right to fire any compnay I do business with. If my ISP doesn't meet my demands at a reasonable price, there will always be another trying to gain my business.
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06/11/2006 10:32:20 AM · #6 |
| *#(*&$!$!#$& GREED! Plain and simple... |
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06/11/2006 11:10:51 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by ralphnev:
mores the pity, it dosen't affect only the US
much of our traffic is rereouted through the US than back north
& we can't write our congress'critter .. |
My understanding was that any Canadian-Canadian connections were prohibitted by Canadian law from ever being routed into the US, even if it was the sane (shortest/fastest) technical route.
As for US Americans, figure out how your representatives voted. I believe //clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll237.xml is the correct vote on the amendment in question, the bill itself, after the amendment failed, is //clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll241.xml.
Find your representative: //www.house.gov/house/MemStateSearch.shtml and decide if this is cause to raise awareness in your district come the next election. The house is nice in that people are only there 2 years and have a relatively small constituency.
Message edited by author 2006-06-11 11:18:28. |
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06/11/2006 11:17:44 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
You know what, I fail to see how legislation or lack thereof has any effect on me. I have (always have had) the right to fire any compnay I do business with. If my ISP doesn't meet my demands at a reasonable price, there will always be another trying to gain my business. |
In much of the United States, pepole have at most three options when it comes to ISPs. One, the local monopoly. Two, dial-up. Three, none. Two and three are rapidly becoming non-options. In much of the US, people don't have the practical option of choosing their ISP--if they're lucky they might get an option of using the local cable company's wires or the local telecom (DSL)'s wires.
The reason why there ought to be federal regulation in this case is that there is not enough competition in this field. These ISPs are regulated as utilities when providing cable and telephone services, why not when they are providing access to the Internet? A free-market approach only works when there is enough competition, or a low enough barrier to entry that new competition can easily be formed.
The problem is, that many people don't have another ISP that is fighting to get their business. |
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06/11/2006 01:23:42 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by m:
The problem is, that many people don't have another ISP that is fighting to get their business. |
Not only that, this isn't even primarily about ISPs for consumers. It's about what sort of priority smaller, less-powerful web sites have in the queue. In the worst-case scenario, the little guy's site is so slow to respond, compared to the big commercial sites, that people naturally gravitate towards the faster-responding sites, which then get MANY more hits, and rise to the top of the search profiles, burying otherwise viable alternatives so deep they effectively cease to exist. This, of course, is already happening to some degree, and it can only get worse.
R.
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06/11/2006 07:33:35 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
You know what, I fail to see how legislation or lack thereof has any effect on me. I have (always have had) the right to fire any compnay I do business with. If my ISP doesn't meet my demands at a reasonable price, there will always be another trying to gain my business. |
For the last 8 years, I have had exactly 1 choice of "broadband". Recently, I got a 100% increase and now have 2 choices :-/ For some reason the packages are remarkably similar and the older one just happened to find the technology to double the download speed to match the new company - pure chance, not related in any way.
They will all do exactly the same thing because it's in all their interests since large companies will pay for priority bandwidth. I see in some places VOIP companies been blocked from some ISP's because the VOIP companies compete against the ISP version (at a much lower price in most cases). The competition thing only works with several viable compeditors - far from true in the monopoly/duopoly world that most of us live in (I ain't in the sticks by the way - Boston, so it's not a middle of nowhere thing).
I agree with Bear; newer invoations will just be pushed out due to the speed and then rankings once the priority companies get into whatever the business. |
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