The waters on this whole issue are getting VERY muddy. Network Neutrality, which, according to Wikipedia, is synonymous with common carrier status for providers of the pipe to the network and, having received valuable public right of way should not be allowed to be privately owned without open access so that owners could provide services that they own on favorable terms and thus unfairly compete with third-party services.

Some of the largest hardware firms, including 3M, Cisco Systems, and Qualcomm, sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday firmly opposing new laws mandating network neutrality. These are the firms that supply the hardware to the huge Telecoms who are pushing this bill, and comes as no great surprise which side of the fence they’re on. However, it does make it tougher for proponents of Network Neutrality, which include such diverse groups as Google, Gun Owners of America, MoveOn.org, and the American Library Association, to push for the pipes to stay free for all.

What burns my buns about all this is that those same Telecoms are saying that they need the money that will be generated by payment for use of the pipes for the beefing up of that same network. This is money they’ve already taken out of each and every pocket in the US in the form of subsidies and tax breaks enacted during the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which garnered them billions of dollars they pocketed in the form of profits and which never got used for the purpose. Instead they gave consumers a “watered down” couple of poorly engineered broadband options and sold them based on capacity which consumers couldn’t really use– until now. With the advent of broadband video, those consumers are not only going to be wanting to use the capacity they’ve been paying for all along and haven’t been using, but they’re also going to be pissed if the quality isn’t what they should get, and according to the above linked slashdot post it’s a pretty safe bet that the Mickey Mouse nature of the current network will probably be not only stressed to the max but will tumble like the house of cards that it is– which is why these Telecoms and Cable Companies are now pushing this legislation. They need more money to do what they should have done with the money they already stole from each and every one of us here in the US.

There are other backroom deals going on at state level to ensure that all us consumers are screwed when it comes to this issue. My current home state, Pennsylvania, has already allowed Verizon to push through a bill in late November 2004 to prevent local communities from offering competitive broadband services, despite huge community outrage, and other states are now on the fence about this, and currently have legislation pending.

It is important that ALL US CITIZENS who use the internet in any way communicate to our congresspeople and senators how we feel. What’s at stake? A slashdot commenter said it best–

Who loses? Well, anyone who uses Wikipedia for example. Will Wikipedia be able to pay the top 100 ISP’s a few million dollars a year? Certainly not. So you’ll find that access to Wikipedia will be dog slow from these low cost ISP’s and access to “insert soul-sucking megacorporation here”’s encyclopedia will be fast…albeit advert laden.

I have a small web site of my own - people seem to like accessing it. Will they still come to it if it’s uploaded at 1 character per second? No. Will I pay a dozen ISP’s for the privilage of providing free information to their customers? No. Hence, all the ‘little guys’ who make the Internet such a rich and interesting place will *die* - and the Internet will be like cable TV - advert ridden - and showing the views of maybe 10 companies with ‘ratings’ and such determining what you see and content sinking to the lowest common denominator. Instead of Wikipedia we’ll have soap operas.

More on how you can help Save the Internet . . .

Technorati Tags: Network Neutrality, Telecommunications Act, Verizon, Politics, US, Broadband, Cable, DSL

This entry was posted on Friday, May 19th, 2006 at 9:42 amunder Web News and . Comment RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.