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kiram9

User Profile Image kiram9
Member since : Oct-23-2009 (Verified)
1 Ideas, 6 Comments, 32 Votes

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Ideas Posted

I just wanted to share my experience comparing two different internet service providers I have, one is Pavlov media, and the other is ATT. Pavlov media provides a 1.5mbit service to my house, and ATT provides the same to my parents house. Both cost about the same and advertise their connections as being equal speed.
The difference is that Pavlov filters their connection extensively based on file type, website visited, and time of day. After testing this through a VPN which is not filtered I have concluded that for my situation net neutrality makes the internet what it is. My net neutral connection is fast and speedy. However when I use my Pavlov connection it is slow and useless. I cannot visit certain websites, my VOIP phone calls do not work. And life is sad. However tunneling all my traffic through a vpn allows me to use the same connection and do all the above mentioned things and they work perfectly!

Thus my conclusion is that net neutrality makes providers equal, and does not censor the internet like a connection which is not filtered or blocked. This is what the opponents of net neutrality want to do. They want to BLOCK OR FILTER PORTIONS OF THE INTERNET. This is exactly what is happening in china and other DICTATORSHIPS!

On a final note, I was just traveled overseas, and also used a non filtered connection, this outperformed my usa filtered connection by leaps and bounds. So I really can see net neutrality as forcing ISP's to provide an open service. If net neutrality does not get passed, we need some regulation which forces ISPs to tell consumers what services or websites are blocked. And this needs to be easily available. Otherwise we could have an internet of the future where we can only visit time Warner sites, or yahoo... etc, and we will not know why.
To sum it up, From a computer engineer, Network Neutrality is a Must for any free society!
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Comments Posted

kiram9 2 months ago
This ties neatly into my point. Large corporations are asking the government to hold their hands in a big way in the form of digital media rights. To the point where a regular person is treated almost automatically as a criminal.

If big corporations are turning for handouts and protections from the government, more than any person, should we not be guaranteed similar rights?

Furthermore I am not asking about going to another business.

Right now a business can basically lie to a customer to increase their profits. Do you think businesses such as ISPs should be allowed to lie to their customers and get away for it?

This bill is saying that businesses cannot lie to customers in certain ways, thus offering customers protection from some dishonest business practices carried out by ISPs.
kiram9 2 months ago
Ok so a lot of the arguments that I am getting against net neutrality are basically the following: "If you dont like what you got, (which was advertised falsely, sold under false pretenses, and dishonest) I should just forget it and try to buy from a different company who is hopefully more honest (but not guaranteed to be so).

My response to this is that this is an obvious indication of exactly why we need network neutrality. It allows consumer protection for the expected services delivered. The current network neutrality regulations require that companies providing network services are open and honest towards their customers.

A good example of this is the food business, if we applied several of the counter arguments posted above then it would be implied that one would go to the grocery store and may find damaged or dangerous food with toxic chemicals etc. When a person is upset by this fact the naysayers above would respond with "well if you dont like toxic food that kills people, you should just go to a different store". Obviously in the food industry this is unacceptable which is partly why we have the FDA to help make sure that minimum quality standards are met.

Network neutrality provides these minimum quality standards for the internet. When we walk out our door, we expect our government to provide a set of rights which can be guaranteed in our life, such as certain freedoms, fairness of law, etc. (I will not go into my rather conflicting views about how the federal government has reneged on many of these in the past few years).

Similarly, I want to be guaranteed these rights online. Furthermore most rights holders are aggressively lobbying for their what they want also. If big corporations are lobbying for what they want and it is in opposition to the people, who wins? a few corporations or the people? (What I am asking is who should win)
kiram9 4 months ago
You have just validated my point. The whole idea behind network neutrality is to prevent arbitrary rules from blocking the internet! Network Neutrality is the Constitution of the internet as applicable inside the USA, and protects the freedom of those who use it. Just like the Constitution of the our great country protects the rights of the people, net neutrality protects the rights of those who use the internet.

VPN service and many other services are valid ways of escaping rules, however under current law your ISP could make it illegal to use any such technology, so if you did violate your contract you would go to JAIL or be FINED for exercising your PERSONAL FREEDOM.
Thus we need a CONSTITUTION FOR THE INTERNET PROTECTING OUR PERSONAL FREEDOM. This is the same as many other pieces of legislation that came before in the areas of consumer contracts with companies, EULA's, ability for consumers to protect their rights, etc.

Unfortunately we live in a country where the rights of the individual are being trumped by the rights of corporations. Network Neutrality helps restore balance.

As for your specific comment: about grocers and shipping. The analogy on the internet is already happening. Your doubt is most sincere, however you are wrong. I currently have a provider who refuses to let me view Youtube during parts of the day even though HULU works fine, (just one of many examples) This is exactly the situation you mentioned. This is not an isolated incident, but has happened with major providers such as ATT and Comcast.

Finally your argument that this legislation requires that the government be the single gatekeeper is totally confounded as related to this legislation. All this legislation says is that current providers must not put up their own gates! Mandating that someone cannot close their gate is the complete opposite of closing your own gate.

Prove to me your statements, and I will believe you but I am sorry Dar, but I think you are a troll and need to get your head inspected for proper functioning. Because all I read from you are allegories of misunderstandings which don't even relate to the topic at hand. If you want to talk about network neutrality then do so, but don't talk about the store or package delivery people. talk about NETWORK NEUTRALITY.
kiram9 4 months ago
Offering these services may FLAT OUT NOT WORK at all. ISP's can Block vpn access thus DEFEATING this. This is exactly why we NEED Network neutrality. Playing cat and mouse games is not the elegant solution, or any solution at all. Furthermore without network neutrality ISPs could block data on any arbitrary rule. Thus your ISP could block your VPN connection, the exact server you use, etc. This would all be legal under current law. Clearly your understanding of this issue Dar, is poor at best. I would suggest you go and study up on the issue before making such blanket statements as "the market provides better solutions" which your argument does not substantiate in any way.
kiram9 4 months ago
Yes I could but unfortunately most people sign up with agreements with the companies so it is not easy to just walk away from a bad agreement. However this is not the point.
Net neutrality is more about personal freedom. A good analogy is going to buy a radio. You could go to the store right now and buy a TV and get any station. However with a non neutral ISP this would be like walking into the store and buying a TV taking it home and only finding that it can tune in ABC and FOX, but nothing else. Also when you purchased the TV you had no clue or agreement stating that this would happen, only to find this out after you purchased your device that it does not get all the channels that are available to you.
Freedom to change providers would fix the problem provided that there was at least one provider that would offer a net neutral connection, however under current law this is not a guarantee, and thus it would be very easy for all providers to block certain portions of the internet effectively making it totally unavailable for entire markets, thus limiting freedom of speech.
kiram9 4 months ago
I just wanted to point this out as I can tunnel through the same connection to make my slow filtered connection really fast! This was to prove the point that it is not a problem of network bandwidth etc which is causing my internet to be slow, but actually the work of active filters used by my ISP as they dont slow down PPTP connections, but they do slow down or stop VOIP, Youtube, video files from certain sources, while other websites work perfectly fine. For Example, I can go to youtube and on my 1.5mbit connection the videos take 20 minutes to load a 1 minute clip. However a video on hulu will play perfectly even though it uses a higher bandwidth.
When I try the same experiment through a vpn on the same connection both websites will play perfectly. This really proves that there is major filtering going on by my ISP (I have many other examples which I tested) Even though they do not explicitly state this in the contract they are effectively censoring the internet by only allowing certain websites to function. This is so frustrating that I usually run all my traffic through a VPN. Furthermore in the you-tube example, all traffic is HTTP, so this is more than just blocking or slowing a specific protocol. My ISP does this on a website by website basis, without letting the user know.