rickymujica

rickymujica 1 month ago

Fishygirl, don't waste your time arguing with Dar. The bad grammar, the incoherent sentences, and the incorrect analogies, provide a clue that he isn't the fastest packet in the transmission. In fact his ridiculous conspiracy theories show that he has probably lost a few packets along the way. (Obama wants the ability to shutdown the internet. Really?! Sounds like he gets his information from listening to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh).

There are plenty of intelligent, people on the other side of the argument. Save your debate for them.

Those of you who haven't read the bill please read it now. It's not a huge piece of legislation. Only a couple of pages. Arguing against uniformed people is like banging your head against the wall.

http://markey.house.gov/images/PDFs/netneutralitybill.pdf

The Net Neutrality bill is about freedom. Contrary to what many on this thread believe, this legislation is not a gift to the file sharers and bandwidth hogs. It allows for Internet service providers to charge for tiered service and to charge heavy users more money. The caveat is that they must disclose this information up front. This protects the Internet providers.
It bans the Internet providers from censorship and unfair market practices via prioritization. This protects the consumer, alternate viewpoints, and small business.

The Internet does not belong to, and was not built by any one company. The ISP's were and are still given huge tax breaks and subsidies to build and maintain the lines. Lines that were first created by government with tax-payer money. That means that the tax-payers, the government, and the ISP's have a joint-ownership of the lines, it is a shared resource.

Net Neutrality rules are a codification of rules that have been unspoken and maintained through constant litigation between the consumers and the ISP's. Codifying the rules will hopefully put and end to the constant litigation involved in keeping the Internet as free and open as it is now.

Once again, please read the bill before you listen to the fear-mongers.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Timothy, you're missing the point of my post. ISPs should by all means charge according to usage. However, the criteria should be how much usage, not what kind. Did you read where I mentioned that the goal is for ISPs to not be able to censor competing services? That is the fear.

What is the Internet? Is it a common carrier? A common carrier is a business that transports people, goods, or services and offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. Public airlines, railroads, bus lines, cruise ships, trucking industries, etc... The telecommunications industry is also a common carrier and the Internet was built on the telephone lines. This makes it a great candidate for common carrier status. Common carriers are treated as trustees for the public good and as a result they are very regulated in order to provide fairness and competition.

Or, are the ISPs simply big corporations with no responsibility to the general public and have to only answer to their stock holders? Their largest priority being to crush competition? Do they own the lines and can they do what ever they want with their lines as one exec from ATT has already stated?

Do these large corporations and near monopolies own the virtual highways that were built by the government, with government monies, and gigantic tax incentives?

That is what is at the heart of the debate.

Your comment about about linking up with my neighbor and starting my own ISP is so ridiculous that I'm assuming that you are joking, because after reading some of your other well thought out posts, I can't believe you would be so ignorant as to make a statement like that.

Assuming I had the financial resources, time, and business acumen to start my own ISP, I would still have to purchase my service from a Tier 2 or Tier 1 provider. Since the six Tier 1 providers in my area are the proponents of the anti-net neutrality regulations, even if I could start my own, I would still be subject to them throttling my traffic.

What kind of government do you want? The Left wants a government that watches and regulates big business and stays out of the individual rights. And the Right wants a government that leaves big business alone and unregulated, but tramples all over the individuals rights. Ie.. regulating against same-sex marriage, non-violent drugs, a woman's right to choose, right to separation of church and state, etc...

There has to be a balance some where and we should be able to count on Government to help us when companies engage in these anti-competitive practices.

After the mess the Bush administration left us in, I can understand a healthy suspicion of the government. (The previous administration was so bad that they have provided a case for their rhetoric regarding small government. Nothing like self-fulfilling prophesy). "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", this means watching the government and making sure it works in our favor as well watching the corporations to make sure they keep from doing evil.

Government should work for the people. That is why I believe in Public schools and colleges, the police force, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, the Post Office, public roads and highways, government protections against racism and sexism in the work place and real estate. I'm especially in favor of the Government anti-trust and monopoly laws. And I especially and adamantly believe in the "Common carrier" laws.

The Internet is a common carrier and legislation should treat it as such.

rickymujica 4 months ago

@ Jim Snowden: That is one of the few really intelligent and thoughtful posts I have read from someone against net neutrality and it is the first post I've seen that makes a valid technical point as opposed to a "right wing small government/ pro-large business political" one.

Your points regarding the time sensitive nature of information packets is not only valid, it is correct. The solution is not an easy one and the challenge is finding a way to allow for time sensitive matter to get the attention it deserves without creating unfair business practices.

Tim Wu, the professor who wrote the paper on net neutrality in 2002 has already acknowledged the importance of streaming content over static and has already conceded the argument you make when he wrote the four principals of net neutrality:

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice;
2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;
3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and
4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Who knows how this is all going to play out, but the important thing that those of who are for net neutrality want to avoid from happening, is for the ISPs to prioritize packets, not because it is time sensitive data, but because it's a competing service. In other words, packets containing streaming video from google or netflix, should not be throttled to prioritize packets containing streaming video from Comcast or ATT.

This whole debate as it pertains to the internet started around 2002, but it caught fire in 2005 when the FCC went up against Madison River Communications, a local telephone carrier, because Vonage complained that they were blocking it's voice over IP service. Madison River Communications settled out of court and as a result no precedent was set. Had a precedent been set, we probably wouldn't be having this argument today.

Before 2000, Net Neutrality wasn't even considered because the majority of the net was through telephone lines and the web was considered a telecommunications industry and was already subject to neutrality laws that have been in place since 1860. Laws that are substantially stricter than what the Net Neutrality advocates are proposing.

Those of you who are opposed to government intervention may not remember that until the government stepped in, AT&T, told us that using a Wi-Fi service for home-networking constituted "theft of service" and that it was a federal crime unless of course you paid extra for every computer in your house that connected to the internet through your WIFI router. I was an early DSL adopter and I remember having to tell Verizon how many computers would be connected to the net. I remember lying. Some of you who needed VPNs will remember how ISPs either blocked VPN traffic, or charged a small fortune to use a VPN because they considered it a business service.

So Jim, your argument is very good and contains information that is very important, and shows that there is a real technical argument as opposed to a purely libertarian/republican wing-nut one. But it's only one part of the whole picture, though I concede, an important part. Your argument is one of the main reasons that the Net Neutrality advocates are trying to include a transparency clause. To make it possible to make sure that the reason for packet prioritizing, if needed, is for a technical reason such as the one you pointed out, and not because of a more arbitrary or sinister anti-competitive reason. Like for instance, the ISPs discriminating in favor of their own search engines, Voip, and streaming video and music, while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

Without a type of "Common Carrier Agreement", a couple of mega-mighty companies would control all distribution of and access to all content. This is what has already happened with cable TV and television. The Internet is the last true free speech platform and the fear of it being "FOX-ified" or "Clearwatered", is what is driving a large part of this debate for those of us who argue for Net Neutrality.

By the way, in response to your argument about two large factions at war with each other. Do you think that it is a coincidence that at on the anti neutrality side, you have you major conglomerates that have either been around forever or started out as billion dollar entities (ATT, Comcast, Cox), and on the side for neutrality, you have companies that started life as small one or two person operations working from a dorm or a garage (Google, Hulu, Facebook)? Do you think any of these companies would be around to fight this fight if the net hadn't been neutral? Took Google years before they could even figure out how to make any money.

@Dar Every small ISP purchases it's service from a larger company and these in turn purchase upstream from one or more larger companies. These are called tier 2 and 3 networks because they have to purchase or make deals with other usually larger companies to rout their traffic. A network ISP that doesn't have to pay anyone for access is called a Tier 1 network. There are only a small handful of about 10 or 11 Tier 1 networks in the whole world! These 11 companies provide Internet service to all the other ISPs down the stream. ATT is one, AOL(Time Warner) is another. Verizon, Qwest, Sprint and Verio are the only other ones I can think of without doing an internet search. When ATT decides to discriminate between competing services, and throttle certain services, all the downstream ISPs are also affected. So even if you change to another Tier3 provider, you are still really dealing with ATT.

I live in Manhattan and there are a couple of choices in my building but only one of which is viable. T1 is prohibitively expensive and satellite is too slow in my price range. 3G is slower than dial-up, can't do that. That leaves two choices cable and DSL. DSL in my building is through Verizon and the service was so bad that I switched to cable. Time Warner is the only cable supplier in my building and it is my only option. Your idea of either using dial-up, going to a coffee shop, driving to another town, or just moving are ridiculous and shows that you are just grasping at straws to prove your point.

rickymujica 4 months ago

once again your analogies show that you do not understand the situation. First of all there are millions of grocery stores and there is a ton of competition. No one is over a barrel. It's very easy to take your business elsewhere. There are about five ISPs in the whole country and that creates virtually no choice.

A more correct analogy would be a situation where your local grocer wants to sell pure X juice, but the only company that distributes food to your grocer, decides that the sugar-free X juice would compete with the crappy sugar-laden Y juice that they also manufacture. So they refuse to ship sugar-free X juice or they keep it in the warehouse until it spoils and then ship it. It would hurt the consumer and the grocer would have a case. But litigation is very expensive and with the grocer's little resources, his lawyer would never be able to compete with the team of lawyers working for the big distributor. Even if he could, litigation would be so financially prohibitive it would put the grocer out of business.

That is why we have anti-competitive laws in place, because it's not possible to be constantly take big companies to court.

Also, speaking of government intervention, don't you think it's a good idea that the FDA makes the food manufacturers label the ingredients on the box? The food manufacturers fought labeling food products and people like you thought it was terrible. Those poor food corporations, it's gonna hurt their business. Don't you think it's good that you can pick up the juice carton and see if they added sugar and corn syrup and any other chemicals before you buy the juice?

Before the FDA stepped in you had no way of knowing what was in the product you were purchasing. Making an intelligent decision before purchasing was impossible.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Once again, there needs to be government regulation of certain industries that have proven time and again that they can't self regulate. (Ie.. Enron, the S&L scandal, and the current economic mess that we are in).

Ever been to China? The industrial complex is marginally regulated there. There air in Hong Kong is so polluted that one can hardly breath. At the end of the day the water that runs off you in the shower is black from the polluted air. Went for a jog once and after a half-mile I was coughing up black gunk. (I remember when New York City was like that)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Hong_Kong

In 2008, three hundred thousand people got sick and a dozen babies died because some corporate genius discovered that melamine, a toxic chemical used to make certain kinds of plastic, made it look like the milk had a higher protein content and added it to baby's milk. (Previously it had been added to pet food causing many pet food deaths in the US until the US Government stepped in to ban Chinese pet food).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

I'm glad the government in the US regulates the food and medical industries. I'm glad the government has monopoly laws. I'm glad there are regulations on construction, pollution, housing, discrimination etc...

I'm strongly for the government staying out of the lives of individuals. But, all the power can not be handed over to the corporations. Government regulation of the industrial complex is not perfect, but the government is the only entity big enough to police the big corporations.

When the cats away, the mice will play.

The Net neutrality case isn't about charging according to how much bandwidth one uses or charging more for a better connection. In many cases it's framed that way. It's about discriminating over which kinds of information and services get priority. In other words, 10 gig of data should charged as 10 gig of data regardless of whether the data is movies, music, or competing services. That is what they mean by neutral and neutral laws have been in place for over a hundred years in the telecommunications industry. Even back in the days of the telegraph, everyone knew the dangers of prioritizing certain bits of information over others.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why the government in the US is divided in three. The question is who do you trust to watch out for the individual? The big corporations?

rickymujica 4 months ago

Oh no, here come the wing-nuts.

Shearwatersoil, you do realize that there are many on the Right who are also for Net Neutrality? These include the gun owners of America, and the Christian Coalition.

The ideas behind Net Neutrality legislation are to preserve Freedom of Speech and the Press.

rickymujica 4 months ago

A totally free market is impractical just as is an over-regulated one. But there have to be be some kind of basic regulations in place to keep the powerful honest and to keep them playing fair.

Many industries have proven time and again that they can't self-regulate and that increasing profits is more important than the public good.

Imagine if the food and medicine industry had been as poorly regulated as the financial industry? Something like this melamine in babies milk catastrophe could happen:
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/09/18/41552.aspx

The idea behind Net Neutrality legislation is to solidify the unspoken rules that have been in place since the beginning of the Web. No more no less than that. It's not about paying more or less for using more bandwidth or for getting better quality of service. This is where everyone gets confused. It's about the Telcos not controlling which packets and what kind of traffic gets priority. It is already legal for Telcos to charge you more if you use more bandwidth or if you want better service. Nothing wrong with that. But their pricing and packet prioritizing is blind to what kind of packets get priority, thus the word neutral.

What we are fighting for is not having the Telcos decide which information gets priority. This prevents those with the power, from deciding what information we have access to.

With the current system, (which we who are for Net Neutrality want to protect with legislation), if I were to have a web site that is critical of a politician that is endorsed by Comcast or some other ISP, as long as I pay my bills, I have the right to have my Web Site get treated equally and everyone would have equal access to my views. If Comcast had the right to slow down my packets and prioritize competing information, they could legally censor me by throttling back my packets. Even if I had a competing provider, their legislation would allow them to slow down or block my website when my packets travel over their lines to their customers or to customers whose ISPs lines are in areas that have to travel through Comcast's network to get to them. That is what the packet prioritization bill that the telcos are proposing and the one that Mcain is pushing does.

Net neutrality is nothing new, it goes back to the 1860s when telegrams where routed equally without an attempt to decide what information gets priority. The telegraph networks were regulated to keep them "neutral".

All telecommunication services have laws to keep them neutral. They are considered "common carriers" under US law and the FCC makes sure that everyone gets fair pricing and access. It is against the law for telecommunication companies to give preferential treatment on their networks.

Technically, the web isn't a telecommunication industry but it has become a way of communicating for a large part of the world. Until recently, there have been unspoken rules that follow the telecommunications laws. The telcos are now challenging these unspoken rules. All we want is for the net to be given "common carrier" status and to be governed by the same neutrality laws that have been in place for over a century for the telecommunications industry.

Don't be misled, this isn't about one company or person using a disproportionate share of the bandwidth and it isn't about the government wanting to control and censor the internet. That is how the telcos and ISPs are framing it. This is about the big telcos and ISPs wanting the power to censor competing services.

Or Verizon being able to throttle back Vonage service because it compete with their landlines.

Or Comcast wanting to throttle back Hulu's service because it competes against their "Ondemand" service.

Think it doesn't already happen? read this article about Cox Interactive ISP throttling down Craiglist traffic because the have a competing type of service:
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/06/craigslist_is_b.php

Net neutrality laws are designed to give more freedom, not less. This will protect small businesses from having to go through expensive litigation (as Craiglist did in the above article) every time their rights are violated by the deep pockets.

All we want is to keep the playing field level and to keep all packets of information equal.

rickymujica 4 months ago

@ntom- First of all I meant to say that Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web, not the internet. Today the internet and the World Wide Web is used so interchangeably and people use the word "Net" as a sort of mashup between the two. My bad :)

Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited with the invention of the web though he did not invent all the elements that led to it's creation. The same way that Gutenberg didn't invent movable type, paper, or ink but is still credited with inventing the printing press.

It was Tim Berners-Lee who thought of connecting personal computers together in a web-like fashion to facilitate sharing of information, (that is why his opinion is relevant) and it was he who made the first proposal for it. Here is his proposal:
http://info.cern.ch/Proposal.html

He created the first successful connection between HTTP client and a server, the first browser, and the first domain name and website. Check it out:
http://info.cern.ch/

He is also the director of the W3C.

Once again, he is widely credited with being the inventor of the WWW. Look it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
http://inventors.about.com/od/istartinventions/a/internet.htm

A totally free market is impractical just as is an over-regulated one. But there have to be be some kind of basic regulations in place to keep the powerful honest and to keep them playing fair.

Without basic regulations a corporation could put melamine in babies milk to make it look like it has higher protein http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/09/18/41552.aspx

Or major construction companies could use shoddy unsafe materials in buildings in order to save money http://indiadaily.com/editorial/19512.asp

Ntom, there need to be some rules and there has to be some government control because many industries have proven time and again that they can't self-regulate and that increasing profits is more important than the public good. Imagine if the food and medicine industry had been as poorly regulated as the financial industry?

The idea behind Net neutrality is to make rules to keep things the way they are. Please go back and read Tim Berners-Lee's post one more time because it's important and it's clear.
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144

The idea behind Net Neutrality legislation is to keep the unspoken rules that have been in place since the beginning of the Web. No more no less than that. It's not about paying more or less for using more bandwidth or getting better quality of service. It's about the Telcos not controlling which packets and what kind of traffic gets priority. It is already legal for Telcos to charge you more if you use more bandwidth or if you want better service. But their pricing and packet prioritizing is blind to what kind of packets get priority, thus the word neutral.

The Telcos are trying to pass legislation that decides which kind of information gets priority, not how much. Waht we are fighting for is not having the Telcos decide which information gets priority. This prevents those with the power, from deciding what information we have access to.

With the current system and laws, (which we who are for Net Neutrality want to protect with legislation), if I were to have a web site that is critical of a politician that is endorsed by Comcast or some other ISP, as long as I pay my bills, I have the right to have my Web Site get treated equally and everyone would have equal access to my views. If Comcast had the right to slow down my packets and prioritize competing information, they could legally censor me. Even if I had a T3 connection with a competing provider, their legislation would allow them to slow down or block my website when my packets travel over their lines to their customers or to customers whose ISPs lines are in areas that have to travel through Comcast's network to get to them. That is what the packet prioritization bill that the telcos are proposing and the one that Mcain is pushing does.

That is the what we who are for Net Neutrality are fighting. Net neutrality is nothing new, it goes back to the 1860s when telegrams where routed equally without an attempt to decide what information gets priority. The telegraph networks were regulated to keep them "neutral".

All telecommunication services have laws to keep them neutral. They are considered common carriers under US law and the FCC makes sure that everyone gets fair pricing and access. It is against the law for telecommunication companies to give preferential treatment on their networks.

Technically, the web isn't a telecommunication industry but it has become a way of communicating for a large part of the world and largely until recently, there have been unspoken rules that follow the telecommunications laws. The telcos are now challenging these unspoken rules. All we want is for the net to be given common carrier status and to be governed by the same neutrality laws that have been in place for over a century for the telecommunications industry.

Those are the facts my brother.

rickymujica 4 months ago

It seems that many of those who are against Net Neutrality don't actually understand the issue. Please watch this short video message by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the internet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jev2Um-4_TQ

Please read this ars technica post:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/06/7127.ars

If you have time and really want to understand the issue and you really want to make an educated decision, please read this essay by Daniel J. Weitzman. Daniel Weitzner is Policy Director of the World Wide Web Consortium's Technology and Society activities and one of the leading figures in the internet public policy community. This guy is the real deal and understands this issue as well if not better than anybody.
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2006/06/neutralnet.html

rickymujica 4 months ago

@Dar: With every post and every analogy you are showing that you don't understand the issues nor do you understand the stakes.

Net neutrality is about freedom for the individual and a leveling of the playing field so that Aunt Ruth can compete. The big ISPs don't own the lines nor did they build it. They are like toll booths designed to bring in money for maintaining the lines and building new infrastructure. In return they are allowed to make a nice profit, which they are.

These companies also provide services and content as well. Everyone can compete fairly and on an even playing field with these large corporations. That is the way it is now and has been since the beginning of the internet. Because the Net has been Open, many businesses have been created because their services and content have been treated equally. Businesses like your Aunt Ruth's, to the 14 year old girl with an extremely successful website, all they way to skype, Vonage, and Youtube, have only been able to exist because of an open and Neutral Net. The Net Neutrality bills are trying to make rules to keep things the way they are right now.

The reason the internet has grown they way it has is because the current system is working perfectly. Comcast and ATT and those who are against Net Neutrality have proposed a bill that will change everything to give them the upper hand. Want to use Netflix? Well Comcast can set up a competing service and slow down Netflick's packets. Bye, Bye choice. Want to use Vonage? Well ATT has a competing service and with the legislation they are proposing, they can filter Vonage's packets and slow them down. Bye bye competition. (Comcast slowing down Vonage's and Craiglist's packets are partly why the Net Neutrality bill was introduced). That is not fair, especially since Comcast didn't create the lines.

Dar, the anti-Net Neutrality bill is designed to crush competition. I've read your posts. I know that is not what you want. That is why I believe that you haven't read the bills put forth by the opponents of Net Neutrality nor do you understand it. Net Neutrality is about freedom for the individual. It's about a level playing field. It's the right to compete fairly.

@ntom: Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who created the internet is strongly for Net Neutrality
Dar, please watch this video by Tim-Berners-Lee. He created the internet and really understands the issue. Please watch this so that you can make an educated decision about Net Neutrality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jev2Um-4_TQ

Here is a transcript:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144

All of you who do not understand Net Neutrality, please read this post:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/06/7127.ars

Those of you who have time to read and really want to understand this issue, please read this:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2006/06/neutralnet.html

rickymujica 4 months ago

@Dar you have just shown that you do not understand the issue. Your analogy does not apply here and I don't understand how you can interpret fishygirl's line that you quoted as if she's asking for something free. Free speech, in America, means being able to voice your opinions and thoughts without censorship. It has nothing to do with money or a free ride.

Your analogy regarding the printing press is also flawed and proves without a doubt that you do not understand the issue.

The internet was created for the public good much the same way that highways were created. Comcast and ATT didn't create the internet. These companies were given the framework that was already in place and they were given huge tax breaks and kickbacks to help them create more infrastructure. For this they were allowed to use the internet to make money. It's a pretty good deal; use the framework in place to make money and in turn have some tax breaks to help build the framework all in the interest of the public good. The ISPs own the lines but the don't own the traffic. Net neutrality is about the ISPs not ever being able to own and regulate the traffic. But they are free to use the infrastructure to make money.

A better analogy than yours would be a comparison to the roads and highways. Imagine that the highways were privately owned by companies like Ford or GM. Then imagine that ford said, you have to own a ford to use the fast lane, everybody else has pay an exorbitant fee to use the fast lane. One could say as you have pointed out that you don't have to use that highway just go find another one. But you can't because there aren't that many highways. Drive a Ford or go in the slow lane and drive at half speed.

It's the same with the internet, there aren't that many choices for ISPs. I live in New York and my old building only had two choices. Dial-up and Verizon DSL. I am an artist and my whole business depends on the highspeed access. I need to send really large graphic files, use FTP, Skype, Vonage, maintain a forum, I use remote desktop, and VPN because I travel a lot. Before highspeed my business was local because my one foreign client (Toronto) was too expensive to keep because every month my phone bills were astronomical. Hi-speed service opened me up to the world.

When my Verizon service started to get quirky, by slowing down, and having frequent service outages, my business took a big hit. I tried to complain but I was basically told that if I didn't like it, I could just terminate my contract. I couldn't because there are no options in that building. I now live somewhere else and there are three options here; dial-up, Verizon, and Time Warner. Fortunately Time Warner works for me and my business is flourishing. But if they decided to change their business practices and regulate my traffic, it would be devastating and there is nothing I could do. There are no other options unlike in your printing press analogy. And chances are that that there will never be too many choices because of the prohibitive cost of creating an ISP with your own infrastructure. The consumer is backed up against the wall in the same way that cell phone users are.

That's were you have a misunderstanding about what net neutrality is. No one is asking for the government to regulate your traffic or to give people a free (as in beer ride) ride. All we are asking is for the government to keep the ISPs, (which are using the infrastructure that was put in place by the government, colleges, and tax breaks), to not discriminate between the packets of information. To treat all packets equally. It's not about people paying more if they use more internet, (many ISPs already do that and many only have unlimited plans as marketing strategies because the average user uses so little bandwidth). It's about the ISPs not having the right to decide which traffic gets priority or which kind of traffic gets blocked.

I use Vonage and it is crucial to my business. Time Warner has a competing service. The legislation that is being proposed and that we are all fighting would make it possible for Time Warner to block my Vonage or severely cripple it so that I would have to use their service. And because their service is the only VOIP service getting priority, they could charge what ever they want and I would have choice or option but to pay it. There would unfair competition and Vonage is not a big enough company to create it's own highways.

That's all that the proponents of net neutrality are asking; to keep the internet the way it is. The ISPs provide the highway and we decide what cars we want to drive and where we go.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Those that think, "Let the market decide..", don't understand that for many people there is only one ISP option and for some in rural areas, there are no options.

Before I moved, I lived in a building with only two options, dial-up and Verizon DSL. I was very unhappy with my Verizon services, there were outages all the time and I would have to go to Kinkos to get my work done. (I am a self employed artist and my business would not exist without hi-speed, hi bandwidth internet).

One time when I had Verizon, my service was out for three months! They gave me temporary dial-up but it was crippling to my business. When I complained I was basically told to just deal with it or terminate my service. I had to just handle it because there were no other options! Finally, my wife and I moved to another building when we had our child and I had exactly three options: Verizon, dial-up, or Time warner. I live in New York City and those are my only three options!

Fortunately Time Warner has been terrific for me, but what would I do if it hadn't been? There are no other choices. The consumer is over the barrel. There just aren't the number of choices out there that those that oppose net neutrality imagine there to be.

If I could pick between a large number of providers then I could begin to possibly see a case against net neutrality. But unfortunately that is not the case.

The net has become a crucial part of our lives and is indispensable to our modern way of life. The information highway is much like a real highway. It has become a part of the public good.

Imagine if the highways were privatized and unregulated. Now imagine that Ford or GM owned a part of the highway. That would not be too different from the ISPs also providing content. Imagine what would happen if Ford decided that if you only people driving Fords can use the fast lane, everyone else had to either use the slow lane, pay an exorbitant fee, or drive through the city? With this in mind, imagine what would happen to a small independent content provider or blogger whose content was critical of or competed against the one and only ISP's content? Imagine if the ISP filtered the SICP's traffic? The small independent content provider wouldn't able to exist.

Voip, streaming movies and music, the Internet as TV, the Open Source Community, and they idea of any bit of information at your fingertips any time you need it, would be nothing but a science fiction dream.

A free internet is crucial to our modern way of life.

rickymujica 4 months ago

If the government hadn't stepped in to break up the telcos, we would still have an ATT telephone in any color as long as it's black.

It's no coincidence that mobile phones, answering machines, two-way calling, call waiting, and an endless variety of types of phone receivers weren't available until the government broke up the ATT monopoly.

Government intervention can be good in a democracy like ours. There needs to be an umpire overseeing those with unlimited power, making sure they play fair.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Right now, a small business can compete fairly. If ISPs were allowed to regulate traffic and charge for bandwidth it would kill the independent artist (such as myself), the lone software developer, the innovative cutting edge website creator, the small business that has been able to expand their business to the world thanks to services like skype and vonage, and saddest of all it would cripple the Open Source community.

I argue that if there hadn't been a free internet, many of the modern conveniences of the internet that have become indispensable to our modern way of life, would never have existed because many of them used high levels of bandwidth before they were able to turn a profit.

Google would not exist (does anyone remember how crazy it was before google?). As a matter of fact no search engine would have existed (imagine a world without any search at all?). There would be no Facebook, no Twitter, no Youtube, netflix, no gmail or google docs, no myspace, linkedin, voip, skype, vonage, (skype and Vonage are indispensable to my business), large file transfer, digg, lastfm, yahoo, any kind of maps, and the list goes on.

Many of these services we have now that we take for granted, began as micro-operations that developed huge traffic overheads long before they were profitable.

Without net neutrality we would be killing the next google or facebook, the next Ani Difranco, the next Ubuntu, before they would ever have had a chance to exist.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Right now, a small business can compete fairly. If ISPs were allowed to regulate traffic and charge for bandwidth it would kill the independent artist (such as myself), the lone software developer, the innovative cutting edge website creator, the small business that has been able to expand their business to the world thanks to services like skype and vonage, and saddest of all it would cripple the Open Source community.

I argue that if there hadn't been a free internet, many of the modern conveniences of the internet that have become indispensable to our modern way of life, would never have existed because many of them used high levels of bandwidth before they were able to turn a profit.

Google would not exist (does anyone remember how crazy it was before google?). As a matter of fact no search engine would have existed (imagine a world without any search at all?). There would be no Facebook, no Twitter, no Youtube, netflix, no gmail or google docs, no myspace, linkedin, voip, skype, vonage, (skype and Vonage are indispensable to my business), large file transfer, digg, lastfm, yahoo, any kind of maps, and the list goes on.

Many of these services we have now that we take for granted, began as micro-operations that developed huge traffic overheads long before they were profitable.

Without net neutrality we would be killing the next google or facebook, the next Ani Difranco, the next Ubuntu, before they would ever have had a chance to exist.

rickymujica 4 months ago

Right now, a small business can compete fairly. If ISPs were allowed to regulate traffic and charge for bandwidth it would kill the independent artist (such as myself), the lone software developer, the innovative cutting edge website creator, the small business that has been able to expand their business to the world thanks to services like skype and vonage, and saddest of all it would cripple the Open Source community.

I argue that if there hadn't been a free internet, many of the modern conveniences of the internet that have become indispensable to our modern way of life, would never have existed because many of them used high levels of bandwidth before they were able to turn a profit.

Google would not exist (does anyone remember how crazy it was before google?). As a matter of fact no search engine would have existed (imagine a world without any search at all?). There would be no Facebook, no Twitter, no Youtube, netflix, no gmail or google docs, no myspace, linkedin, voip, skype, vonage, (skype and Vonage are indispensable to my business), large file transfer, digg, lastfm, yahoo, any kind of maps, and the list goes on.

Many of these services we have now that we take for granted, began as micro-operations that developed huge traffic overheads long before they were profitable.

Without net neutrality we would be killing the next google or facebook, the next Ani Difranco, the next Ubuntu, before they would ever have had a chance to exist.

rickymujica 4 months ago

The neutral net is the great equalizer. It allows the little man/woman to compete in a way that was impossible before.

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