Monday - November 10, 2014

Net Neutrality - Is Obama Right?

One of the main values of the internet is that it has been mostly wide open.  Anyone could do almost anything.  We have all benefited from the freedom of the internet, yet many people want to end the freedom that has served us so well.

However it seems to be human nature to regulate things, whether they need it or not.  There’s something in human nature where people want regulations on everything for the “good of society”.  On the internet, from the beginning, there have been questions about the regulation of political speech, religious speech and pornography to name three.  Then there are the economic questions, sales tax, use tax, access to service, fee for service and more.

There have been various proposals of how to maintain what is generally called Net Neutrality.  Most of them have been more about enhancing one group’s rights at the expense of other groups.  They haven’t been very neutral.

Obama is now claiming to be for Net Neutrality and is proposing a set of changes.

I don’t trust Obama any farther than I can throw an Abrams tank.  Could he actually be on the right side this time?  Are his proposals any good? 

With Obamacare, critical information was deliberately withheld, what nasty clauses is he be hiding in his proposal?

From The Daily Mail:
Obama backs net neutrality as he calls for tough ‘open Internet’ rules - and says online access should be classified as a public utility

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?

Under the plans for priority usage, Netflix and other video providers would pay extra to use fast lanes to get the maximum amount of bandwith to its customers, and maintain and improve streaming quality and reliability.

This is being heavily criticised by net neutrality campaigners.

At the heart of net neutrality is an open internet in which all data being sent from websites to customers is treated the same, regardless of size or destination.

All this traffic is given the same priority along the same lanes and no site is given preferential treatment.

Although it seems like a fair model, in which sites that use the most bandwith pay the most money, campaigners claim it will drastically impact on industry competition.

For example, Netflix has the money to pay for better service, using the fast lanes, while smaller companies don’t.

This means smaller companies may have the same range of content, but because they can’t stream at the same quality, they are effectively priced out of the market.

To address these claims, the new rules include a ‘competition test’.

ISPs would need to decide if a website meets the critieria to be given priority access and that this bar must be set high enough to protect competition.

Posted by Dr. Jeff     on 11/10/2014 at 07:46 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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