Please explain Net neutrality in 100 words or less

[BurtWorm]

Anyone?

[salvorhardin]

1. Equivalent to the old common carrier laws

In other words...

Regulation preventing internet service providers from favoring their own content over anyone else's content.

[BurtWorm]

5. Are we headed toward a world where the ISP determines where you

can go on the internet? Why are we headed there? Who is making it happen? Why is this an issue all of a sudden?

[salvorhardin]

13. It's been an issue for quite a long time

I'm not really sure why it's suddenly in the public consciousness. AOL has been threatening to do something similar for a while.

Vin Cerf called for internet neutrality regulation back in February: (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/02/07/75142_HNinternetneutralitylaw_1.html

Here's Lawrence Lessig talking about it back in December of 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20011111181418/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2001/lessig.html

My favorite essay that I'm shoving in people's faces all the time about nature of the internet indirectly tells us why internet neutrality is a good thing, both ethically and business wise: http://worldofends.com

Frankly, us geeks have been talking about this at least since the NSF backbone was sold off and the commercial internet was born. Probably longer than that.

[BurtWorm]

15. Turns out it's in our consciousness because the House

Energy and Commerce committee is considering a bill to give AT&T and Verizon what they want.

It worries me that this kind of shit takes so long to reach the surface of public consciousness. I had no idea Ed Markey had a bill specifically to preserve Net neutrality, that it was voted on in subcommittee yesterday and lost.

Just what I needed: another assault on freedom to worry about. :eyes: But now that I'm worried, I'm really worried. This reminds me of the Michael Powell assault on public ownership of the airwaves of a few years ago.

[salvorhardin]

18. Well, stuff has come up like this before

I get a little suspicious when all of a sudden there's hysteria on a subject. No, you're not hysterical -- you're asking questions. I'm aware of the current bill and it's something to be concerned about because although stuff has come up like this in the past, we now have a group in power that just might think this is a fine and dandy idea.

I wonder... has Al Gore spent any time on this issue? I'd be surprised if he hasn't. Just curious.

[BurtWorm]

19. Our boy PZ Myers and his crew are worried about it

I go to Pharyngula to savor his posts on atheism and against ID, so his sudden interest in Net neutrality wasn't passing through my filter, kind of like his posts on squid sex... ;)

[salvorhardin]

20. I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned

And I love a good squid sex post as much as the next guy. I'm just wondering why it's caught on this time.

[rniel]

2. how about

"Most sites that you can now visit for free will be charged for to go to."

Or am I totally wrong. Here's another try but may be a little more complex.

"Companies are taking ownership of the actual lines that data travel on and will charge all non customers to use."

that's my understanding so far from a few snippets i've read.

[papau]

3. This article sort of explains it

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neutral27apr27,0,7110141.story?track=tottext

and this site http://savetheinternet.com/

gives detail

[BurtWorm]

9. Thanks!

:toast:

[SteppingRazor]

4. Net neutrality is...

the concept that all people have equal access to the Internet.

The current debate is over whether telecom companies can end this, charging people higher prices for faster access.

How's that?

[ixion]

6. Net neutrality: all requests are treated equally

the opposite is a controlled Quality of Service based on how much money your're willing to cough up to your ISP.

[BurtWorm]

8. Are we headed toward this awful new world because ISPs are free to make it

in the current regulatory environment, or because some Republican ass in Congress is threatening to make it possible for them?

[ixion]

10. both... Big Internet and the corporate whores of congress

who are always happy to help the so-called 'free market' by creating loopholes like this that kill off the small/medium sized business and cater to only the largest sites.

Philosophically speaking, it's the anti-internet. :-(

[BurtWorm]

11. Why do Bobby Rush and Edolphus Townes support this bill?

:wtf:

[skids]

7. That's tough...

...because the "net neutrality" is only the surface issue of that whole bill. It would simply mean that carriers could not provide an "express lane" for their buddies and business partners on the Internet. But in reality they have the ability to do that, and have in fact been doing that for some time in a limited sense, e.g. putting bandwidth caps on PtP communities, etc.

The real issue is in the implementation -- who owns/controls the Internet backbone, who's allowed to play in the big leagues and who isn't, and whether they can bill Internet users for the type of bandwidth they use, rather than just the amount.

[DrDebug]

14. Actually the distance to the backbone is an issue already

The largest sites have the least hops to the backbone and therefore get the best bandwidth and the smaller sites have a huge number of hops before they reach the backbone.



The closer you are to the center, the faster the internet becomes. Sites which are a couple of hops from the red or purple computers have the top positions and sites connected to the edge only have limited bandwidth.

[rman]

16. "carriers could not provide an express lane for their buddies" - no

That's not it. That's not the problem that net neutrality is trying to prevent.

What you describe already does exist in the form of peering agreements. The big difference between that and the new legislation is that it is mutually agreed on. The new legislation allows for unilateral enforcement of bandwidth-for-money - not so much for the end user (yet) but for the big service providers out there such as google.

[skids]

17. That's, eh, exactly what I said.

You're the one that conflated "buddies" with other ISPs. I was using the term much mor broadly.

No biggie, though.

[WinkyDink]

12. The way it is now.

No "fees" for e-mail or to see certain sites or to "right-click and save", etc.
No per-viewed-page fees, with a bill sent that looks like the phone bill from Hell.
No take-over of the first million "Search Results" pages by Big Business, effectively "disappearing" the smaller sites.

Basically, it means the freedom to surf and post with just a payment to the ISP once and done.

That's my understanding, anyway.

[johnnydrama]

21. they want to double dip.

AT&T and the others want to be able to charge you extra if they can determine that you're using Vonage or
another VOIP carrier.

Or block them alltogether, forcing you to use an AT&T service.

They want to be able to bill you extra for any non standard internet usage. Gaming, downloading big content, etc...