Monday, February 26, 2007

Net Neutrality

I may have posted about this before, but I just found this website that dumbs it down so even I can understand the issues at hand. I have a small problem with the amount they dumbed it down, which makes it seem fishy, but I still think this is something that everyone who uses the internet should be aware of. I'll give you my explanation (as I understand it)... You use the internet to send emails, read blogs like this (thanks), entertainment, news, etc... Well, you pay a company for the right to have access to the internet (probably Verizon or Comcast or ATT). These companies are called "Internet Service Providers" or ISP's for short. Well, as if Verizon, Comcast and ATT are not making enough profit, they've figured out a way to make more of a profit, I can't say I blame them because that's their job. But for you and I it stinks, because we have to keep paying. So how will they do it? They came up with this idea that Corporations have more important things to say than say my email to my sister. So, they want to put a "choke" on us peon's - so that the Corps can have more bandwidth to send their important data. So really it's going to come down to whoever has the big bucks to pay for high speed internet access will get the high speed internet access. - one of the more subtle points of this, is that this is a way of the big ISP companies controlling what gets sent across their pipes. So if Verizon doesn't like that my sister uses comcast, they could in theory "choke" her emails to me and vice versa. And as the video points out, this is what happened to our "PUBLIC" radio and TV airwaves. So... without further a due. (how do you spell a due? It's gotta be french).
Save the Internet.

rats, I use a small web page to generate my tecnorati tags and that appears to be down at the moment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cyen, the "Save the Internet" site seems "fishy" because it is just that. In trying to promote their agenda, the folks over at STI have conveniently over-simplified many aspects of the net neutrality debate and totally omitted other aspects that proved particularly troublesome to their position. For a more comprehensive understanding of the issues surrounding net neutrality, I'd encourage you to visit my coalition's website at HandsOff.org.

cyen said...

see my follow up post here:
http://cyenobite.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-net-neutrality.html