Internet Neutrality?

[SkylarHunter]

Could somebody please kindly explain to me what is that Internet Neutrality business I've been reading about?
How does it work? What's good and bad about it?
I've heard so many different comments I got lost.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Adramelek]

I have been hearing about this also, sounds like the government trying to get its grubby tittle hands around the internet so it can screw it up for everybody by regulating it.

 

[Riverwolf]

Hm... explaining it somewhat basically...

So internet speed is a thing, and is determined by the type of service you have. Currently the ones who primarily provide the internet are telecommunications companies, though there are other companies setting up their own services.

What Net Neutrality means is that the providers of the internet can't slow down the internet for specific websites (say, if AT&T wanted to slow down access to Comcast's website), or speed it up for specific websites, either (say if Netflix paid Comcast to speed up their website for anyone using that provider).

This is a good thing, because it means that there's fair competition between websites, which ensures that we, who use the internet, aren't even really aware that such competition is even taking place except as internet usage becomes easier and sleeker (or more difficult and cumbersome, depending on who you ask, but that's an entirely different topic.)

It also ensures that people who are stuck with any given provider, for whatever reason, aren't unfairly cut off from specific websites because that provider was paid to slow them down.

Now, while I haven't followed the more recent aspects of the current battles, when I last looked, the ones who were primarily against Net Neutrality were those providers, and the only logical reason I can think of is that Net Neutrality doesn't provide for any of them the maximum potential profits, since websites can't pay them to be faster.

I have been hearing about this also, sounds like the government trying to get its grubby tittle hands around the internet so it can screw it up for everybody by regulating it.

Actually, it's the exact opposite. It's the government (specifically the FCC) trying to make sure things stay more or less as they have been, so the megacorporations don't screw it up for everybody.

 

[Twilight Hue]

More revenue for the government pockets to pay for extravegant incomes and golfing. and paying off their supporters for getting them elected. Even the mafia couldn't have done better.

 

[Adramelek]

Thanks Riverwolf, I really didn't know a whole lot about it. But if what you said is true about net neutrality, then I am good with it. So long as they don't try to sneak anything else into such a bill.

 

[Riverwolf]

Thanks Riverwolf, I really didn't know a whole lot about it. But if what you said is true about net neutrality, then I am good with it. So long as they don't try to sneak anything else into such a bill.

If they do, we'll know soon enough. Personally I trust the govs more than the megacorps.

 

[The Hammer]

Hm... explaining it somewhat basically...

So internet speed is a thing, and is determined by the type of service you have. Currently the ones who primarily provide the internet are telecommunications companies, though there are other companies setting up their own services.

What Net Neutrality means is that the providers of the internet can't slow down the internet for specific websites (say, if AT&T wanted to slow down access to Comcast's website), or speed it up for specific websites, either (say if Netflix paid Comcast to speed up their website for anyone using that provider).

This is a good thing, because it means that there's fair competition between websites, which ensures that we, who use the internet, aren't even really aware that such competition is even taking place except as internet usage becomes easier and sleeker (or more difficult and cumbersome, depending on who you ask, but that's an entirely different topic.)

It also ensures that people who are stuck with any given provider, for whatever reason, aren't unfairly cut off from specific websites because that provider was paid to slow them down.

Now, while I haven't followed the more recent aspects of the current battles, when I last looked, the ones who were primarily against Net Neutrality were those providers, and the only logical reason I can think of is that Net Neutrality doesn't provide for any of them the maximum potential profits, since websites can't pay them to be faster.



Actually, it's the exact opposite. It's the government (specifically the FCC) trying to make sure things stay more or less as they have been, so the megacorporations don't screw it up for everybody.

Best and easiest explanation I have heard on this, thank you. I was a little lost too trying to follow it. Like everything else, debates about this somehow devolve into a flame war of us vs them, mentality.

 

[fantome profane]

John Oliver to the rescue.

Imagine a world in which your internet provider decides how fast a page can load or stream based on who owns it.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If they do, we'll know soon enough. Personally I trust the govs more than the megacorps.

I don't trust either. At least the megacorps can fall under their own weight over time and regress into something a little better.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Were are people getting it's the government trying to screw up the internet? It isn't the government, but some corporations that want to govern and dictate your web-surfing experience. The FCC/government is actually trying to preserve this neutrality so our ISPs can't decide what surfing speeds we get and for which sites. Some in the government do want to screw it up, and redefine what the internet is (the latest battles were over if it is a "utility" or not), but it's companies like Comcast that are posing the real threat.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't trust either. At least the megacorps can fall under their own weight over time and regress into something a little better.

And, in the mean time, while we are waiting for this to happen, megacorps ravage and decimate local economies in third world countries, they are creating health hazards around the world, are causing extreme environmental degradation, and constantly work to make the system better suit them while making it harder for everyone else.

 

[Riverwolf]

I don't trust either. At least the megacorps can fall under their own weight over time and regress into something a little better.

Well, I never said I did trust the govs period. ^_^

But that, I think, is one of the reasons why this topic, among others, so quickly devolves into flame wars. When we feel threatened by an entity, we tend not to trust anything that entity does by default. When someone supports, or possibly supports, that entity, we tend to regard that person as "the enemy".

I feel more threatened by the megacorps because, in my perception, they have way too much unregulated power. Big Brother will be a CEO, not a president. In my paranoid delusions, the distopic future is one where Google controls what information you have and don't have, Disney controls what you're entertained by and what you hate, and Facebook controls who you interact with and who interacts with you. Any attempt to break out of that means lawsuit because it's copyright infringement. (And I call it paranoid delusion because I don't actually believe that's going to happen.)

 

[icehorse]

The government is far from perfect. That said, the folks lobbying to end net neutrality, are the very folks who would profit most, if the net was not neutral.

And to be clear, the net has ALWAYS BEEN NEUTRAL. This isn't some new government program being created out of thin air. It's the government having to REACT to greedy corporations.

Another way to look at this, is that a neutral network helps invention and innovation. If I build a better mousetrap than the one that Comcast is invested in, a neutral net gives my better-mousetrap-website decent performance and findability. Without a neutral net, the Comcasts of the world can give unfair advantages to the businesses it chooses, and can throw roadblocks in the way of businesses it doesn't like.

 

[InChrist]

Could somebody please kindly explain to me what is that Internet Neutrality business I've been reading about?
How does it work? What's good and bad about it?
I've heard so many different comments I got lost.
Thanks in advance.

I think "Net Neutrality" is anything but neutral and is simply overreach of the government to regulate and control the internet.

The 332-page proposal they approved was never made available to the public or Congress prior to the vote, even as Wheeler ignored pleas by Pai and O’Rielly to do so. “We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it,” they said in a statement released Monday.
Government Takeover of the Internet Begins | FrontPage Magazine

 

[ShivaFan]

Read this:

The powers behind the FCC’s muscling of the Internet - hit the link "National Review" below.

National Review < hit this link

It is a long standing attempt, largely propagandized with spin by those in the far left (not all) who support Big Brother Government (Big Sis Government) to have the internet in the US (eventually by the UN) to stop the exploding new media of conservatives, individualists, independent news outlets, independent thinkers, that threaten the old government-media complex and the goal is to erase all content, flow of content, erase history, in and of and on the internet by cutting off and controlling the switches and routers and bands and wireless of the net and place such powers in the hands of unelected bureaucrats that serve the Central Politburo Government.

Way too many leftists have been pushing this with lies and npw it is happening and it doesn't matter WHAT the "rules" are or what they say the rules are that they won't let anyone read, it isn't about the rules, it is about giving them the power to make the rules and then all the rules right now will change in the name of "fairness" to mean only them.

But they will fail in the end, those in IT and the innovators are going to destroy them with a thousand stings and millions of "tunnels" and they cannot stop it... even if they put some in prison.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think "Net Neutrality" is anything but neutral and is simply overreach of the government to regulate and control the internet.

The 332-page proposal they approved was never made available to the public or Congress prior to the vote, even as Wheeler ignored pleas by Pai and O’Rielly to do so. “We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it,” they said in a statement released Monday.
Government Takeover of the Internet Begins | FrontPage Magazine

It is NOT the government! The FCC, a branch of the government, is working to preserve net neutrality. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, those companies that want to charge a "fast-lane" premium are the real threats.

 

[InChrist]

If they do, we'll know soon enough. Personally I trust the govs more than the megacorps.

Do you really think that the government and the mega-corporations are not united? Follow the money, they go hand in hand.

Big Corporations and Big Government Go Hand in Hand | FreedomWorks

 

[InChrist]

It is NOT the government! The FCC, a branch of the government, is working to preserve net neutrality. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, those companies that want to charge a "fast-lane" premium are the real threats.

A branch is still government, under the sway of the administration. Read the article I posted above and do further research...big government and big corporations are joined together.

 

[SkylarHunter]

Thanks everyone, I hope this doesn't end up turned into another source of huge profits for communications companies. They are nearly as bad as the banks

 

[YmirGF]

Why do I get the shivers when I hear the statement, "We're from the government and we're here to help."