5 Freedoms You'll Lose Without Net Neutrality

[Guest]

Without net neutrality rules, ISPs could obstruct your right to start a business, publish your views or choose which products to buy.

5 Freedoms You'll Lose Without Net Neutrality : Read more

 

[wiyosaya]

Here is the page where the FCC has the e-mail address for public comments. I suggest that everyone who is not in favor of the new rules e-mail the FCC about the issue.

http/www.fcc.gov/page/fcc-establishes-new-inbox-open-internet-comments

 

[fcabanski]

Net Neutrality will add regulations, add oversight by numerous agencies which is a massive expansion of government, and will result in higher prices and government taxes/fees.

 

[awesomedude911]

So what can I do? Sure we can have articles explaining why this is a bad thing, but is there any ISP that is for Net Neutrality

 

[milktea]

Whoever masterminded the bandwidth toggling/favoring at the ISP companies should be deported from Earth.

 

[jardows]

Considering in the 20+ years of the Internet, there has been no "Net Neutrality" and everything has worked fine without government regulation.

Also, the thought that "No Net Neutrality" = Loss of rights is very, very, very wrong.
First, it totally skews the idea of rights and freedoms. You may lose certain "freedom" on the Internet, but only on the Internet. In most cases, ISP's are private businesses, not public areas. If a private business, though with a very public presence (think big discount stores or supermarkets) do not want people doing certain actions using their resources, they can block it.

Secondly, the freedoms as described in this article are trivial in impact. Freedom of choice? If I choose to shop at local businesses, so Internet business choices mean nothing to me. Where I live, I can not shop at Macy's or Nordstrom's because neither of those stores are located within 100 miles from me. Does that mean I do not have freedom of choice? According to this article it does. I suppose we should have government regulation that requires a particular store to be conveniently available to everyone in the country regardless of where they live?

I could go on, but you get the point. If you don't get the point, then you need to look past the FUD and go outside where there is fresh air and sunlight, and look at reality.

The best cure for the doomsday prediction of this article is not "Net Neutrality," but an increase in competition for the ISP's. In most cities, the ISP's have agreements with the local governments that give them a government sanctioned monopoly, and competing services can not enter the market. Take that away, give customer's more choices for ISP's, and the market will continue to provide the better services.

 

[chugot9218]

Personally I think you need to go out into the fresh air and sunlight.

 

[StarBound]

We have had shaping in our country for years. ADSL was shaped to hell and back. Games that we now play with 200ms international pings used to be in the region of 1.3k ms and up.
What I would like to know is since I am not american how does it affect my rights an ocean away?

 

[Eruanion Nolaquen]

Starbound, they can make it worse by throttling the game companies bandwidth. Steam didn't pay us this montyh, sorry, but you get 1 kbs download

 

[Eruanion Nolaquen]

Personally, I'd like to see an article detailing what you need to start a small neighborhood based ISP. A small server (desktop would work) a router or switch, then find out how far to the nearest level 3 trunk line. Fiber is almost as cheap as copper, and you can buy miles of it for <$300. I am thinking doing one where I live, where I need @ 30 miles of fiber would cost me roughly $2k in equipment and lines, plus the cost of placing the lines. Sell access to my neighbors to pay for the costs and the access to level 3's fiber network and I can set my own bandwidth limit, or not.....

 

[jardows]

Personally, I'd like to see an article detailing what you need to start a small neighborhood based ISP

1. Have like-minded people win a supermajority on the city council. If your town has an elected mayor, best to win that office as well.

2. Pass a city ordinance that allows new companies to come in and install their own Internet infrastructure to compete with the current phone and cable providers (your town most likely has a law that prohibits other companies from doing what you want to do)

 

[house70]

@jardows:

Just because something worked fine for 20 something years doesn't mean it will continue to do so, esp. in such a rapidly changing field as interned-based services. 20 years ago you didn't have Netflix and the like, businesses did not rely upon internet this heavily (if at all), likewise for mass-media and so on.

ISPs are private businesses, but their business is to provide access to the public, therefore that aspect of the business becomes very public. I don't care about their internal organizational structure, but I do care about the quality of the service I purchase from them. Internet-related services are just too pervasive at this point in our lives, and they'll only continue this trend. Random example: education is now almost inconceivable without internet access nowadays (if you want quality education, that is).
The examples in the article are just as good.

The Macy comparison simply does not apply. And, if indeed you don't have ANY access to a Macy's around you OR online, your choices ARE restricted. A lot of people rely upon online shopping to do price research and simply to get the best deal without having to travel hundreds of miles for a product. If their ISP decides they don't like Amazon, for instance, all these people could be left without an important choice (and quite a few might not even have an alternative to that).

You're only correct about the monopolies/oligopolies created by these ISP in their respective areas. Some of these might have been created in accord with local regulators, but some of them are just because their respective CEOs have decided not to step on each other's toes (some non-competitive agreements, more or less in public view. Think that's too unreasonable? Please refer to Apple-Google non-competitive hiring arrangements as a first, but not last, example).

 

[Osmin]

We already started to loose freedom of the press and have completely lost fairness in elections from recent events. First and foremost is when corporations could donate unlimited funds to any candidate, and now wealthy individuals can donate unlimited funds to any candidate. When was the last time you voted for someone you never saw on TV that wasn't/was a Republican or Democrat? You need commercials to combat the attack ads and trash talk your opponents. If you currently have enough money to have an attack add on TV, then you are a candidate chosen to represent the top 1% of your country. The candidate that really wants to create jobs in America and increase the middle class will never get the money for the commercials necessary to combat the meaningless chatter on TV. We would need a fighter for the truth in changing our fake unemployment numbers and also keep track of the under-employment issues. People choose the candidates that are well connected to the wealthiest and most powerful people in America. How else can you get biased people like Tom Wheeler elected as Chairman of the FCC when he worked for the companies he is suppose to regulate. It is amazing that politicians don't see a conflict of interest when you put previous leaders of the same companies your trying to regulate. If you have previous experience in milking your customers, then you are perfect for the job to regulate it. Democrats and Republicans are the same except for the millionaires that support them.

It didn't help either when the large corporations and wealthy individuals started to buy the television news stations and the large newspapers in America.

 

[SlitelyOff]

6) Your ISP prefers lesbian midget anal animal pr0n.

You should have mentioned the type of porn that your ISP may block/allow and people will really get up in arms in support of Net Neutrality.

 

[falchard]

5 freedoms you will lose without net neutrality, and a thousand you will lose with net neutrality.

 

[alextheblue]

Considering in the 20+ years of the Internet, there has been no "Net Neutrality" and everything has worked fine without government regulation.

Also, the thought that "No Net Neutrality" = Loss of rights is very, very, very wrong

Not sure why you got downrated. What we have RIGHT NOW is a complete lack of "net neutrality". Guess what? Everything works just fine. Net neutrality just shifts more control from the ISPs to the Feds. Why does everyone think this is such a great idea?

Also, this very article smacks of paid-for advertising by the big money pushing FOR net neutrality. It's a fear mongering hit-job, the likes of which I can't recall seeing on THG before. There's lots of money on both sides, people.

 

[stridervm]

The wierdest thing about anti net neutrality people is that they say that competition will counter it. While the first thing that companies will do when there's no repercussion is to kill competition in any way possible. Removing net neutrality will make it so easy for the big ISP to kill any competing ISP by just removing people access to services related to their competitors.

 

[joe nate]

Not sure why you got downrated. What we have RIGHT NOW is a complete lack of "net neutrality". Guess what? Everything works just fine. Net neutrality just shifts more control from the ISPs to the Feds. Why does everyone think this is such a great idea?

You seem to be mistaken as to what the term "Net Neutrality" is. "Net Neutrality" is the concept of not biasing the information, regardless of the source. This means your internet runs at it's maximum capability all the time. This is how the internet currently works. We do not lack "net neutrality," but rather, currently have it; the internet was originally made with net neutrality in mind. These laws are actually laws that are being proposed to remove net neutrality to filter the internet to only what the ISP wants to give you. This article outlines what negative things may happen if proposed laws to mitigate or remove the current state of net neutrality passes.

 

[falchard]

Competition would be a good start. Part of the problem is the local governments preventing competition, the other is inter company relations preventing competition. San Diego has the lines laid for 3 different ISPs running through an area and only 2 sections of the county have all three lines rented.
The problem is Time Warner Cable and Cox have an agreement on the areas they compete in with only 1 section of the county they compete. In that section its not even a competition as Cox is the best Cable Provider in the nation. If Cox did not maintain these agreements in order to get cable content, they would easily dominate the remaining sections of the city that are currently Time Warner.

 

[demonhorde665]

peopel speaking against net neutrality are getting down votes because what they are sayign is wrong. Net neutrality doesn't take any freedoms away it only ensures that no ISP ever will try to do that same thing via blocking content and or throttling people that don't pay. Sure we haven't had net neutrality laws before but that's because they wern't needed back in 92, 94 98 ... ect ect. buisness was not not nearly as centered on the web as it is today. With out net neutrality Isp will stifle our economy with a barriage of fees and come off rich while the rest of the economy burns. our economy is shifting to the internet buisness has shifted tot eh internet. we can't allow a hand full of companies to control so many buisnesses. Thats what you call racketeering via mob style like the article says and is illegal.