Yesterday the Justice Department said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority Web traffic. That's right, the Justice Department stuck their noses into the Net Neutrality debate. Not only is the Justice Department involved in something that is not their business, but they are so fucking wrong it is amazing.
Why are they wrong? Your broadband internet access is so oversubscribed to make it affordable at 50 bucks a month. Boo hoo that the broadband providers are going to charge rates closer to the actual subscribed bandwidth because people are using it more.
You could always just pay $500 a month for a T1 line
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I could've sworn that Net Neutrality doesn't operate this way. The notion is that service providers are planning to give priority bandwidth to companies who advertise, sponsor, or just plain pony up the blackmail the service providers want from them. The fear is that a monolithic corporate news site such as msnbc.com or cnn.com can drop the cash for quick connections for users, while something smaller or - perish the thought - community run (think slashdot) will have cripplingly slow connections. The end user's service, at least on paper, stays the same. And as long as they stick to the richer sites, they may never notice a change.
Yesterday the Justice Department said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority Web traffic. That's right, the Justice Department stuck their noses into the Net Neutrality debate. Not only is the Justice Department involved in something that is not their business, but they are so fucking wrong it is amazing.
Why are they wrong? Your broadband internet access is so oversubscribed to make it affordable at 50 bucks a month. Boo hoo that the broadband providers are going to charge rates closer to the actual subscribed bandwidth because people are using it more.
You could always just pay $500 a month for a T1 line
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I could've sworn that Net Neutrality doesn't operate this way. The notion is that service providers are planning to give priority bandwidth to companies who advertise, sponsor, or just plain pony up the blackmail the service providers want from them. The fear is that a monolithic corporate news site such as msnbc.com or cnn.com can drop the cash for quick connections for users, while something smaller or - perish the thought - community run (think slashdot) will have cripplingly slow connections. The end user's service, at least on paper, stays the same. And as long as they stick to the richer sites, they may never notice a change.
Precisely. The issue is not what subscribers will pay, but, with no change in payment, what they will have access to at what bandwidths.
The idea that, because of what a company can afford to pay some provider or set of providers, who are already being paid by subscribers, those same subscribers should be denied access at a consistent bandwidth is just fucked up thinking.
The Justice Department has no role in this decision, they are walking all over the Commerce Dept and the FCC.
TaoAndCoffee
Stoney Creek, ON
June 2007
SEP 10, 2007 09:08 AM