Thursday, December 2, 2010

Will Comcast Destroy Net Neutrality?

Slate  "If you've followed this argument so far, you deserve a medal. For everyone else, don't worry: This is how network neutrality fights go. When you click to watch a streaming movie, you imagine that the path from Netflix to your home computer is relatively straightforward. What actually happens, though, involves a patchwork of regulation, custom, and long-standing formal and informal deals about how the Internet should work. The problem is that the Internet continues to evolve, and nobody—not content providers like Netflix, network companies like Level 3, ISPs like Comcast, or perhaps especially regulators and lawmakers—know what it's going to look like in the future.
"The upshot? Kiss network neutrality goodbye. Not the idea—just the push for tough regulation."

What is Net Neutrality? From the comments to this article: "The government regulated "leveled playing field" results in shared suffering. Such would be the case for neutrality - more control, less quality, less freedom, resulting in less access due to less competition. Same liberal philosophies, same results. "....
"I can understand where the enforcement of net neutrality may seem to be an attractive prospect, but it will be the FCC which is enforcing it. If you believe that the government will do what is ethically correct - go for it. But, if you believe that the web, as we know it, has survived this long, with freedom for us all - as far as we know - without government interference, then this probably isn't going to be in our best interests.
"I suspect the very motives for the government wanting to get involved."

FCC still flogging net neutrality  "Do we really want regulators in the name of neutrality determining which apps should be available on the iPad? How fair it is that Kindle has fast book downloads? Should the FCC decide how many Facebook friends are too many? It's not even clear what net neutrality means in the context of these services.
"U.S. politicians and regulators would be better off focusing on ways to increase competition on the Internet-not looking for new ways to regulate it.

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