Just another video, take a look if you're interested.
Just another video, take a look if you're interested.
The following blog post is taken directly from savetheinternet.com's newest blog entry. (Updated May 19th) Here's a sample of what their blog's information has:
Today, the New York Times weighs in again on the Net Neutrality debate, calling on Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit content discrimination. Currently, three Net Neutrality bills are snaking their way through Congress.
The Times’ editorial remarks on why an unfettered Internet is vital: “If you type in the domain name of a large corporation or a small blog, a government Web site or a radical political party, the pages are sent to your computer with equal speed. Like a telephone line, an Internet connection does not play favorites — it simply transmits the words and images.”
But the big cable and telephone companies have a vested interest in changing the rules. “They have realized that they could make a lot of money by charging some Web sites a premium to have their content delivered faster than that of other sites,” the Times writes.
The editors, who have chimed in for Net Neutrality in the past, agree that the time to safeguard it is now.
“Cable and telecommunications companies are fighting net neutrality with lobbyists and campaign contributions, but these special interests should not be allowed to set Internet policy,” says the Times. “It is the job of Congress to protect the Internet’s democratic form.”
]]>If you're wondering what the people on the other side are thinking, here's some of the things those against net neutrality are saying: (Source: Wikipedia.org)
Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality
Those in favor of forms of "non-neutral" tiered internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level-playing field: companies such as Google and Akamai achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by replicating servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should prices drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, a change of this type would make internet usage more neutral, with respect to the needs of those individuals and corporations specifically seeking differentiated tiers of service.
Tim Wu, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as, "among all applications", its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer and other non-time sensitive traffic over real-time communications.
Encouraging investment
Opponents of network neutrality regulations claim they would discourage investment in broadband networks:
"Sweeping and rigid net neutrality legislation could: hinder public safety and homeland security; complicate protecting Americans privacy; erode the quality and responsiveness of the Internet; limit consumers' competitive choices; and discourage investment in broadband deployment to all Americans."
Some argue that the Internet is in the midst of tremendous change due to fiber to the home, peer-to-peer applications, VoIP, and IPTV, and regulations offered to date are potentially damaging to network operation and investment.
Opponents of Net Neutrality compare the present state of the Internet to the phone system. Right now we are at a place where the internet is comparable to the early wired phone system. At some point, phone systems began offering a "second tier" of service in the form of wireless mobile phones. The prices for early mobile phones were high because the companies had to research, design, and manufacture the infrastructure. Initially, only wealthier people have access to the technology, but over time cell phones become cheaper and better in an unregulated free market. If the government steps in to prevent a "two-tier" Internet infrastructure, business has no incentive to develop and upgrade to better technology.
Ensuring bandwidth availability
Advocates of "non-neutrality" regulation (or allowance) point to advantages with respect to rationing what perhaps will be scarce bandwidth. Indeed, the topic was opened because of what may be a substantial increase in bandwidth consumption as multi-media uses of the Internet expand. Carriers want content providers who support bandwidth-intensive multi-media Internet traffic to pay the carriers a premium to support further network investments.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed described the amount of data produced globally in exabytes, calling the potential bandwidth crunch the "exaflood".
At times Internet traffic has already caused Internet services to fail (see congestion collapse and slashdot effect). In such cases, high latency connections result in interruption of services. An environment in which a content provider can provide a guaranteed quality of service to all customers could allow independent content providers to compete with traditional content providers in areas such as television and music broadcast, telephony, and video on demand.
One of the clearest examples of the need for a highly reliable, low latency, high bandwidth connection, is the developing technology of Remote surgery, where a surgeon can use robotics and communications technology to operate on a patient thousands of miles away.[58] Using dedicated circuits is highly desirable in this situation as the penalty for a communications failure could be death, so they are used in all cases; if they weren't available, prioritized bandwidth would be preferred to normal bandwidth. In a similar category are emergency calls to fire and police.
Residential broadband providers such as Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T claim that as bandwidth-intensive peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent become commonplace, the traditional Internet congestion management system, which was not designed to handle continuous, high-bandwidth usage, may no longer be viable, so alternate methods may become necessary. These alternate methods include bandwidth limits and priority-based quality of service for voice and video.
]]>Here's a good video explaining Net neutrality provided by: www.savetheinternet.com Take a look!
For those who are still a bit unclear about Net neutrality, here are a few examples provided by wikipedia:
Claims of data discrimination practices:
Save The Internet, an advocacy organization led by media critic Free Press, has cited several situations as examples of discrimination by ISPs, including some in the US:
-In 2005, Canadian telephone giant Telus blocked access to voices-for-change.ca, a website supporting the company's labour union during a labour dispute, as well as over 600 other websites, for about sixteen hours after pictures were posted on the website of employees crossing the picket line.
-In April 2006, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com, an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme. An AOL spokesman called the issue an unintentional glitch.
-In February 2006, some of Cox Cable's customers were unable to access Craig's List because of a confluence of a software bug in the Authentium personal firewall distributed by Cox Cable to improve customers' security and the way that Craigslist had their servers misconfigured. Save the Internet said this was an intentional act on the part of Cox Cable to protect classified ad services offered by its partners. The issue was resolved by correction of the software as well as a change in the network configuration used by Craig's List. Craig's List founder Craig Newmark stated that he believed the blocking was unintentional.
-In September 2007, Verizon Wireless prevented a pro-choice organization from sending text messages to its members coordinating a public demonstration, despite the fact that the intended recipients had explicitly signed up to receive such messages.
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~Violations of the principle of network neutrality also occur in the censorship of political, 'immoral' or religious material around the world. For example China and Saudi Arabia both filter content on the Internet, preventing access to certain types of websites. Singapore has network blocks on more than 100 sites. In Britain, telecommunication companies block access to websites that depict sexually explicit images of children. In the United Arab Emirates as of 2006, Skype was being blocked. In Norway, some ISPs use a voluntary filter to censor websites that the police (Kripos) believe to contain images of abuse of children. Germany also blocks foreign sites for copyright and other reasons. In the U.S., public institutions (e.g. libraries and schools), by law, block material that is related to the exploitation of children, and 'obscene and pornographic' material. The network filters also block sites and material relating to women’s health, gay and lesbian rights groups, and sexual education for teenagers.
-In the U.S. in 2004, a small North Carolina telecom company, Madison River Communications, blocked their DSL customers from using the Vonage VoIP service. Service was restored after the FCC intervened and entered into a consent decree that had Madison River pay a fine of $15,000. The FCC retains this authority under all telecommunications legislation pending in the U.S. Congress, with or without "net neutrality" amendments, with an increase in fines to $500,000 under the House bill and $750,000 under the Senate bill.
-Worldwide, the Bittorrent application is widely given reduced bandwidth or even in some cases blocked entirely.
-Worldwide, under heavy attack from spam email, many email servers no longer accept connections except from white-listed hosts. While few care about the rights of spammers, this means that legitimate hosts not on the list are often blocked.
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So obviously internet neutrality is not just an issue in America, and whichever side you take, you still need to speak out. This has been an unresolved conflict for several years now- which side do you take?
In the upcoming election, there is a political issue called "Internet Neutrality" (It is also known as network neutrality and net neutrality.) Very few people discuss this issue let alone having ever heard of it. For those people who enjoy the freedoms on the internet they have...perhaps you should consider looking into this issue a bit further in this blog.
These advocates offer three principal definitions of internet neutrality:
Absolute Non-Discrimination: Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu: "Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally."
Google's "Guide to Net Neutrality": "Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online."
Cardozo Law School professor Susan Crawford states that a neutral Internet must forward packets on a first-come, first served basis, without regard for quality of service considerations.
Limited Discrimination without QoS Tiering: United States lawmakers have introduced bills that would allow quality of service discrimination as long as no special fee is charged for higher-quality service.
Limited Discrimination and Tiering: This approach allows higher fees for QoS as long as there is no exclusivity in service contracts. Sir Tim Berners-Lee: "If I pay to connect to the Net with a given quality of service, and you pay to connect to the net with the same or higher quality of service, then you and I can communicate across the net, with that quality of service."
"We each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me."
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Keep an eye out for more information in other posts.
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