This is an animated cartoon about the future of the Internet:
http://www.internetofthefuture.org/
This site set up obviously by telcos or a group of telcos, hosted at 1and1.com. The summary of it - Telcos who spend lots of cash to put in more bandwidth, want to segment the bandwidth to `premium' bandwidth and `normal' bandwidth, where presumably the premium bandwidth will be more expensive but offer assured service levels. But te US Congress wants `net neutrality' - and if the US Congress gets what it wants, it will be illegal for any company to segment bandwidth this way at least within the US.
This affects us. What is illegal in the US will mean that we don't get the technology to do all this in Asia. And we probably can't depend on Europe.
To me, hey, more power to you, big business. Do what you want. Let the public decide.
Nobody knows the business as well as business. And I believe that free market Competition will suffice to act as a check and balance against overcharging.
Obviously not what the commies at The Register believe ... to hell with questioning the justifications. If Big Business wants to charge more, so be it. Why has our faith in the invisible hand of the free market wavered so far???
Let's put it this way - if government wants to control, they probably gotta pay (unless they put a gun to the telco's head, and I believe the USA has not reached this desperate situation, yet) and if government pays, it's the public money. If the government of the USA decides to pay for it, it might create a dangerous precedent for OUR government. And I'd really rather not pay since I really don't use that much bandwidth. Look, just a thousand or so visitors to this blog (which is in the USA) don't take as much bandwidth as Mr. Brown's 50K visitors! Let Mr. Brown pay!
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2 comments:
That's not what the net neutrality issue is about. What telcos are suggesting in the US will give them the ability to control internet traffic by imposing charges for things they don't like.
An analogy: imagine you were trying to call UOB, but Singtel now tells you that you have to pay an extra charge - on top of your phone charges - to connect to UOB. On the other hand, if you allow Singtel to redirect you to DBS (for example), you won't get charged.
Would probably be a good idea to look up more info online. e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
I consider interference by the man with the legal gun in what business wants to do in an area not owned by the man with the legal gun, short of physical coercion, as `control'. The imposition of `non-discrimination' is a form of control. It is my firm belief that an entity which owns sufficient interest in something, enough for commercially accepted `control', should be allowed free rein of control in this thing.
The Mr. Brown example is a far fetched and admittedly bad jest though.
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