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15 years ago
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PURRFECT PITCH IS HERE!!! Order Purrfect Pitch at the Bucktown Tiger Store :)
...goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit for overturning the FCC's ruling that Comcast may not throttle BitTorrent throughput on its network.
This is a very very bad ruling for the future of the Internet. Soon, we may be saddled with tiered pricing and tiered access, similar to the cable TV model. Imagine having to pay extra per month to be able to access LiveJournal, and having to pay a maximum amount per month to be able to access FurAffinity. Only sites like Facebook and Google.com and other huge mega-corporate sites would be accessible in a "basic" plan that treats websites like cable TV channels:
"Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use." --Lawrence Lessig and Robert McChesney, sourced from Wikipedia
Or, imagine having to pay extra to be able to hook your XBox or your Skype to the Internet, lest your Quality of Service on those applications be throttled down to render them unusable. That's what Comcast did with BitTorrent, and the U.S. Court of Appeals just gave that practice its blessing.
Big Telecom has already proposed such a model, and now that they have the legal standing to do it, they will do it as soon as they can. That is where we could be headed if this ruling is not overturned and Net Neutrality is not protected NOW.
This is a very very bad ruling for the future of the Internet. Soon, we may be saddled with tiered pricing and tiered access, similar to the cable TV model. Imagine having to pay extra per month to be able to access LiveJournal, and having to pay a maximum amount per month to be able to access FurAffinity. Only sites like Facebook and Google.com and other huge mega-corporate sites would be accessible in a "basic" plan that treats websites like cable TV channels:
"Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use." --Lawrence Lessig and Robert McChesney, sourced from Wikipedia
Or, imagine having to pay extra to be able to hook your XBox or your Skype to the Internet, lest your Quality of Service on those applications be throttled down to render them unusable. That's what Comcast did with BitTorrent, and the U.S. Court of Appeals just gave that practice its blessing.
Big Telecom has already proposed such a model, and now that they have the legal standing to do it, they will do it as soon as they can. That is where we could be headed if this ruling is not overturned and Net Neutrality is not protected NOW.
The NN law that was passed was essentially the same 'ol same 'ol. (see http://www.dslreports.com )
In this case, Comcast has been granted a limited monopoly by the government to provide cable related services to customers. Because of this I feel the government should have the authority to force Comcast to adhere to certain guidelines.
The best fix for this would be a scheme where other companies could compete for customers over the same cable. I do not think we have the proper technology to support this currently.
Of course, many land line phone companies provide DSL which is sort of competition although not direct and hopefully soon cell phone companies will be able to compete with cable companies if they can get speed and pricing set properly. If w can move this to cellular then competition should force a better product.
I think there's way too much hysteria about bittorrent being purely a 'pirate' network. That may be one use of it, but there are many, many more inane operations which will be slowed because of this.
In other news, encryption of peer2peer data transfer is already implemented in most well-known bittorrent clients. People are not truly screwed unless that encryption has a vulnerability (ISPs can't throttle you if they don't know you're doing something 'wrong'!)
They don't service RURAL GEORGIA. APPARENTLY THE INBRED HICKS AND THEIR NASCAR AND FORD PICKUP TRUCKS LIVING OUT HERE WITH THEIR COWS AND MOONSHINE JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO OPERATE ONE OF THEM THERE CABEL TELETHINGIES, RIGHT COMCAST?
Good riddance, I'll stick with my DSL through my local telephone company where the internet department is run by free thinking Mac using hippynerds.
but still if the people get pissed off enough they won't have a choice. Actually MY local service wanted to charge by the GB and it didn't end up happening from everyone's anger
Welcome, to the intardnet.
Net Neutrality runs the risk of having the government regulate what a free internet is. There is no such thing as "free" anything if it involves government regulation.
Dominus tecum
By the way, I have my own gripe to add to the way cable companies are allowed to operate.
Apartment complexes are essentially all treated as the same client. That means the owner of your apartment complex can make an exclusive contract with one company, and if you want cable/Internet, guess what? You, as an individual consumer, have to use the one your landlord tells you to or move to another complex.
Before anyone goes off with some "free association/free market" rigamarole, just imagine if your apartment complex also dictated what grocery stores you could shop at, what brand of car you could buy, and what clothes you could wear. It's essentially the same thing; there's nothing "free market" about it.
And guess who our apartment complex is in bed with? Fucking Comcast, same as all the other apartment complexes in town.