Many of the major ISPs also have other offerings and deals with major websites. Examples are AT&T Yahoo! and Comcast. Without net neutrality, AT&T could decide that Yahoo!'s site should get more bandwidth, and its competitors like Google get less. Or Comcast, which offers cable TV, could decide to reduce the bandwidth or even block Hulu. Or Comcast & AT&T, which both offer VoIP, could reduce the bandwidth to competing VoIP providers, reducing the quality of their competitor's products in relation to their own, making theirs shine. They profit because by making their competitors sites slow and their own fast, many of their users will start using the ISP's websites & services instead.
Then there is the whole idea of double dipping when ISPs charge the customers for access to the internet, and also turn around and charge websites as well. So basically, even though the customers are already paying for the bandwidth, Comcast or AT&T could demand that Google also pay them or else their customers will not see Google at all or very slowly.
Max Ruhle
· 1 month ago
If Comcast blocks hulu, then someone else in the ISP market will get that business. Or another company will start up to fill that void. Or a different hulu wil pop up that does get the traffic. You guys need to take some capitalism and free-market courses, if they still offer them at today's universities/brainwashing centers. Govrnment control means intrusion into YOUR privacy. It opens up YOUR activities to government investigative eyes. Unless you are the government , this is NOT a good idea.
DANEgerous
· 2 months ago
Many ways. If Comcast controls the web they can simply shut down ANY negative review of them for any reason. same for AT&T and all outer ISPs. a few mouths ago a massive protest towards AT&T hit Twitter if they had control the could block twitter and shut down the protest with a few clicks.
Or say Comcast (who i must say ha HORRIBLE service) Decide "hay any one that has AT&T ads on your site you get 5% bandwidth, oh and unless you have Comcast ads you only get 60% band with" you must admit it would be outstanding for business! the effect of all their ad campaign would skyrocket.
Or say an ISP thinks "hay ya know Youtube, Hulu, Vonnage, ans Skype all hurt our sales and all use the internet as their main market, let turn all of them off".
Sure all this sound crazy but how you would fight it?
Sometimes, the Gov does things right! Maybe the whole rest of the government can Do Stuff Right to make up for so much wrong financial stuff that went on for so long!
Ing
· 2 months ago
Good news. The last thing we need is for the net to go the way of cable/satellite, with each provider arranging their own "offerings" in various packaged tiers for varyingly exorbitant prices, and locking some regions out of certain content by simply not carrying it at all.
EntrepreNerd
· 2 months ago
Wow. The world looks a little bit less like a pit of despair all of a sudden. Now if only we could cyber nuke AT&T I would be happy.
Martin
· 2 months ago
I hope the Canadian Government follows suite here too. Some ISP's have actually made it difficult to download media from the CBC. which is basically the Canadian government's television station although they have become more distant over the years.
Rohan Jayasekera
· 2 months ago
That is a misleading comment. The ISPs were throttling BitTorrent, which is mostly used to distribute pirated content. The CBC happened to use BitTorrent to distribute some content.
Web Strategy
· 2 months ago
good example of why you can't have preferential bandwidth...
BitTorrent is a great distributed technology, the fact that pirates use it, doesn't mean that other people don't also use it for legitimate purposes.
Without a distribution technology like BT the CBC couldn't afford to make that content available on the web, the streaming costs would be crippling.
Brad F.
· 2 months ago
The problem with that line of thinking is that "pirates" use direct downloads to share pirated content as well. Should we just disable all downloading from the web to prevent file sharing? It's gonna happen one way or the other. It's stupid to think that it can be controlled at an ISP level, because all they're doing is preventing innovation.
Besides, I think that's just their cop-out to keep from having to upgrade their infrastructure to meet modern day needs.
JessicaGottlieb
· 2 months ago
Just sorta doing a happy dance here...
The Mug Show
· 2 months ago
That's is great. I hope this passes really soon. The Internet should be equal to everyone. The ISP shouldn't be able to control anything. This makes me happy.
Web Strategy
· 2 months ago
I should think so ... the fact that it was even a debate is scary.
Erik
· 2 months ago
Sounds like a good idea on paper - but if the government gets it into their heads that they can have a say about what goes on on the web? Not good.
vga-kabel
· 2 months ago
I've got to agree with your point about the FCC, BombTrack. Without fail it seems, when you get the government in the mix, they can always find a way to make just about anything worse. If you follow the money, you usually find that they take their cues from whatever lobbyist pays them the most money. Invariably, this type of legislation tends to lead to disaster.
Breezy
· 2 months ago
Does this mean that if I provide internet service to college students, I can't selectively throttle certain kinds of traffic? How about blocking it?
kznx
· 2 months ago
Well, there is a difference between preventing ISP abuse and keeping kids from eating up the school bandwidth with Youtube videos. The main difference seems to be that the ISPs are acting in their own interest, whereas you are trying to help teachers/students to have a decent connection. Good luck, though.
ms
· 2 months ago
That's great to hear, finally after all these years. I remember when this first started, I petitioned against the big companies such as Comcast, AT&T, glad to see Net Neutrality will live in!
deniseashurstUK
· 2 months ago
I never realised that these were even issues. I just thought the net allowed total access in western democratic nations. This just goes right back to freedom of speech. God forbid we end up with various ISPs claiming better quality material over their competitors with limited material on each..... Just goes to show freedom really is still all relative. THanks for this Dee
Brad F.
· 2 months ago
Good. Those ISPs can eat butt. They shouldn't be dictating what people can see on the web, or how fast people can view certain information. It should be up to the end user to determine how they want to use the service that they're paying for, and it should be up to the ISP to use their profits wisely, instead of simply lining their pockets.
Vanishing Free Frontier
· 1 month ago
You say "They shouldn't be dictating what people can see on the web . . ." You naively assume the government won't "dictate" in far worse ways. What if this is just a seductively packaged Trojan horse for the government to gobble up more freedom and control, (you know- like banks, car companies, etc.) so they can have more dictatorial power over your life and crush dissent. The ISP may be profit hungry but what if the government is Ultimate Power hungry and they have only THEIR best interests at heart?
Brad F.
· 1 month ago
I recommend you read the article again, and this time stop to think about it.
This isn't talking about the government implementing a program like China's Green Dam. This is a measure that will prevent ISPs from making your page requests, or download/upload requests, slower or faster to suit their agendas. There is no download. There is no additional software that you put on your computer. So, there can be no virus.
I stand firmly behind what I said. ISPs should not dictate what people view on the web, or the speeds at which they view it. If you pay for service of a certain tier, like say 2gb down/up (as an example), then you should be able to fully utilize that bandwidth in any way you see fit, without having to worry about your ISP cheating you by limiting your speed to competitor sites, video streaming sites, etc.
They do it now because they didn't properly invest their profits into improving their infrastructure. Instead they used it on bullcrap like extravagant corporate packages and bonuses.
I really fail to see where you got the idea that there was some sort of software or virus involved in this.
maxRuhle
· 1 month ago
If your ISP is not providing the service you can get another one. If you are unhappy with the government actions, you are stuck. Think about it. Free markets are best, and they stay free if government and its search for power are kept out.
Brad F.
· 1 month ago
"If your ISP is not providing the service you can get another one."
Actually, a lot of people can't. A lot of people live in areas that have one sole provider and they have no choice. So much for a free market. I'm not saying that government regulation of ISPs would open areas like that up to competition. I'm just arguing against your point.
Also, I fail to see how the government telling the ISPs that they are not allowed to restrict any traffic, regardless of source or destination, will in any way give the government power to do it.
Free markets work, as long as there are laws that protect consumers from people who would otherwise take advantage of them. There are laws that prevent sellers from mis-advertising sales items with non-sale prices. That doesn't destroy the free market. It protects the consumer from being cheated. That's exactly what this will do. It will protect the consumer from purchasing an internet plan and then having the ISP tell them what they're able to see with it, when they're able to see it, and how fast they're able to see it, based solely on their discretion and not on the speeds you're actually paying for.
Brad F.
· 1 month ago
Err, and these comments that are in reply to myself are actually directed at maxRuhle, but I can't reply to his comment...
John Kyriacou
· 2 months ago
I wonder what this means for using Skype via 3G on the iPhone. I bet Apple would try to skirt it by denying the skype software upgrade including 3G support
Bertil
· 2 months ago
I'm sorry, but is that net neutrality for the web or internet? Because, for instance, P2P, e-mails & data-Muds are usually considered as not web protocols.
Name
· 2 months ago
Wow. This is NOT good news. How did we ever get by without the FCC regulating it all!?! I only see bad things coming from it. The Internet...it was good while it lasted.
cbemerine
· 2 months ago
Its not enough. No ISP should be able to advertise their service as High Speed Internet and/or Broadband if they do NOT offer their customers a consistent high speed bandwidth connection 100% of the time. If you have the right router software (DD-WRT, hint, hint) you can see your bandwidth in real time 24x7x365. This information can be logged and saved if you want.
The FCC definition (way too low given the state of technology) is 768Kbps. My logging software shows that I am throttled (kept below, prevented from using more) to lower than 100Kbps over 90% of the time. I am throttled to below 40Kbps 80% to 90% of the time. (It feels like I am throttled back 99% of the time) The only thing I see above 768Kbs are short 1 sec spikes to 1MB, 3MB and one time I actually saw one 1 second 6Mb spike (I was downloading a Linux distro). When I download large distros I do see a consistent 1MB - 3 Mbps most of the time, but as soon as the download is finished I am capped at 30Kbps to 40Kbps the rest of the time.
Makes DSL, if a guarantee of a consistent 1Mbps, look really, really good. Perhaps I should churn.
And this is the downstream limit that is thrust on me by the Cable company. I see my upstream capped at 0Kbps to 18Kbps frequently. They saw they do not throttle my service, okay so they do not call it throttling, I get that. Whatever they call it the end result is the same. I am prevented from using more bandwidth even though they advertise up to 8MBps when you join up. And this happens when people are at work and early in the morning when most people are sleeping, not just in prime time. I understand cable is a shared media that they prefer for their tiered pricing model.
Without the FCC or some government agency adding in a mandatory minimum to be considered broadband, you are still going to be manipulated in a negative way by your ISP. Even if you have Net Neutrality.
For those that stress free market, give it a rest because it just is not working. I too believe in free markets, but in the USA, there are simply too many oligopolies (or monopolies in many areas) that prevent the free market from working.
If we had working free markets here in the US, we would have 100Mbps/100Mbps for $55 per month or less like the Japanese had in 2000. Thanks to government deregulation of NTT. In 2006, Japanese customers started receiving 1Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $52 per month thanks to fiber to their homes laid back in 2000, thanks again to the government deregulation of the Japanese telco industry.
What happened in Japan is what is suppose to happen in a FREE MARKET. Yet since the 1990s, the telcos in the US have received money to put in Fiber and have made any excuse they could for not doing it. The most laughable excuse is that fiber is too expensive as they lobby our elected officials at the rate of over $1.8 million per week. It has been estimated (conservative estimate) that the telco industry has received over $900 billion since the 1990s (extra taxes, additional fees and money from American's tax dollars) specifically for building out Fiber.
Where's the fiber!? (Think the Wendy's commercials, Wheres the Beef? and you have the correct analogy. Even FIOS only offers something less than 100Mbps / 100Mbps. ) I have only heard of one company, Greenlight, Wilson, NC that is offering fiber to customers home and speeds of 100MB/100MB (symetrical Internet access) for a reasonable price. (around $100 per month; FIOS offers introductory rates of $119 per month (in some areas) for bandwidths of 50MB / 10MB. I am personally not aware of any other companies in the US offering 100MB / 100MB at any cost, much less around $100 per month.
In Wilson, NC, the local officials (elected leaders) invited Greenlight into their communicty. The telcos are fighting them, even there. Ask yourself why and follow the money.
If the free market was working here in the US (it is NOT working), as of 2009 we would have a broadband connection with consistent bandwidths greater than the FCC's definition of 768Kbps, but none of us do.
I would be interested to hear from some FIOS users that are utilizing the DD-WRT software (so they can actually see and log bandwidth in real time) to see what speeds their connection is throttled back to. Are they seeing the line not drop below 10Mbps?
The FCC definition should be at least 100Mbps / 100Mbps as this was reached by others in 2000. Probably higher in reality.
If an ISP does not guarantee speeds and bandwidths 100% of the time that are at and/or above the FCC definition, than the should NOT be allowed to say they offer either high speed Internet or Broadband. They should be sued for false advertising. They need to be regulated as they are obviously manipulating their market very effectively.
There is no excuse anymore, they had their chance back in 1996 (Telecommunications Act of 1996) and they did nothing. Well actually they did do something, they lobbied against it and won. Americans lost yet again.
They tell the truth to financial analysts when marketing to bump up their stock prices. Based on the facts they provide, there is no FREE market. The economics of the market tell us that the market is being controlled. And controlled very effectively.
We MUST have Net Neutrality, we must have fiber.
Give me fiber or give me death!
I attempted to post as myself, cbemerine, however my WAN was being throttled back to less than 30Kbps with one 393Kbps spike of one second and the Disqus login failed. While Either Disqus or Twitter (logins) were being attempted, my WAN connection was throttled back to less than 8Kbps down and 0Kbps upstream. I am surprised gmail will load as it sometimes does not when the Cable company limits my connection that severely. This might post as guest.
All Comments
Mike
Jokeyphone.com
Then there is the whole idea of double dipping when ISPs charge the customers for access to the internet, and also turn around and charge websites as well. So basically, even though the customers are already paying for the bandwidth, Comcast or AT&T could demand that Google also pay them or else their customers will not see Google at all or very slowly.
Or say Comcast (who i must say ha HORRIBLE service) Decide "hay any one that has AT&T ads on your site you get 5% bandwidth, oh and unless you have Comcast ads you only get 60% band with" you must admit it would be outstanding for business! the effect of all their ad campaign would skyrocket.
Or say an ISP thinks "hay ya know Youtube, Hulu, Vonnage, ans Skype all hurt our sales and all use the internet as their main market, let turn all of them off".
Sure all this sound crazy but how you would fight it?
Mike
Jokeyphone.com
BitTorrent is a great distributed technology, the fact that pirates use it, doesn't mean that other people don't also use it for legitimate purposes.
Without a distribution technology like BT the CBC couldn't afford to make that content available on the web, the streaming costs would be crippling.
Besides, I think that's just their cop-out to keep from having to upgrade their infrastructure to meet modern day needs.
This isn't talking about the government implementing a program like China's Green Dam. This is a measure that will prevent ISPs from making your page requests, or download/upload requests, slower or faster to suit their agendas. There is no download. There is no additional software that you put on your computer. So, there can be no virus.
I stand firmly behind what I said. ISPs should not dictate what people view on the web, or the speeds at which they view it. If you pay for service of a certain tier, like say 2gb down/up (as an example), then you should be able to fully utilize that bandwidth in any way you see fit, without having to worry about your ISP cheating you by limiting your speed to competitor sites, video streaming sites, etc.
They do it now because they didn't properly invest their profits into improving their infrastructure. Instead they used it on bullcrap like extravagant corporate packages and bonuses.
I really fail to see where you got the idea that there was some sort of software or virus involved in this.
Actually, a lot of people can't. A lot of people live in areas that have one sole provider and they have no choice. So much for a free market. I'm not saying that government regulation of ISPs would open areas like that up to competition. I'm just arguing against your point.
Also, I fail to see how the government telling the ISPs that they are not allowed to restrict any traffic, regardless of source or destination, will in any way give the government power to do it.
Free markets work, as long as there are laws that protect consumers from people who would otherwise take advantage of them. There are laws that prevent sellers from mis-advertising sales items with non-sale prices. That doesn't destroy the free market. It protects the consumer from being cheated. That's exactly what this will do. It will protect the consumer from purchasing an internet plan and then having the ISP tell them what they're able to see with it, when they're able to see it, and how fast they're able to see it, based solely on their discretion and not on the speeds you're actually paying for.
The FCC definition (way too low given the state of technology) is 768Kbps. My logging software shows that I am throttled (kept below, prevented from using more) to lower than 100Kbps over 90% of the time. I am throttled to below 40Kbps 80% to 90% of the time. (It feels like I am throttled back 99% of the time) The only thing I see above 768Kbs are short 1 sec spikes to 1MB, 3MB and one time I actually saw one 1 second 6Mb spike (I was downloading a Linux distro). When I download large distros I do see a consistent 1MB - 3 Mbps most of the time, but as soon as the download is finished I am capped at 30Kbps to 40Kbps the rest of the time.
Makes DSL, if a guarantee of a consistent 1Mbps, look really, really good. Perhaps I should churn.
And this is the downstream limit that is thrust on me by the Cable company. I see my upstream capped at 0Kbps to 18Kbps frequently. They saw they do not throttle my service, okay so they do not call it throttling, I get that. Whatever they call it the end result is the same. I am prevented from using more bandwidth even though they advertise up to 8MBps when you join up. And this happens when people are at work and early in the morning when most people are sleeping, not just in prime time. I understand cable is a shared media that they prefer for their tiered pricing model.
Without the FCC or some government agency adding in a mandatory minimum to be considered broadband, you are still going to be manipulated in a negative way by your ISP. Even if you have Net Neutrality.
For those that stress free market, give it a rest because it just is not working. I too believe in free markets, but in the USA, there are simply too many oligopolies (or monopolies in many areas) that prevent the free market from working.
If we had working free markets here in the US, we would have 100Mbps/100Mbps for $55 per month or less like the Japanese had in 2000. Thanks to government deregulation of NTT. In 2006, Japanese customers started receiving 1Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $52 per month thanks to fiber to their homes laid back in 2000, thanks again to the government deregulation of the Japanese telco industry.
What happened in Japan is what is suppose to happen in a FREE MARKET. Yet since the 1990s, the telcos in the US have received money to put in Fiber and have made any excuse they could for not doing it. The most laughable excuse is that fiber is too expensive as they lobby our elected officials at the rate of over $1.8 million per week. It has been estimated (conservative estimate) that the telco industry has received over $900 billion since the 1990s (extra taxes, additional fees and money from American's tax dollars) specifically for building out Fiber.
Where's the fiber!? (Think the Wendy's commercials, Wheres the Beef? and you have the correct analogy. Even FIOS only offers something less than 100Mbps / 100Mbps. ) I have only heard of one company, Greenlight, Wilson, NC that is offering fiber to customers home and speeds of 100MB/100MB (symetrical Internet access) for a reasonable price. (around $100 per month; FIOS offers introductory rates of $119 per month (in some areas) for bandwidths of 50MB / 10MB. I am personally not aware of any other companies in the US offering 100MB / 100MB at any cost, much less around $100 per month.
In Wilson, NC, the local officials (elected leaders) invited Greenlight into their communicty. The telcos are fighting them, even there. Ask yourself why and follow the money.
If the free market was working here in the US (it is NOT working), as of 2009 we would have a broadband connection with consistent bandwidths greater than the FCC's definition of 768Kbps, but none of us do.
I would be interested to hear from some FIOS users that are utilizing the DD-WRT software (so they can actually see and log bandwidth in real time) to see what speeds their connection is throttled back to. Are they seeing the line not drop below 10Mbps?
The FCC definition should be at least 100Mbps / 100Mbps as this was reached by others in 2000. Probably higher in reality.
If an ISP does not guarantee speeds and bandwidths 100% of the time that are at and/or above the FCC definition, than the should NOT be allowed to say they offer either high speed Internet or Broadband. They should be sued for false advertising. They need to be regulated as they are obviously manipulating their market very effectively.
There is no excuse anymore, they had their chance back in 1996 (Telecommunications Act of 1996) and they did nothing. Well actually they did do something, they lobbied against it and won. Americans lost yet again.
They tell the truth to financial analysts when marketing to bump up their stock prices. Based on the facts they provide, there is no FREE market. The economics of the market tell us that the market is being controlled. And controlled very effectively.
We MUST have Net Neutrality, we must have fiber.
Give me fiber or give me death!
I attempted to post as myself, cbemerine, however my WAN was being throttled back to less than 30Kbps with one 393Kbps spike of one second and the Disqus login failed. While Either Disqus or Twitter (logins) were being attempted, my WAN connection was throttled back to less than 8Kbps down and 0Kbps upstream. I am surprised gmail will load as it sometimes does not when the Cable company limits my connection that severely. This might post as guest.