If you value the internet, and your ready access to it, be aware that there are moves afoot to change things quite dramatically - and in the next weeks.
"....the FCC will say – loud and proud – that it is fixing the open-web problem while actually letting it get worse, by providing a so-called "fast lane" for carriers to hike fees on sites trying to reach customers like you and me. Which, inevitably, would mean you and I start paying more to use those sites – if we aren't already.
This is a potentially tragic turning point in American politics and policy. We are on the verge of turning over the internet – the most important communications system ever invented– to telecoms that grew huge through the government granting them monopoly status. Barring a genuine shift in policy or a court stepping in to ensure fair treatment of captive customers – or better yet, genuine competition – companies like Verizon and Comcast will have staggering power to decide what bits of information reach your devices and mine, in what order and at what speed. That is, assuming we're permitted to get that information at all.
Do we want an open internet? Do we want digital innovation and free speech to thrive? If we continue down the regulatory road pursued by the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler, all of those good things will be in serious jeopardy.
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"More to the point is what the rules would allow: the oligopoly ISPs, by all reports, would have the right to cut special deals with web companies to give them that fast lane.
This is an outright perversion of network neutrality. We pay our ISPs for access to the internet, to get a certain speed – we're promised "up to" that speed, which is almost never delivered, because the industry's sleazy but common sleight-of-hand marketing is permitted by the FCC and other regulators.
Consider: an ISP like, say, Time Warner Cable, tells, say, Google that its YouTube videos won't reach us at the, say, "gold package" speed we've already paid for ... unless Google, too, pays a gold-standard fee. That is nothing short of a protection racket, run by a company that has little or no competition. In an actually competitive market, an ISP couldn't conceivably get away with such a thing."
"....the FCC will say – loud and proud – that it is fixing the open-web problem while actually letting it get worse, by providing a so-called "fast lane" for carriers to hike fees on sites trying to reach customers like you and me. Which, inevitably, would mean you and I start paying more to use those sites – if we aren't already.
This is a potentially tragic turning point in American politics and policy. We are on the verge of turning over the internet – the most important communications system ever invented– to telecoms that grew huge through the government granting them monopoly status. Barring a genuine shift in policy or a court stepping in to ensure fair treatment of captive customers – or better yet, genuine competition – companies like Verizon and Comcast will have staggering power to decide what bits of information reach your devices and mine, in what order and at what speed. That is, assuming we're permitted to get that information at all.
Do we want an open internet? Do we want digital innovation and free speech to thrive? If we continue down the regulatory road pursued by the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler, all of those good things will be in serious jeopardy.
****
"More to the point is what the rules would allow: the oligopoly ISPs, by all reports, would have the right to cut special deals with web companies to give them that fast lane.
This is an outright perversion of network neutrality. We pay our ISPs for access to the internet, to get a certain speed – we're promised "up to" that speed, which is almost never delivered, because the industry's sleazy but common sleight-of-hand marketing is permitted by the FCC and other regulators.
Consider: an ISP like, say, Time Warner Cable, tells, say, Google that its YouTube videos won't reach us at the, say, "gold package" speed we've already paid for ... unless Google, too, pays a gold-standard fee. That is nothing short of a protection racket, run by a company that has little or no competition. In an actually competitive market, an ISP couldn't conceivably get away with such a thing."
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