Net Neutrality What?

Say YES to Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality got defeated > struck down by a US Court of Appeals.  “Too complicated!”  “I don’t understand computers.”  Well, America – bend over. Citing excuse after excuse you are ignoring an issue that will significantly impact you in the not too distant future.  

The FCC in 2008, in response to customer complaints, cited Comcast for blocking users from peer-to-peer applications (jargon speak for distributing large files such as television shows and movies) and ordered the company to stop. Law suits ensued [Comcast Corp v Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, No. 08-1291].  Tuesday, a U.S. appeals court dealt a setback to the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to oversee the Internet, tossing out an agency ruling that forced Comcast to change the way it managed its broadband network.

Proponents of Net Neutrality claim that communication companies seek to impose tiered service levels in order to control the “pipe” that delivers the Internet to your home or business.  Concerns are that this action would remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and obligate subscribers to buy their monopolistic services. Many believe Net Neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms of information, speech, and assembly.

Net Neutrality opponents characterize its regulations as the government (FCC) overreaching its authority, arguing that broadband service providers have the right to control traffic over their respective proprietary lines.  Professing that they have no plans to block content or degrade network performance some companies have acted in contrast by beginning begun to use deep packet inspection to discriminate against P2P, FTP and online games.  Implementing new service and billing packages, these same companies are now charging for data overages.

For years the FCC, Internet providers and public interest groups have squared off over potential regulations for governing access and management of high-speed Internet service. The decision issued Tuesday will likely have major implications for future regulation of Internet access in the United States.

Tags: Net Neutrality

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Industry Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.