As you may remember from my previous posts, one of the most important but possibly most overlooked issues in domestic US politics right now is net neutrality. This is a really important issue I think for free speech, individual liberty, and (perhaps most importantly) equity among businesses.
I was looking back at my last post on net neutrality and realized it was really a bit of rant. Rants don’t solve anything, explanation and understanding solves problems. So let me explain again briefly what net neutrality is. No, wait… nevermind. Let me leave it to Illinois Senator and likely democratic presidential candidate in 2008 Barack Obama to do that as well as give his opinion. Please click the play button below.
Nice work Senator Obama. A clear explanation of the problem and a succinct and logical stance on the issue. Senator Obama is a democrat so lets have a listen to the republican leade on this issue, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
All I can say is WTF? A series of tubes? Not a big truck? They already pay to use the delivery services so why should they be able to deliver over the internet for free? Come on Senator, you’re kidding right? I don’t know about everyone else, but never in my lifetime has Google sent me my search results via the post office. I don’t remember using UPS to send my zittiblog.com posts out to everyone in the whole world.
Clearly Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens knows nothing about the internet and the big telco money lobby has bought off many his republican backers in congress. Please remember the comments of Mr. Obama and please trust me when I say net neutrality is important really to the shape of our country and even the future human civilization. Please keep it as one of the issue on your list when you vote, I personally will be notifying both of my congressional representatives how I feel the issue should be addressed.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Thank you Dan. It is becoming harder and harder for an old time, business owning consevative to stay true to his deep rooted Republican Affiliation. Somehow a bunch of ??????? individuals have invaded the system and need to be turned away. I had hoped the last election might open up some eyes. I’m concerned….D
January 7th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Yea… me too. But the alternatives are not promising either. A middle ground party that thinks and protects freedom is what is needed. In a polarized society I’m not sure we will have this for awhile. I know not what to do other to consider myself independent, consider each issue and its individual importance to me, then aggregate them and select the best individual available (regardless of party)
January 8th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Hi Dan,
With all do respect to Senator Obama, his example about fast vs. slow lane is inaccurate as his his beginning statement about people being able to upload podcasts is absurd. Net neutrality regulations will put everyone in a one-speed-fits all box when everybody knows not everyone uses one speed. Without net neutrality, we’ll still have fast speeds but we will be able to have FASTER speeds as well for consumers who want to pay for it. You can read more about this at the Hands Off the Internet blog.
In addition, the issue is in no way a threat to human civilization. Come on now. Proponents would like to think there is a problem but nothing has happened and if something does, The Oregonian asserts:
“Consumers will continue to be their own best advocates for access and privacy, as they have been since the Web popularized the Internet…such a law promises an escalating role for lawyers, judges and juries in setting Internet policy. If they are wise, they will recognize that the Internet works best with a minimum of meddling.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1168044902201860.xml&coll=7
This is why we at Hands Off the Internet are opposed to net neutrality regulations.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Hi HANDSoff,
I really enjoyed a bit of reading on your site and also commend you on your commitment to the issue when you take the time to seek out and post responses on blogs as small as this one. That said, I think we are talking about two different issues here to some extent. First, Senator Obama’s podcast was oversimplified but it was about the most complex explanation the readers of this blog would likely understand. That said, Senator Obama’s statements are not absurd when you look at them from the perspective of traffic prioritization. A regulatory environment that allows an ISP, or more importantly backbone network operators, to prioritize certain data traffic for whatever reason (particularly if financially motiviated), would be an unfair disaster. Depending on the legislation, not maintaining net neutrality could allow network operators to prioritize and throttle content traffic (whether I am uploading or downloading it), giving commercial advantages to select companies while doing so at the expense of an unwitting consumer. In this sense, Senator Obama’s podcast obviously could be affected if it is the podcast of another politician who gets priority.
Second, net neutrality absolutely does not have to put everyone in one box as you say. I can currently buy any level of upload or download speed I want. Is it fair the operators of the internet backbone get paid for the additional data I can put on their network, yes. But they should not be able to then prioritize or degrade my traffic. I don’t have an issue if content providers want to build separate high performance networks that can be subscribed to separately, I just don’t want network operators determining what data we should have great access to vs. what data can be degraded or de-prioritized on the internet itself. This would be especially unfair as the average consumer is unwitting that this is going on, meaning they will slowly migrate to the “faster” content providers, once again giving big business some level of control over what is currently the freest medium I know of. Thus… it is important to humanity as a civilization (and no I didn’t ever say it was “a threat to human civilization” in the original statement. That would be a ludicrous and fanatical stance).
I am capitalist and am all for creative solutions to the problem but in no way should the freedom of the internet be impeded.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Dan,
True, consumers can pay more for the upload/download speed they want but the net neutrality debate isn’t about the content we have available to us today, it’s about what is to come and net neutrality will maintain the status quo.
Net neutrality takes away the incentive for ISPs to build a better network. The network we have today will not be able to handle the streaming of next generation content such as live IPTV or video conferencing without blips or interruptions. Net neutrality will require this content be treated the same as simple emails and web browsing functions.
Alex Epstein with the Ayn Rand Institute explains exactly why net neutrality is a threat to the freedom of the internet. He says: “It is the freedom of participants on the Internet to offer and profit from whatever products, services, or content they choose that has made it such a phenomenal source of content and innovation. Net neutrality would deny ISPs that freedom. It would deny their right to engage in creative, innovative, and profitable activity with those networks–in the name of those who demand their bandwidth, but are unable or unwilling to earn it in a free market.”
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4731
Regards,
HANDSoff
January 10th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
This is the same old argument that mixes the issues around net neutrality. The problem is… without net neutrality, arguments exactly like yours will back door the world into a degraded internet. Again, I have no issues with building high performance networks for IPTV and the like but that is a seperate piece of the net neutrality debate than I am upset by. If regulation allows providers control of the speed of traffic on the internet and to degrade certain traffic at will, it will damage the internet for those who aren’t large corporate players. And by the way… Google just got done buying what is currently the world’s largest “IPTV” content provider and what is there stance on net neutrality? Right.
We need an open and free internet. If network providers feel there is a market for high speed, high performance networks and content that can’t be provided over the internet then build those networks and charge for access but leave the internet open and equal.