Congress Net Neutrality and the Internet

[Matt Beal]

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,124403,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

 

FCC's Position

 

The FCC's network neutrality principals, endorsed in early 2004, would
give broadband customers access to the lawful content and applications
of their choice, permit them to attach the lawful devices of their
choice, and allow them access to information about their service plans.

 

Congress will consider adding the network neutrality principles to law
as it debates a telecom reform bill this year, but large broadband
providers have generally opposed the rules. Large broadband providers
such as Verizon and Comcast have called network neutrality rules
unneeded regulation, saying they have no plans to block access to some
Web sites.

 

But VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider Vonage has complained
that some broadband providers have attempted to block its service.

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: cinlug-bounces at lists.cinlug.org
[mailto:cinlug-bounces at lists.cinlug.org] On Behalf Of Lesh, Mark
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 1:21 PM
To: cinlug at lists.cinlug.org
Subject: Congress Net Neutrality and the Internet

 

This article appeared in my eWeek news feed today: 

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1955700,00.asp?kc=ewnws050106dtx1k0
000599

The bottom line on it is as follows:

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to
reduce or eliminate Network Neutrality. This means that certain content
will be given priority over other content based on a quality of service
premium paid to the network operators. This means that

*         A VPN you might be using from home to connect to work might
not work nearly as well, if you don't pay a VPN usage fee. 

*         A video you download will be choppy unless you pay for the
"enhanced streaming" option. 

*         Websites and companies that deliver VPN, Video, Search, and
Music services will also have to pay more for the "right" to deliver
them to you in an unaffected manner. 

*         Source code or binary files might be harder to download
without a "downloaders fee"

*         Bittorrent or other P2P network usage will require the "file
sharing" option

Think cell phone or long distance pricing is complicated? Well, it may
soon be that your internet connection has as many pricing levels. 

If you think the internet should remain Neutral with respect to the
content carried upon it, then Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet 

A list of all the ways you might be affected by Net Neutrality is
located on the bottom of this link: 
http://civic.moveon.org/alerts/savetheinternet.html 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cinlug.org/pipermail/cinlug/attachments/20060501/d16f3db7/attachment.htm