F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane 410
Dega704 (1454673) writes in with news of the latest FCC plan which seems to put another dagger in the heart of net neutrality. "The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals. The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice Website You Have There... (Score:4, Interesting)
For most websites who serve relatively low-bandwidth content or a relatively small number of people, this probably won't have that much of an effect - it is only a tiny percentage of all websites that have aggregate peak bandwidth high enough for direct peering to make any sense bothering with and even the previous network neutrality bill would not have prevented that.
Even the European Union which many look at for being more pro-consumer than almost anywhere else in the world has a network neutrality bill that allows direct peering deals to enhance performance, quality of service and reliability of popular online services as long as it does not interfere with or otherwise degrade other services.
If you relied on VoIP, would you like the option to pay maybe $1/month extra to have a 1Mbps fully-QoS'd channel to guarantee that your VoIP traffic always gets through no matter how badly intermediate networks between your modem and VoIP provider might be? That's one of the use-cases the EUP offered as a justification for having to allow some degree of traffic prioritization.
As long as ISPs are not allowed to intentionally degrade non-premium traffic on the back of direct-peering deals, I see no fundamental problem with it.
Drop Netflix, Pirate Everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Only one reasonable response: Drop all your paid over-the-interent content subscriptions, and start pirating everything. Burn the media industry to the ground.
Re:I informed you thusly... (Score:5, Interesting)
And a reminder of this:
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/... [boingboing.net]
Obama did eventually capitulate. He signed the ACTA treaty without anybody else having any say in it, because he (and Hollywood) knew full well that it would get shot down like SOPA did if the public was aware of it. The constitution requires a vote in the senate for any treaty to be ratified, but NOBODY (not even the public) was allowed to read it until Obama himself ratified it. His argument was that since our laws already comply with it, he can ratify it by himself.
There is no precedent for that as it has never been done before (given the Constitution forbids it, it makes sense too.)
Anyways, Obama HAS been purchased, and he IS a Manchurian candidate if there ever was one.
Re:Down the river... (Score:4, Interesting)
FCC only embraced Net Neutrality to get control over internet content.
They seriously thought they would have the kind of control over the internet that they do over radio and television.
When it became clear that wasn't going to happen they didn't care anymore.
its about power. And if they sell us down the river they'll at least get influence at the ISPs that will profit from the "fast lanes".
That is why there is a pivot to the ISPs. Power. That is what the FCC wants. And the ISPs are willing to give it in exchange for no net neutrality.
You tell me which is worse... FCC in control of internet content... or ISPs filtering content based on who paid more?
Re: Well, what did we expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are people who have built VPNs and proxies to Netflix in a data center host they control who got fine performance while using the VPN to their house, but would get crap performance when going direct over Comcast. I've said it before that the line between good traffic engineering and breaking net neutrality is a blurry one, so it's not a smoking gun by any means, but it's very interesting information nonetheless.
Re: Down the river... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Meh, vote left. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Left" doesn't mean "freedom from opression by the rich and powerful". Never has. It means "authoritarianism".
Bullshit.It means "the other guys" to someone who self-identifies as "right," nothing more. ALL facets of the US political spectrum are high up on the "authoritarian" axis; even the libertarians who are too naive to know that their vaunted "unregulated paradise" would just be feudalism redux.