IF Net Neutrality goes down (effect on SL?)

As much as I knew that battle for net neutrality would always be decided in the Senate (the Rules Committee in the House is too damn powerful) I was disappointed with the lopsided House vote yesterday.

So the next question is: given that we face a (still) uphill battle in the Senate, has anyone considered the financial impact of the COPE bill on LL and other streaming tech business? And the internet as a whole? If we lose, what do you think happens?

If net neutrality is not mandatory for ISP's, I'd imagine services like SL will end up becoming far more expensive than they currently are. SL eats up a lot of bandwidth, and I find it unlikely that phone & cable companies would pass up the chance to charge more to deliver it if they could. At the very least, they'll probably charge LL more, which means LL will have to charge us more in turn. At worst, the ISP's could charge more on both ends, driving up not only their price to SL, but also their price directly to us as users of more bandwidth than other lower-consuming customers. I believe some ISP's already do the latter. I highly doubt they'd hesitate to do the former.

Here is a link to a story on yesterday's vote, if anyone needs more info. The relevent exerpt is:

So wait...what the heck is Net Neutrality? Good? Bad? Yo mama?

Just wanna make sure there's a clear definition of it. :3

Wait wait, here's a definition from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Wow so many paragraphs.... @_@ But it is a good read. :3

Oh and something interesting! A letter from Vint Cerf (from Google.com) speaking out for net neutrality. (And to think that they didn't care! XD)
Click it!:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/vint-cerf-speaks-out-on-net-neutrality.html

Net neutrality means, in short, that ISP's must treat all data that passes across their networks equally, neutrally. The FCC used to enforce this, but they recently eliminated that rule, so it's fallen to congress to determine whether or not to enact similar regulations as law.

Without enforced net neutrality, ISP's could potentially create "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" on their networks, charging more money to those who want fast service, or they could even prevent certain websites from being accessed at all, whatever they want to do for whatever reasons they choose. For example, let's say Verizon decided to come out with their own search engine tomorrow. Without net neutrality regulations in place, they could either block your access to Google, or they could make sure Google runs extremely slowly, while at the same time ensuring that their own service runs at full speed. In other words, they could put Google out of business overnight. You as the consumer would have no choice in the matter. The fact that you might like Google wouldn't matter. The ISP would have unlimited power to do whatever it wants.

The ultimatet fear is that without net neutrality, the internet will become what TV and radio have always been, which is an environment where just a few have loud voices, and the many have no voice at all. By charging exhorbitant amounts of money for "fast lane" service, the ISP's could make it impossible for the little guy to have any meaningful presence on the web, just as it's always been impossible for those without lots of money behind them to have a meaningful presence on TV or radio. This would effectively destroy the internet as we know it, and with ISP's ever increasingly getting into the content business, there's no reason to believe they wouldn't monopolize whatever they can.

The ISP industry's argument is that net neutrality somehow holds them back from providing better, less expensice service, a statement which obviously makes no sense at all. What's even more ludicrous is they claim they have no plans to charge more for "fast lanes", so such legislation would be "unnecessary government interference". Well, if they're not gonna do it, why should they care whether or not there's a law that says they can't?

I don't care that there's a law that says I can't murder my neighbor because I'm not a murderer. I don't care that there's a law that says I can't rob banks because I would never steal anyway. If I'm an ISP, and I'm not planning on holding broadband service for ransom, I shouldn't care whether or not the law says I can't. Only one who would commit an act in the first place would have reason to be upset if said act were made illegal or not.

For more on the subject, google (while you still can) "net neutrality", and you'll find lots of info.

Let's hope google has bought plenty of dark fiber.

Heehee, "darknet"?

holy cow a topic on which everybody here agree's is shit city. WOOHOO!!!! *reaches for party hat

well it won't be dark long if google has its way.

I'm actually not laughing much about this. Pinning all our hopes on google for decent internet access is not where I wanted to be.

House rejects Net neutrality rules

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.[read more]

Sometimes I think this is useless, but now is the time for all Internet users in the US to put down their trackballs for a minute and either phone their rep or write a letter. E-mail doesn't have nearly the same impact, but even if that's all you do, it's better than nothing.

Enough protect and uproar can outweigh the $$$ the ISPs are paying our politicians. Make your Senator and House Rep nervous. Let them know you are watching them.

My reps are Democrats, and they voted FOR the neutrality clause. I really don't understand why anybody would be against neutrality in principle. The only conclusion I can come to is that our politicians are bought and paid for.

I have lost all faith in the political process.

Oy, this is bad...*cries*