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Wallstrip's Julie Alexandra talks about the impending struggle for bandwidth freedom as Internet providers consider charging users for heavy Web use. Watch below:
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This is pure Americana - greed. why do you think the nation that invented the internet now ranks 28th in bandwidth and is dropping rapidly? This country cares about one thing alone above all others - profit.
We effectively have no president or congress that isn't bought and paid for. The good news is that this country can't kill the internet outside of it's borders. The big Telco's and Cable Co. would actually prefer to see the internet dead - no competition for them.
Really doesnt matter what we the people think. If American style capitalism thinks it can profit greatly from this, they will do it, and Congress and the white house will help them. Its all about Money. Also, to those who think they would have to install fiber to your home to make this happen, in the past dial up ISPs started charging for a block amount of bits used, and then they charged a larger fee for anything over that pre paid amount. I seriously doubt the ISPs would bother to upgrade the service , when they can ream us with the current junk left over from the 1950's barely work, but still works.
Further (continuation from last post), metering will target the number one complaint that the telcos use to oppose net neutrality (if you don't know what that is, google it, it's important). By implementing a cap-and-meter system, we cut the legs out from under folks who argue against net neutrality. That's important... arguably quite a bit more important than the ability to download as much as you want, when you want, for "free" (it's never free, but you know what I mean).
Another thing to consider is geography. Compared to Japan or Taiwan or South Korea (some of the leaders in broadband use), we're friggin massive. The "last mile" connection from the telco's backbone to your house is most likely the limiting speed factor, and it's horrendously expensive to dig up and bury fiber optics (it's called "trenching" and it's one of the biggest costs in infrastructure upgrades). The fact that the U.S. is so geographically large and spread out means that the telco's costs to upgrade to fiber would be immense.
Do I think the telcos and ISP's are good guys in all of this? Hell no. But some of the realities of geography, technology, and economics are in play here. Maybe a cap-and-meter solution won't be so onerous -- it would certainly be better than ditching net neutrality.
Okay, there's some misinformation here, as well as some correct information.
First of all, metering isn't... totally bad. Most of the suggested plans will have a bandwidth cap, and then charge after you pass that cap. If you think that telcos are going to cut off their nose to spite their face by making the cap so low that most people will hit it, you misunderstand greed, I mean, capitalism. They'll set the cap about average so that most people, who mainly surf the web and play a few online games, won't even come close to it.
The people who WILL hit the cap are the hardcore downloaders. Now, this doesn't just mean folks getting pirated "warez" from a torrent. This also includes legitimate downloaders such as folks getting the latest Ubuntu distro or Mom downloading the entire Beatles collection from iTunes.
So there WILL be some folks, "regular folks," who will exceed the caps and see their prices rise. The problem is that these folks ARE making bandwidth scarce. They're making it hard for the telcos, cable cos, etc. to maintain even bandwidth for the other 80-90% of their users.
So while I don't like metering (it WILL hit me), how can we address this bandwidth use disparity?
What the heck? My last Windows Update used up my entire bandwidth allotment!
Hey everyone! Lets all purchase broadband business accounts and then monitor and enforce our SLAs. I see opportunity here.
You can stop Internet growth: start charging ppl by the gigabyte and you start to choke off Internet innovation.
The DSL monopolies already give Americans some of the slowest and most expensive service in the industrial world. Americans pay $53 a month for Internet service, while Japanese pay $34. Americans get 93.7 mbps for their money, while Americans average a paltry 8.9 mbps, while paying 50% more.
The US ranks 15th in broadband penetration, falling from 4th in 2001. The US has the slowest and most expensive service in the world, and now the ISP companies want to throttle speeds and increase costs.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/07/8908_america_a_broad.html
I think the slippery slope paradigm is appropriate to site here. I'm thinking in terms of the ability to access news. The only thing standing in the way of total corporate domination of our information is the ability of the average person to get their news on the internet, and the ability to access alternative opinions. If they begin charging people for their internet use, taking into consideration the fact that the poor and middle class are already in the process of being bankrupted, there will be no other outlet for people to organize or disseminate information on a grand scale. Then again, with the new FISA bill, we were already almost there anyway, but this is the last step.
What will this mean for businesses, schools and libraries? Many people cannot afford computers, so the library provides free internet service. Will libraries be forced to ration their services to the public? Will they simply have to cut off services and return to pay-based information?
This has serious implications for the economic growth of the US. Start choking off technology and information and the US rapidly recedes as a world power.
We've been headed in that direction for the last 25 years. We don't create or build anything anymore, we just shuffle paper around. The Global Wizards are going to find it's difficult to stay a first class economy when the only thing you have in your hand is your dick !
Another thing that may be saving us from those charges is there are a lot of internet companies that are fighting this, because it will hurt their businesses. We need to help them.
bust the media monopolies. now.
When we had to pay 10 cents a minute or $6 an hour, most people couldn't afford to surf the net. Plus we had to pay a local inter-net provider. Al Gore worked hard to pass some sort of charge that is in the Federal telephone taxes, that is paid for the use of the lines, so inter net users could surf without charges. This was a great thing and made it possible for schools to afford to use the inter-net too. Unless the reptilian republicans and their enablers have screwed that up, then the taxpayer is paying for a lot of bandwidth now.
When little George gave us a telephone tax rebate, I wondered if he was trying to do away with this.
The info streaming through the internet is starting to counter the info spewing out of the
Federal MSM. So the Fed solution is to "TAX YOUR BLOGS"
This is a direct assault on the first amendment! PLAIN 'N SIMPLE!
And it eminates from the Democrats. "say it aint so"!
While I'm at it, here's a short course in how to silence the smaller voices on the Internet:
1) Pretend that a resource which is not at all scarce actually is
2) Over time, throttle down traffic on currently-active fiber to "prove" point #1
3) Start metering traffic by the kilobyte
4) Howl with laughter as big media turn out to be the only ones who can afford to transmit anything richer than plain text.
5) Smile with satisfaction as the Internet starts to look just like your television because the same five companies who own everything you see on TV wind up owning everything you can read on the network.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
That is our system in a nuttshell right there!
There is more dark fiber running from coast-to-coast than there is "lit" fiber. The idea that we're at "Peak Bandwidth" is utter bullshi*.
i wish these idiots would stop trying to fix something that isn't broken..
But hey, the internet is free, democratic and revolutionary, so it needs to be 'fixed.'
The goal of corporate America is to monetize everything. Phillip K. Dick was right.
when they say "fix", they mean "neuter", like a tomcat or dog. They don't mean "repair" or "improve".
Exactly right!
I wish these idiots would stop trying to fix something that isn't broken..
But hey, it's democratic, it's revolutionary, so it needs to be 'fixed.'
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| 07/17/08 05:12 AM