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Net Neutrality - Layman's Terms
Posted on 7/22/14 at 10:00 am
Posted on 7/22/14 at 10:00 am
Can someone please explain what exactly this is? One of my buddies was talking about it over the weekend and he said this could be a bad thing, but I didn't quite understand exactly what will happen if it is enforced. TIA
3
Posted on 7/22/14 at 10:05 am to joeytiger
Net Neutrality (as it refers to what you probably want to know) is the idea that all data you can find on the internet is equal. You cannot charge more for some data over another.
If certain companies got what they wanted and did away with net neutrality, they could charge you more to visit certain sites. For example, Comcast could throttle bandwidth to Netflix unless either you or Netflix paid more.
If certain companies got what they wanted and did away with net neutrality, they could charge you more to visit certain sites. For example, Comcast could throttle bandwidth to Netflix unless either you or Netflix paid more.
This post was edited on 7/22/14 at 10:06 am
Posted on 7/22/14 at 10:20 am to joeytiger
Cable and phone companies (ISPs) have government sanctioned regional near monopolies on our internet connections. They also sell us TV content. They want to keep it that way.
This isn't all about NetFlix, but they are the canary in the coal mine so to speak. What the ISPs are doing to NetFlix is what they will do to all internet content providers if they are successful. The ISPs already charge customers to access NetFlix, they'd like to double dip and charge NetFlix for access to it's customers, even though they already got money from their customer to pay for the data consumed. NetFlix traffic is being intentionally slowed down by ISPs, they essentially need to upgrade the connection between themselves and NetFlix, a solution that is relatively inexpensive, but they choose not to because they are going to get their money, either from shaking down NetFlix, or from keeping their customers away from NetFlix so they will keep buying cable TV.
There has been some "Net Neutrality" legislation introduced, but the main legal tool people seem to want to use to stop this is have the FCC declare the ISPs a common carrier so they can regulate them.
This isn't all about NetFlix, but they are the canary in the coal mine so to speak. What the ISPs are doing to NetFlix is what they will do to all internet content providers if they are successful. The ISPs already charge customers to access NetFlix, they'd like to double dip and charge NetFlix for access to it's customers, even though they already got money from their customer to pay for the data consumed. NetFlix traffic is being intentionally slowed down by ISPs, they essentially need to upgrade the connection between themselves and NetFlix, a solution that is relatively inexpensive, but they choose not to because they are going to get their money, either from shaking down NetFlix, or from keeping their customers away from NetFlix so they will keep buying cable TV.
There has been some "Net Neutrality" legislation introduced, but the main legal tool people seem to want to use to stop this is have the FCC declare the ISPs a common carrier so they can regulate them.
Posted on 7/22/14 at 10:27 am to joeytiger
Net Neutrality is a good thing. It means that all packets of information on the internet should be treated neutrally -- equally -- by your ISP regardless of their source or destination.
Here are a couple of reasons why eliminating Net Neutrality would be bad:
On the consumer end, you could very well be faced with a tough decision as to which ISP you want. The problem is, rather than choosing an ISP based on price and quality of service, you may have to choose based on which websites the ISP has made back-end deals with. For instance, one ISP may have a quality Netflix experience, while another may have a quality Hulu experience, but neither offers both. Also, the ISP may tier their services by which websites you can access at all (like TV), rather than speed of service. Couple these issues with the fact that most large ISPs basically have monopolies in their service areas, and the fact that these ISPs are fighting against allowing municipal broadband (and winning), and we have a bad situation for consumers.
On the business side, the ISPs would essentially be able to decide which online services succeed and which ones fail. As an example, you may know that Google makes most of their money from online ads, and Google serves up the ads you see on most websites. Without Net Neutrality, and ISP could throttle (or block completely) packets that originate from Google's servers. What this means is, if some small website (like TD) survives by making money on Google ads, then ISPs would be free to make those ads slow or never even load, essentially killing small websites (and not to mention hurting Google's revenue). Google would be left with no choice but to pay off the ISPs to "fix" this problem, and the same goes for every website that wants to survive. And they would have to pay multiple ISPs for access to their customers.
What it boils down to is, without Net Neutrality, ISPs would be free to double-dip, charging individual websites to allow their packets onto the ISPs network, and then charging the customer on the other end for delivery. It would be like Amazon paying UPS to deliver a package, and then UPS charging the customer again for the right to accept a package from Amazon specifically. And then UPS lobbies the government to disallow USPS from servicing the area.
Here are a couple of reasons why eliminating Net Neutrality would be bad:
On the consumer end, you could very well be faced with a tough decision as to which ISP you want. The problem is, rather than choosing an ISP based on price and quality of service, you may have to choose based on which websites the ISP has made back-end deals with. For instance, one ISP may have a quality Netflix experience, while another may have a quality Hulu experience, but neither offers both. Also, the ISP may tier their services by which websites you can access at all (like TV), rather than speed of service. Couple these issues with the fact that most large ISPs basically have monopolies in their service areas, and the fact that these ISPs are fighting against allowing municipal broadband (and winning), and we have a bad situation for consumers.
On the business side, the ISPs would essentially be able to decide which online services succeed and which ones fail. As an example, you may know that Google makes most of their money from online ads, and Google serves up the ads you see on most websites. Without Net Neutrality, and ISP could throttle (or block completely) packets that originate from Google's servers. What this means is, if some small website (like TD) survives by making money on Google ads, then ISPs would be free to make those ads slow or never even load, essentially killing small websites (and not to mention hurting Google's revenue). Google would be left with no choice but to pay off the ISPs to "fix" this problem, and the same goes for every website that wants to survive. And they would have to pay multiple ISPs for access to their customers.
What it boils down to is, without Net Neutrality, ISPs would be free to double-dip, charging individual websites to allow their packets onto the ISPs network, and then charging the customer on the other end for delivery. It would be like Amazon paying UPS to deliver a package, and then UPS charging the customer again for the right to accept a package from Amazon specifically. And then UPS lobbies the government to disallow USPS from servicing the area.
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