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Net Neutrality, Your Opinion?


Zimmer

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First off, I believe that if I am paying them for 15 mbps, then I should get what I pay for. If they can't deliver they they either need to upgrade their equipment or not offer it. What Comast did a while back (and might still do it now, I'm not sure) was their speed-boost. You'd pay for like 8 or 12, then if there wan't a lot of traffic, you might be able to get up to 16. I might be wrong on that, it was explained kinda crappily to me a few years ago, but what was explained to me seemed like a good idea. A little off topic, but if i'm downloading 100 movies/iso's/ton of data, why should what I am paying for suffer since they have old equipment. That's not really on topic for net neutrality, but I wanted to make that point anyways.

I came into this debate a little late a few months ago, but I think I understand most of the main points of it, so if i get some points wrong, or they are unrelated, sorry. One of the main reason the internet is so great, is that it is free. It ranges from online banking and news, to the under-bowels of sites like 4chan. Having to choose an ISP on what sites I can access is ridiculous, if I can only access digg.com/pandora/whatever else on one, but that one has websites/services blocked that you need for your job, you'd either have to find shitter versions of the good sites that have grown because of their innovation, or have an account for each ISP.

Someone mentioned open source, and if a ISP only allowed sites that payed them extra to allow them to be viewed, why would an ISP offer these types of sites or open communities at all? There might not be an organization behind it, it might just be 1 guy that bought hosting for a forum. Why would an ISP offer these types of sites if the owner can't pay for it? It would "cost" the ISP to carry the site to your monitor, which it wouldn't be compensated for, other then from your ISP account cost. If I believed for 1 second that all the extra money the would get would be used to upgrade their infrastructure, or in new technologies to make the ISP faster, I wouldn't mind it as much as I do now. But you know damn well it's going into profits and huge bonuses for the execs.

There were a few other topics I wanted to touch on, but I think I went rambling and most of this might not be coherent enough for everyone else to understand, so I think I'll take a break and gather my thoughts again.

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Yes Vako because I don't like government intervention I must be with the Tea Party obviously, if I apply that logic then Obama must be Hitler! </sarcasm>

Why do you assume that the FCC needs to regulate network neutrality, why? For that to be needed it would mean that ISPs would set up a system where some content gets preferential treatment, as already established people don't care about the ISPs they care about content, content providers have plenty of leverage to stop the ISPs from giving preferential treatment. If any ISP decides to start a cable like setup (Video 5$, News Package 15$, etc) content providers have all the power, if they say no and don't agree to that deal (why would they they want to reach the most people with their content) that ISP is in trouble they no longer have an content and an internet without content is kinda pointless.

Also for net neutrality why does the FCC have to be the monitor and make it illegal, why can't people make it financially unattractive, is it because they won't because most of them won't care, well if they don't care why does it shouldn't matter.

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Because doing so would reduce compition and lock in profit for a select group of sites. One of the amazing things about the internet is that a start-up run in someone's garage can take on people like Microsoft or IBM, and to loose that would make the internet into yet another bland cesspool of corporate desire. Content providers only have the power if they have the money, so sites like Hak5 wouldn't be able to get enough of an audience together to get the popularity required to have enough power to dictate terms to the ISP's. It would be like cable TV, with a few companies running services and anything non-mainstream relegated to the 0300 on a Sunday slot.

All the FCC has to do is what it does now, set rules and deal with issues on a case by case basis, so no need for monitoring equipment etc. Its just the same as the FTC preventing anti-trust and fraud, its required because corporations will go to any length to make sure they have all the money.

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Thing about the FCC was they were created to regulate electronic communication for radio frequency, bandwidth and electronic interference with other devices. They were never supposed to be used for content filtering and censorship, yet today they play a big role in that. Think of the Howard Stern fines of the 80's and 90's and how they wanted to revoke the licenses of every station he was on. Its one of the reasons he left terrestrial radio and went to satellite.

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And that is the reason why *content* should not be regulated but delivery should be. If you allow ISP's to start controlling what they deliver and what they don't then they automatically loose Transitory Network Communications Safe Harbor protection, become liable for the content their network delivers and then have a legal requirement to filter out anything which could be deemed remotely illegal.

But then Americans do have a weirdly vocal moral minority who complain about the content, its always funny seeing some American celebrity doing their first interviews on British TV, and being absolutely stumped by the amount of swearing and innuendo that's normal for us.

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its always funny seeing some American celebrity doing their first interviews on British TV, and being absolutely stumped by the amount of swearing and innuendo that's normal for us.

Believe me, there is plenty of swearing that goes on by Americans on a daily basis, we just have retards who believe freedom of speech doesn't extend to text, print, audio or video. In essence, they content filter EVERYTHING, even though our constitution and bill of rights state "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

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And you think the FCC would do so much better with the internet, I can picture it, they have the biggest reason to have content filters, "It's for the children".

Also what is Britain's position on hate speech?

Also I don't like the FCC blocking swearing (besides I think most kids know what they are even when they are bleeped out) or any other content.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_l..._United_Kingdom

In practice, its rare to see them used. They are usually reserved for people who are going out of there way to cause offence or stir up trouble. You could say "I happen to dislike the Welsh" on national TV, but standing on a street corner with a megaphone trying to get others to hate the Welsh would be a problem.

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