[Linux4christians] LXer Supporting Net Neutrality

[David Aikema]

On 6/2/06, JimD <Jim at keeliegirl.dyndns.org> wrote:
> Because the telecable companies are not charging more to their
> _customers_, they want to charge _companies_ that are NOT their
> customers.  For example, I pay $45 a month for a 7Mbps cable modem

These companies would become their customers if they were to pay, and
service would still be offered otherwise.

> like going to "Bob's Small Website", however I now cannot utilize my
> full 7Mbps that I *pay* for as a customer.

You don't pay for a full 7 Mbps though (assuming that this is a
residential connection) - you pay for a connection that is burstable
up to 7 Mbps, and this bandwidth is oversold.  If the companies didn't
oversell, you'd be paying a lot more.

> their networks?  Certainly Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft will be happy to
> pay up because they can afford it.  So all the small and medium  sized

IIRC, Google has officially announced their opposition to this move.

> I own and operate a produce market.  You come and buy some nice fresh
> veggies for your kids.  After all, your kids watch Veggie Tales and love
> those Veggies!  You take the veggies home and feed them to your family.
>  I now want to charge not only you for the veggies, but also your family
> since they also benefited from my "services/goods".

Doesn't seem to me like this is a great analogy of what's going on here.

> I am paying my ISP for Internet access so the bandwidth I use is
> *ALREADY PAID FOR* regardless of how I use it.  It shouldn't matter if I

Have you read your terms of service lately?  A lot of companies do
restrict what you're permitted to send over the network in this.
Generally they don't like things that generate a lot of upstream
traffic - as this could then be sold to web-hosting customers.

> for it because the ISP is just a carrier.  If an ISP wants to start
> filtering bandwidth based on location/content, then they should not be
> allowed to still be exempt from liability.  Why should they have their
> cake and eat it too?

They're not filtering - they're prioritizing.  Everything is still
allowed through, but certain traffic is given higher priority.

Dave