Net Neutrality Safe For Now:
Well it seems to be one up for the good guys at long last.
We are firm believers that the concept behind net neutrality by and large should be championed, it is the reason that any site can compete with more established ones on speed and bandwidth issues which ultimately can dictate a sites popularity or its Achilles heel.
So the judgement from the US senate that shows that the pro’s (to the FCC’s proposed open internet rules) out gunned the nay’s by 52-46 is a nice reminder that some common-sense is still in play at the highest level. Though the scary part is that the ruling was only just won by a small margin.
20th November key date:
This is when the net neutrality package will come into effect, with a rumoured lawsuit coming from Verizon to challenge the initiative coming in the short term.
The win will also mean that a much anticipated show down between the White house and Congress will not happen just yet, with the Whitehouse being advised to veto any legislation that attempted to stop the net neutrality initiative.
Support from the big boys:
The Open Internet initiative has the full support of the big players in the industry state side including: Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook and eBay, with Netflix taking up around 1/3 of peak bandwidth in the US download space it is interesting to see that they are so happy to be seen as good guys.
Bandwidth is an issue:
There is an issue underlying all this and one that is not easy to solve though we fully support the Open Internet initiative it is perhaps unfair that one company take sup so much bandwidth undoubtedly slowing the whole internet experience down of the rest of the users.
Though I personally think the solution should come with technology and not an ability to buy bandwidth at source by giving ISP’s the opportunity to throttle sites that do not pay them an effective “ransom”…this is not the way to move forward.
What we need is better technology to maximise the space available and ensure that the speeds needed are available though for a period I sense that with the growing use of tablets and smartphones and access to the web being more and more common for more and more data hungry applications including video, trouble does lie ahead in the short term.
But I say lets stay in this together and not start developing tiered internet access, this is undoubtedly against Tim Berners Lee’s vision which should be a benchmark for the continuing success of the Internet as a whole.
One Web, One World……yuck…sorry!
Freedom of speech:
The big reason to support net neutrality is that this will stop any of the established sites such as Youtube or Netflix from simply putting the brakes on sites that can not afford the extra bandwidth from an ISP who is happy to take a premium payout to stifle part of their service for the gain of another, and we all know how fickle users are, if things are slow then they are gone, this undoubtedly will slow down development of new sites and be a negative for the Internet as a whole.
What do you think?
Do you see “throttling” happening anyway and sense that this kind of heavy handed control is needed to effectively manage peak traffic for certain sites, and is this the best way to manage the situation, or should we allow companies to buy extra space to ensure their service shines through at all times?
Anthony Munns