Net Neutrality and You

[ThunderVamp9]

This is posted in the News so it makes sure to get front page coverage on the main website as well.

Imagine, if you will, logging on line one day and browsing to Live365.com (or insert your favorite website here) to listen to RR or CGR. You wait and wait for the site to come up (hey, I have broadband, why am I waiting?) and after a period of time it either:

1. Fails to come up at all
2. Takes a huge amount of time to load
3. You wind up at a competing services website, like SpacialAudio, or ShoutCast, where RR and CGR are not listed or available

This is what could happen if Congress passes the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE).

The basic shorthand of the situation is this: the internet currently benefits from network neutrality. The telecom companies, Internet service providers and cable companies can not discriminate against any data, traffic or programs running on their network. Everyone gets a fair shake and no preferential treatment. End users can reach all websites without interference from their provider. It allows the playing field to be level and encourages innovation. It's what allows the little guy to make his dreams reality.

But the telecom companies, and some in congress, want to change this. the new COPE act cuts out net neutrality. If the act passes, then the people who connect you to the internet get to decide which websites you see or don't see. They control which programs you can use over the net. They can determine how fast you get to certain websites. They control what the end user does and doesn't get to do on the internet. If Live365.com does not pay your service provider a fee, it could take you longer to reach their website than a competitor who did pay the fee. Worse than that, you could end up just not reaching Live365.com at all or be redirected to some competitor's site instead.

Looking beyond entertainment...what truly frightens me is how this new COPE act could affect our using utilities, reaching my bank, finding a doctor or a hospital, really important things. I know of someone whose house guest got food poisoning and he and his wife rushed to the internet to find the nearest emergency room to their house. If not for net neutrality, who knows what they would have found. Maybe they would never know there was an emergency room closer to home than the one at the hospital their ISP favors.

I thought that government was supposed to be there to serve the people. How could this possibly serve the people? This isn't serving the people at all. This is serving business and only business. Don't let them do it. Make your voice heard.

Go to savetheinternet.com and let your representatives know how they can serve YOU!

Most (a vast majority) of the text here is copied and pasted from Scott Kurtz's website and text at http://www.pvponline.com

[Rice_Cube]

Is there already a lobby against this? I can't imagine anyone supporting something like this, because it just seems so weird and impractical to me.

[ThunderVamp9]

From what I understand, the lobbying has been by the telecoms, and this is looking likely to be passed. Hence the urgent need to go to www.savetheinternet.com now and sign the petition, and send letters of your opposition to your representatives. Remind them of just who they represent.

I signed the petition and sent the letters to my senators for what that's worth.

I think if big business wants it done, there probably is very little that us peons can do to prevent it from happening unfortunately.

[Jonman]

They better not do that in the Great White North or we'll all get pissy eh!!

And maybe we won't buy their beer! Yeah! Take that Corporate Canada!!

Obviously, I'm making a mockery of the situation but I just can't see something that idiotic actually coming to fruition! There would be a MAJOR backlash!!

If I had a congressman I'd write him...honest!

[ThunderVamp9]

From Isen.com/blog

"Last night the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of an Internet where it would be legal for a monopolistic gatekeeper to stand between us and our medical information, us and our financial transactions, us and our travel plans, us and the information we try to find, us and the news we choose to read and watch, us and our leisure time activities, us and our intimate correspondence with our friends, us and our creativity, us and our political expression.

The vote was 321 to 101. Majorities from both parties voted for a bill that essentially gives the Bells everything they want.

Now eyes turn towards the Senate, where another telecom bill, with even weaker protections against monopolistic behavior, grinds towards a vote, perhaps in July. If that passes, the real telecom law will be shaped by a secret conference committee in lame duck session. (Think things are ugly now?)"

It seems that the Telecoms and their lobbbyists have been pouring millions into a fake grass-roots groups and are staging a media campaign that paints net-neutrality as some pro-internet-goverment-regulation concept. They keep insisting that the interent could be fixed to make bandwidth more accessible and faster but that evil coporations like Google and Microsoft want YOU to pay for that, instead of paying for it themsleves.

There's a lot of mis-information out there so stay informed and stay active.

Visit WWW.SAVETHEINTERNET.COM and get involved.