I see a lot on line these days urging people to support “network neutrality“. Maybe I don’t understand the arguments well enough, but I’ve read what the Save the Internet people have written, and I think I’m still against net neutrality. Personally, I think differentiated services would be a good thing. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that a movie I buy from iTunes or an email message from my mother should take priority on the network over some script kiddie’s DDOS attack or spam about the latest “hot stock”. For that matter, my internet phone call should get a higher delivery priority than my email.
If you’re for (or even against) net neutrality, please help me understand why it’s such a big deal.
This site seems to explain where it could go if implemented.
implemented.
http://insomnic.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/what-is-network-neutrality/
It’s a nice blog article, but I think it makes an erroneous analogy between internet and cable TV. And it didn’t sway me to think network neutrality is a good thing.
Hey Todd… thanks for commenting on my site!
I gave this response:
Maybe I miscommunicated something with that analogy. The internet is not like TV now – the internet would be like TV if a tiered system would go into place.
Think of it with your channel analogy. You don’t have showtime now with your cable – because it is a tiered system already. If we make showtime the analogy of a website (amazon for example), then you have showtime now on your current internet access, but wouldn’t without paying more for it on a tiered internet. That is thanks to net neutrality. so when you say you can’t get showtime now on your regular cable package – that’s because the “neutral†part of cable was already taken away… and market forces made it more expensive for you to have showtime.
Like I said… I prefer to have my internet access unrestricted. I’LL DECIDE what is a priority for me thank you very much. Tiered internet could work in certain situations, I just don’t trust a committee or business to handle it without thinking about the money that could be made – meaning “lets make them pay for what they really wantâ€. It isn’t the technology factor that bothers me … it’s the implementation I don’t trust.
After reading your blog post and your comment here it seems like you may be misunderstanding something. The comment about an iTunes movie or email getting priority over DDOS or spam is unrelated to network neutrality or a tiered internet. You may want to research it a bit more before deciding. I’m not saying you are wrong or I’m right… only that I didn’t give a full rundown (and the wikipedia articles are good but not great) and you may want to look into it more. It’s a very confusing issue that has been running amok for a couple years now… and probably won’t be decided soon.