The death of Net neutrality: Five quick thoughts

[Joanne98]

Today, a federal appeals court rejected the FCC’s claim that Comcast couldn’t “sculpt” Internet traffic and block the flow of BitTorrent data.

This effectively put a stake in the heart of Net neutrality. It sets a precedent for all such cases, and, in effect, allows Internet carriers of all types to adjust their traffic in any way they wish.

This is bad news for all of us online. Here are five quick thoughts:

#1 Killing Net neutrality means big players always win

There could come a time when your access to favorite sites is slowed or stopped, just because those favorite sites couldn’t pay some kind of exorbitant access fee.

This ruling opens the door to tiers of pricing for data transit, making the Internet superhighway into a toll road.

Anyone who’s driven on Route 287 vs. the New Jersey Parkway knows the toll road is often a lot slower.

#2 Say goodbye to Skype and VOIP

Are you enjoying all that free voice communication you’ve had with Skype? Did you enjoy calling your relatives back in the old country — and not having to spend a dime to take all the time with them you wanted?

Get ready to say goodbye. VOIP and cell phones having been killing the land-line business, but voice communication carriers love making money with all the little nickle-and-dime doodads they charge.

VOIP and Skype eliminated that. But if they can legally charge to carry Skype traffic (or just straight block it), ISPs stand to win and you will lose.

#3 Attack on free speech

This is a bit of a “what-if,” but what if a company with one political leaning bought a broadband supplier and blocked all the traffic from anything with a different political leaning?

continued>>>>
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=8714

[rurallib]

1. look for ISPs to consolidate until we have but 2 or 3

and they choose what we can look at. Effing scary. It will be just like TV and radio.

[Enthusiast]

2. Believe it.

This will be used to stifle the free and fair dialog around critical issues. It will become 1984. As if it isn't close enough already.

[mikesm]

3. The FCC can fix this, but won't because they don't want to piss off AT&T and VZ and Comcast

They can reclassify broadband as a common carrier service with a single vote and that gives them the ability to enforce neutrality. No congressional action needed.

But will Chairman Genachowski do it? NO! Because he doesn't want to piss off the incumbents.

Good bye to free speech on the web.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.