(Sigh of relief) You heard the man! Obama's unwavering support of an open-internet definitely allows for content providers, no matter how much bandwidth they are taking up, a reason to stick their chests out a little further in their battle against major telephone and cable companies. I'll admit that before actually being able to write this blog I had to do a lot of research. What did I type into my Google search engine? Yup, 'Net Neutrality For Dummies,' and only after I had read and sifted through countless websites and other online sources did I realize that the steps thatI was taking to learn about net neutrality were actually illustrating the exact reason why net neutrality must be protected.
So, let's break it down. In one corner of the ring we have the big guys, the cable/telephone/Internet network providers. To name a few, we have AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast. In the other corner of the ring we have the content providers, basically anyone who contributes information to the Internet. Major content providers that are most familiar are Google, Yahoo, and YouTube. However, we must remember that we, too, are content providers any time we post a blog or comment on a website. Clearly ISPs are outnumbered in the fight, yet this is not a debate that can be won based on numbers.
Bandwidth has been referred to in many of the articles that I have read as 'the pipes of the Internet.' ISPs are paying big bucks to create and maintain the 'pipes,' or network connections that are the pathways for all of our information to flow. These companies do not feel that it is fair that companies like Google, Yahoo, and YouTube are using up so much bandwidth and are making huge profits through advertisements, while ISPs aren't seeing any of it. ISPs feel that they aren't getting the credit or the financial compensation that they deserve; they basically see content providers as freeloaders.
"Between 1996 and 2005, the cable industry spent $105.3 billion in capital expenditures, which included new fiber-optic cables that deliver television, phone and broadband Internet, according to Kagan Research." (WSJ 2006)
Ed Whitacre of AT&T told BusinessWeek: "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
As President Obama describes it in the video above, ISPs want to be able to be 'gatekeepers' on the Internet, in other words decide which content on the Internet is delivered the fastest; they feel that they have the right to prioritize and direct the speed of the flow of information. A factor in prioritizing what sites can be accessed with the most efficiency will be their ability to pay a fee.
On his site Chez Clark gives us this example:
"Net Neutrality is about forbidding an ISP (Verizon for example) who has a business relationship with, say, Barnes and Noble, to charge Amazon punitive rates just for the privilege of reaching the ISP’s customers. Customers who, it should be emphasized, have paid for access to the Internet just like everyone else. There’s no good reason why ISPs should be able to throttle traffic selectively, based on their own interests, and that’s what Net Neutrality aims to prohibit."
Net neutrality effects everyone's interests. It is not just a battle amongst big online businesses and ISPs. It is a battle that involves anyone that has ever used the internet. What has been happening over the past few years since this has become a major issue, is the presence of the government. They are in essence the referee to our metaphor, and they have yet to decide on the winner of this fight. As I mentioned earlier, the recent election of President Obama will definitely impact this debate, pro-net neutrality.
I absolutely support net neutrality. Just the possibility that the information that I want on the Internet may come at all different speeds, or not at all, is stressful! Think about YouTube for instance. If YouTube could not afford to pay my ISP with the expected fee for the amount of bandwidth they are using for all of their videos, I would not have been able to browse quickly through the 'net neutrality' videos and find what I was looking for (Obama's speech). We are always using YouTube as a means for academic assistance, especially in this class. Who are ISPs to take away that facility? The absence of this new medium on the Internet would be far more detrimental to innovation and ideas than the 'hole' in an ISPs pocket would be if YouTube could not/would not pay a fee.
While looking up information on this topic I was able to search through Google to find tons of websites, all of which I took bits and pieces from to fully understand the issue. These sites included blogs and videos from all different kinds of people. The fact that I could access all of these sites at the same speed is what makes the internet, the internet.
One of the most helpful and interesting sites that I found was 'Save The Internet.'. They clearly break down who will be effected. (from the perspective of someone who is pro neutrality) I know it is not in my own words, yet this site is what helped me to truly understand so many different aspects of the issue. Here is how they break it down:
Who will be affected?
* Small businesses -- The little guy will be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to compete.
* Innovators with the next big idea -- Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for the top spots on the Web.
* Bloggers -- Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio clips -- silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned media outlets.
* Google users -- Another search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee another search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
* Ipod listeners -- A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service it owns.
* Online shoppers -- Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower prices -- distorting your choices as a consumer.
* Telecommuters -- When Internet companies like AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
* Parents and retirees -- Your choices as a consumer could be controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred services for online banking, health care information, sending photos, planning vacations, etc.
* Political groups -- Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their Web sites and online features to work correctly.
* Nonprofits -- A charity's website could open at snail-like speeds, and online contributions could grind to a halt if nonprofits don't pay Internet providers for access to "the fast lane."
There you have it. So I say let it flow (information), and let it flow at the same speed for everyone, no matter what the content. Charging content providers will only help in forcing our country to take steps backwards in this age of technology. And as the Wall Street Journal has reported, our country is already paying much more for internet access that is much slower than that in other countries around the world. Isn't our country supposed to be based on the support of innovation and the spread of information?
At the risk of sounding, well, corny... I really learned a lot this week about what is going on with the issue of net neutrality, and it was a topic that I was pretty much clueless on prior to this assignment. I have mentioned in my previous blogs that I am a person that really needs things to be extremely simplified and spelled out for me when it comes to new things, especially political or new technological topics. I'm not dumb, I just don't feel comfortable at guessing at what things might mean; I need to be able to learn in a way that shows me how these things affect a person in everyday life. That is exactly what the internet helps me to do. I kid you not, I read at least a dozen sites that answered to my 'net neutrality for dummies' search, and it was the access to these explanations that made everything 'click.' Net neutrality is giving a student the ability to learn with whatever source will benefit them the best, and they do not have to wait.
Sources:
Wall Street Journal. "A Battle for Control of the Web." 10 Nov 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd8qY6myrrE
All others sources are linked within the blog.
4 comments:
When everyone is paying a fee to have access to the Internet they shouldn't be limited to what types of materials they can access. The Internet was meant to serve as a level playing field where people are free to share information with one another. To limit their freedom of choice would be going against everything the Internet stands for.
I'm with you in saying that I didn't know much about net neutrality before this week, and even after a lot of research I'm still a little confused! I think you make good points but I still feel that some content provider should pay (maybe not all because I know a lot aren't as rich as google). I just don't think it's fair that the cable companies put all that money into providing a channel for the internet to run and receive no return for it.
i like the way you broke down the argument into a simple understandable way. i agree with your stance on network neutrality, and that it should be enforced.
nice breakdown... deff agree with your "let it flow" point of view. acess should not be limited.
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