[frogjerk]

In short, the rules would force Internet Service providers (ISPs) to treat all traffic equally, period. For such a complex-sounding name, it really is quite a simple concept.

Isn't this a recipe for disaster?

[frogjerk]

The first and simplest has to do with the fact that after selling millions of Americans "unlimited" Internet, their networks are starting to fill. Imagine a Internet connection as a water pipe. It can only transmit so much water before it becomes full and a larger pipe must be laid. The ISPs want to be able to delay the day of reckoning for as long as possible before they have to buy and lay new pipes.

So what? This happens to every single day in any corporate IT Telecom shop. Also, when you sign the contract I'm sure its in the fine print. If not, then I'm sure there would be millions of lawsuits by now.

They can get this delay if they slow down certain types of traffic. The problem is this is not what they sold you when you purchased their "unlimited Internet", is it?

Then you either complain, sue or get another provider. We don't need the government regulating bandwidth. It will be a total disaster.

[z3n]

Does this mean I can run a webserver on my DSL line now?

[frogjerk]

They can get this delay if they slow down certain types of traffic. The problem is this is not what they sold you when you purchased their "unlimited Internet", is it?

It's called QOS. It is employed on almost every network by one device or another.

Without these rules, ISPs can sell preferential treatment to the highest bidder, or even actually slow down traffic to competitors. For example, a large search engine could conceivably pay an ISP to slow down the searches of their competitors. We could see this exact same scenario for e-commerce sites. End users would never know it is happening; they would simply think that provider A has some really fast servers and provider B needs to get their act together.

Did the person who wrote this article know even attempt to find out if this was true? Savvy endusers will know exactly what is going on by employing a few simple network tests and comparing them with other users on sites such as speakeasy.net. Then they will abandon ship for another provider that is not playing games with their bandwidth.

The regulation of everything by the Government is what is being attempted here. The demonization of corporations is on big time. Big Pharma, Big Car Makers, Wall Street, now Big Telecom.

[DustyMoment]

Net-neutrality is the government sticking its toe into the regulation of the Internet. This is just the first step. Remember what Bammy did with the GM car dealers who supported McCain?? Most of them lost their franchises. Bammy will do the same with the Internet under net-neutrality. Conservative sites like FR will be among the first to be shut down.

[Soothesayer9]

Disappointed in the low number of responses to this topic, which is obviously important enough to start a thread here, but then..sometimes I keep forgetting which site I’m at when tech is discussed. Tragic.

A MUCH more informed discussion here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/the-anti-net-neutrality-movement-is-it-just-about-att-money.ars