Net neutrality to be tested by Virgin Media

Doesn't bother me, cause if that does happen and we are restricted to sites "they" want us to view, then I'm out! Gonna head back to the library instead

Others will follow as well. We didn't have the internet a few years ago and we can live without it.

Library and real life chatting by far better than anything the internet can offer.

Good luck to them trying to keep their clients

Peace

Folks might want to check into "TOR", a proxy system that encrypts and randomizes traffic, sending it through a number of other machines, such that the local ISP has no inkling of where the traffic goes or comes from in reality. It works from behind China's great firewall, as well as in a number of other countries that have repressive regiemes and internet policies. Currently used by loads of average citizens, as well as dissidents and military/governmental operatives who need to communicate outside the firewalls.

Good thing there will always be smaller backbone connected ISP's that will make it their marketting point to have unlimited access and speed.


The only reason large telecom and ISP's are doing this is because they are the ones that had a messed up bussines model and were way to shortsighted to provide quality hosting for websites.

If they had done things right they would be the ones hosting for the large websites and they would already be making extra cash from the hosting, not needing to want more of it to distribute large sites content over their networks.

It's got to be just a matter of time before we get charged for it like everything else - charge the website owners to be listed, & charge the consumer to access it.

Double Whammy for the corporations.

Enjoy it while it lasts guys, there's pretty much nothing we can do when they start limiting internet access like they did in China.

Just wait till the boomers die off from the corporate world. I can't imagine a gen x committee supporting this type of thing. Even if it did go through and we lost net neutrality, eventually a company at some point in the future, run by one of us will open it up again.

perhaps i'm being optimistic about gen x/y not being bought and paid for by the current corrupt dinosaurs, but heres to hoping...

reply to post by KIRKSTERUK


Read Neuromancer for your own good

Creativity has no limits!

What did we do before the internet? I know I ran a bulletin board! I could see that coming back. It's nothing more than a PRIVATE network.
I think that many of you may agree with me when I say

When the internet becomes useless and doesn't fill my needs I'll cancel the service and save money.

'Just another example of nibbling away at our imaginary rights...

If these companies produced a reasonable product, we'd probably buy it. I personally am tired of buying media that sucks after you get it. I don't buy it and 'they' say I must be pirating it!

It wouldn't be the first time i've disconnected my cable and gotten an antenna to watch tv. That way you TRUELY get what you pay for!

this issues been in the pipeline for a while, im not suprised, nor am i concerned, i buy media products if the price is right, cos it saves alot of downloading that i can then put that bandwidth to good use in terms of thouroughly researching the products i want to buy, one day the whole world web will be censored which is a bad thing cos then it will drive people underground, the old i.t. saying "theres always a back door" springs to mind, no matter how tightly controlled online content will be, there will always be a programmer somewhere thats found a way in....

Originally posted by LazyninjaI'm going to have to find a new ISP. Although that really wont do anything apart from delay the inevitable.

If everyone did that then te powers would 'win' on one level. CHANGE YOUR ISP ASAP!

If not for yourself then for everyone else on the plaet that needs to learn the truth, you have a responsibility!

Hmm see, the elites always get their way, period!

What will you do if Virgin leads the way on this and all the other isp's fall in line like the sheeple they are (of course not for being sheeple, but for the promise of more cash and profit by following Virgins line).

For a start, all those claiming to jump to other isp's, just how many will follow through? Not many, given they will have no internet for the time period it takes to switch over and not wanting the hassle/inconvenience involved.

Second, how can anyone claim to make a new internet on Virgins privately owned fiberoptic network? Unless someone is willing to break into local exchanges and modify them, I see no way to bypass Virgins security setup once they have it in place. Since no one will want lenghty jail times, few people if any will be willing to do the above modifications (which would be pretty easy for Virgin to reverse also).

Finally, when every isp is doing the same, no matter how many people abandon the internet, the isp's will not change what they are doing, because there will still be over 90% the current internet users, not willing to lose the internet no matter how restricted it becomes. In their view, they are damned if they do, damned if they don't, so why not just do and have at least some form of internet they are accustomed even addicted to?

From what we get in the UK, Virgin is not bad service or price, they are (dare I say) the number one provider in the UK based on value for money, reliability and speed (where else will you get 2mb download speed for only £5 a month?, minus landline costs of course, but BT also charge landline costs ontop the £7.50 odd for similar service, plus BT has speed issues when you live far from local exchanges).

Just look at Virgins traffice management they impolemented not long ago, how many dissatisfied customers actually changed provider? Not many, same will go for the comeing changes to the net.

Originally posted by TheOmen
They better effing not!

I'm tied into a contract with them till february, can't afford an increase in price! I'm paying £36 a month as it is for Broadband, and T.V.

If it went to £51, and if they blocked the use of p2p and torrent sites, then I would lose my primary use of t'internet, so would definately switch ISP's.

Most likely to Sky, and get their T.V and broadband deal.

I for one will definitely boycott VM if this comes to fruition. And I will urge my friends and family to do the same if they're with VM aswell.

tO

Think about just automatically changing over to Sky once your contract is up in February. It would really suck if they decided to do this in March right after you got a new contract. Ouch!

Better to be safe than sorry. Hopefully Sky will not think of doing anything so stupid. Also, when you are canceling your service to VM, make sure they know it is because they were thinking about doing this. You don't want to take the chance that they will go ahead with the idea later on.

Hopefully enough customers do this, and let VM know why they are switching. That is the only way it will really hit them where it counts.

I wouldn't be surprised some hacker somewhere will find a way around their filter, and get it to other sky customers.

If my ISP was going to do this, I switch immediately even if I had to switch back to dial up. I don't like the idea of not being able to get to sites I want to go to. I certainly would be highly angry if I found I was blocked to getting to my own site, or where my site is hosted.

The race thing really bugs me. I'm sure plenty of sites not promoting racial hatred will be considered promoting it and blocked.

The old internet circa 1999 will be brought back should the globalists try anything.

Our PCs now have the power of several 1999 era internet servers and it wont take long before we are able to get our own internet back up over the phone lines, as some entrepreneur will figure it out.

Loss of freedom of speech happened in print and tv when monopolies were allowed to buy up all the small independents. If the big guys are allowed to buy up all the smaller ISPs then the same thing will happen here.
We won't have anywhere to turn once the small guys are gone. Right now I am feeling like this freedom we have today is a very precious and fragile thing. Maybe the current explosion of resistance around the world by the public against the corporate oligarchs -- ie, all the protests and demonstrations, is a sign that they might not quite get their way as they would wish.
Lets hope so. In the meantime - switch. Its all you got.

Get away from Virgin Media asap! Our contract for broadband is just up and rang them last week for Mac code which they have 5 days to provide. They said they would call back monday with number and guess what no could give me number so told to call back tuesday.

This went on until today when I called (last day they have) to be told sorry not got mac code will find out why and then girl called back to say oh we are upgrading your line so can't give you a mac code and call back tomorrow and reapply. Told them they would be reported to ofcom and then 30 minutes later they cut off the internet completely. Phoned them back and they said oh yeah sorry can't reconnect you at all now its cut off and can't give you a mac code either for another 5 days so no internet probably now till mid january.

I am going to take this further as we have just paid on the 10th for the month in advance so I will be wanting a refund for the rest of the month even if i have to take them to court. Won't be the first time had to threaten them with legal action either!! They backed down last time and I hope they do this time as don't really want to hassle of going to court but will do it.

Just steer well clear of virgin media everybody they are almost as bad as tiscali !!!!!

Originally posted by Saf85
From what we get in the UK, Virgin is not bad service or price, they are (dare I say) the number one provider in the UK based on value for money, reliability and speed (where else will you get 2mb download speed for only £5 a month?, minus landline costs of course, but BT also charge landline costs on top the £7.50 odd for similar service, plus BT has speed issues when you live far from local exchanges).

See my other post just don't do it it's not worth the stress and hassle you will get from virgin! Not all the ISP will follow as o2 are proof of (i.e. genuine unlimited downloads and not restricting you for downloading too much) they are far better value for money just £7.34 (if o2 customer) for up to 8mb connection with up to a 1.3mb upload too!! I barely get much more than a dial up speed on 8mb with virgin and I only download off peak which as per their terms they don't count!

Just walk away from virgin, I was basically told to f off in not so many words by the customer services team. They will lie to you and say whatever they think will get you off the phone as they just don't care and if you call back you will get called a liar (Yes I was called that!).

If you want TV go to freeview or sky virgin aren't worth it!

Maybe Virgin Media can do this because their customers are a 'captive market' , ie there is no other suppliers of broadband whilst you are using a fibre optic cable connection . Least none I am aware of . If you want to move to another ISP you will be moving onto copper wire adsl instead, and there the choice of ISP is many . Perhaps moving off the virgin media platform for broadband will give a few customers a chance to stick it to them properly and dispense with the cable tv too and watch freesat or sky instead with an integrated tv/broadband package.

[edit on 19-12-2008 by Drexl]

Woohoo!

I called a separate provider and they're arranging everything. It'll take a month apparently but i'll be free of virgin. I must admit that it's a great shame, over the years virgin have given me great service, never faultering, unlimited downloads etc. It's only in the last year they really went downhill, especially regarding privacy and advertising.

Goodbye virgin media, i hope you realise your mistake.

in my opinion, net neutrality is inevitable.

This is already happening and has been so, for the last year in Canada. Bell Canada has been throttling DSL users that use P2P software, alternative media/news outlets and encrypted VPN's. The process known as Deep Packet Analysis actually breaches all privacy legislation and breaks the law. In order to know what they are targeting, Bell must read all the targeted packets. Now here's the really big problem, they can read everything, which means your credit card numbers, personal data, bank account information or any data you move over the net can be read by Bell. This opens a pathway for anyone within Bell to make huge sums of money on Identity Theft, blackmail, corporate espionage or any other number of information based crimes. Bell Canada is not only breaking the law concerning personal privacy issues simply by injecting a little code and running a server in promiscuous mode, but they (Bell) are also in violation of copyright laws. Every time one of their people or their machines reads or analyzes a packet of information written by a third party, they have committed copyright infringement. The alleged commission of a crime does not warrant the actual commission of a crime.

Bell Canada throttles down key services from 4:30pm to 2:00am daily, so you pay for a 6mb 24/7 link and you get 9-1/2 hours per day at dial-up speeds and 14-1/2 hours at maybe something approaching 80% of what you are supposedly paying for. So, they have also breached all of their user/client agreements as they are not providing the services they are contracted to provide.

Boycott Bell Canada, all of their services, land line phone, mobile phone, Wifi, Internet and Satellite TV ! These brain-dead morons need to go the way of the dinosaur.

Recently, a Class Action lawsuit was heard in Quebec and the court ruled in favour of Bell Canada and their wanton disregard for personal privacy. All that means of course is the constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Welcome to the new (old) police state.