We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It

onequestion
I was just talking to someone about how the internet is largely unregulated and in my opinion its because of our first amendment rights. Then i read this today...

This is such an ~American comment.... no offence but really???

The very idea that the internet's freedom comes from the American bill of rights is laughable!

The invention of the WWW by Sir Tim Berners-Lee who I might add is English had net neutrality in mind when he came up with the idea.



And this only will effect the major networks... My advice leave your major service provider and join a smaller independent ISP!!

But if you are that concerned about your freedom on the internet you should check out the following

Tor - Onion

Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion routing project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Today, it is used every day for a wide variety of purposes by normal people, the military, journalists, law enforcement officers, activists, and many others.

Overview
Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

For every move there is always one or more counter moves to be made!

Peace,

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


The OP isn't claiming the "internet" has rights. The OP is saying that we the people have rights and that affects how the internet is delivered to us. Furthermore it is the giant Media corp that own the infrastructures their networks, Verizon is the one trying to argue its First Amendment rights in court.
Tor browser isnt going to be useless if Verizon wins their case and has the FCC net neutrality regulation overturned.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

The OP isn't claiming the "internet" has rights. The OP is saying that we the people have rights and that affects how the internet is delivered to us. Furthermore it is the giant Media corp that own the infrastructures their networks, Verizon is the one trying to argue its First Amendment rights in court.
Tor browser isnt going to be useless if Verizon wins their case and has the FCC net neutrality regulation overturned.

I didn't say the internet has rights! Duh!

I said the idea that net neutrality comes from the first amendment of the American Bill of rights is Laughable.

And I happen to understand very well what the key issues are here.

The internet market is a free market and that cannot change unless the government decides to raise a levy. If the major networks think they could track which network traffic was trancieved upon, then they are in for a shock...

NEWS FLASH.......

Network traffic does not travel along one line or through one network... it get's blasted into millions of packets and the route each packet takes is totally different.

So the proposal is actually impossible to enforce at the business end, the only way to put something like this in place is to charge the end user or cap speeds at the ISP end....

This is why you should join a smaller independent ISP and if you are so concerned about net anonymity, then use TOR.

There is always a way to circumnavigate any move the corps make, though I do acknowledge that the issue the OP raised could be a concern for the less tech savvy I guess...

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


I agree with you that somebody will find a way, because I have faith in people but if this regulation gets overturned. There won't be any small ISP.
That's the whole crux of this issue at some point everyone has to use the large ISP because they are basically the only infrastrutcure. If Verizon wins their case it will allow the major companies to decide when and how and for how much anyone and everyone uses their network. Their won't be any smaller ISP, TOR will be useless.The internet will be just like cable T.V. thats exactly what this is all about. The ISP want the cable T.V. business model for the internet. That's exactly why some of these huge media mergers have happened. They want a subscription based service and they want to destroy any competition.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


I could see how if your not from America the constitution doesn't matter but here in the US we actually do care. Considering this is going through congress yes it matters.

Heh.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

I agree with you that somebody will find a way, because I have faith in people but if this regulation gets overturned. There won't be any small ISP.

That's the whole crux of this issue at some point everyone has to use the large ISP because they are basically the only infrastructure. If Verizon wins their case it will allow the major companies to decide when and how and for how much anyone and everyone uses their network. Their won't be any smaller ISP, TOR will be useless.The internet will be just like cable T.V. that's exactly what this is all about. The ISP want the cable T.V. business model for the internet. That's exactly why some of these huge media mergers have happened. They want a subscription based service and they want to destroy any competition.

The networks already shape their network traffic based upon what is being transceived I.E. p2p traffic or fair usage policies etc. What the market found is that the harsher these networks screwed down their network the larger their churn rate in customers was and ultimately their revenues went down.

If anything it will boost the independent market as more people flock to them.

You know it really isn't that hard to set up an ISP, my first business was an ISP back in 1995 called Merlin Internet. Back then all you needed was £250k... now you can set up an ISP on £30k.

Back in the old days you had to rely on the backbone providers to carry your traffic, but this is not true anymore due to IP over microwave 4G and soon to be 5G services.

So I cannot see anyway that this proposition could be enforced, if it ever did come to pass then the people that it would effect are the people that don't understand the technology.

Remember Knowledge is power!

Peace,

Korg.

onequestion
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

I could see how if your not from America the constitution doesn't matter but here in the US we actually do care. Considering this is going through congress yes it matters.

Heh.

It's not that I think the American Bill of Rights doesn't matter, of course I understand it matters. It just has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.

The internet is a global concern and is not routed in a single country. So Net Neutrality is also a global issue and thus the American Bill of rights does not apply.

But don't worry your pretty head, this kind of policy has been formed by misinformed money grabbing people whom have ZERO grasp on the technicalities and logistics of what they propose.

It is not possible to enforce!

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


I'm guessing your not American because you used €. If I'm wrong my apologies. I don't think you understand. The backbone is all we have there is a total and complete monopoly on the infrastructure in America.
Back in the 90's there was a war between cable and phone companies, cable won eventually things were deregulated instead of competing these companies just split up territories and eventually started merging with no competition the networks haven't been upgraded. You can't set up all the ISP you want but unless you have $100,000,000 to build your own network your gonna have to go through Att, Verizon, Comcast, etc. It doesn't matter if your Google or if your you everyone has to use their networks their is no other option in America.

I really dont understand the point of this thread. What is net neutrality about? Seems like a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo if you ask me.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

I'm guessing your not American because you used €. If I'm wrong my apologies. I don't think you understand. The backbone is all we have there is a total and complete monopoly on the infrastructure in America.
Back in the 90's there was a war between cable and phone companies, cable won eventually things were deregulated instead of competing these companies just split up territories and eventually started merging with no competition the networks haven't been upgraded. You can't set up all the ISP you want but unless you have $100,000,000 to build your own network your gonna have to go through Att, Verizon, Comcast, etc. It doesn't matter if your Google or if your you everyone has to use their networks their is no other option in America.

I'm English so I used £ as in POUNDS lol

I'm not saying the state of the internet business is the same world over. I'm saying that as always within a free market, the power is with the consumer to make a choice.

For you living in the united states, you have a multitude of choices.

Internet service providers of the United States

As it will be impossible to put a levy on traffic over the backbone without creating a new market, the backbone providers in the US are faced with reduction of revenue should they attempt to shake more fruit from the proverbial tree.

In other words, if it becomes expensive to use the mainstream backbone providers, companies will provide their own networks.

It doesn't cost 100 million to create a network these days. The licence for 4G maybe expensive but you have to speculate if you wish to accumulate.

Besides, if we are talking about backbone level shaping then large businesses such as Google & Microsoft whom's business model is based int he cloud would seize that opportunity i'm sure and put the big networks out of business.

Peace,

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


Its not 100million its 100billion and that is the low estimate some say it would be 700billion yes there's lots of ISP now but they all use the big networks actual cable and telephone lines that are owned by these huge corporations. If this deregulation occurs they can effectively charge whatever they want to whomever they want and limit anyone's access on their cable and phone lines.
Netflix operates because they are free to transmit their content across the internet just the same as Google or you sending an email if this deregulation occurs Verizon can effectively slow Netflix data transfer rates to a vault or charge an obscene amount of money to them or me to use their network.
No one is going to spend $100 billion dollars to build a network that has an extremely low return on the investment. So that only leaves the option of using one of the big networks who will then have complete control over how much their content costs and how fast it is delivered. That is the abortion of any startup company and crazy fees for established companies that already cut into profits which will eventually crumble or become a shadow of what they were. Imagine having to watch a commercial every time you logged onto Facebook or ATS. Sure people will come up with some way to circumvent that but eventually it will become too costly for anyone to keep up.

You know what the biggest problem about all of this is? Most people don't understand how computers and the internet work. Sure they can use them, but they don't understand the underlying mechanics of them. So when news like this breaks, the required public outrage isn't high enough to sway the decisions of the people in charge. Instead the telecom corporations can sway public opinion with propaganda and misinformation to sound like this is a good thing. Since the majority of the public doesn't understand this stuff they'll just go along with it... Sad times.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Once this deregulation occurs we will really see what mega corporations are like, no company will Stan's a chance against Comcast Verizon ATT. You either get with the program, get absorbed, or don't exist.

This will be the birth of the true Megacorporation that can hold any entity in bondage.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

Its not 100million its 100billion and that is the low estimate some say it would be 700billion

It just doesn't cost that much! I'm not sure where you are getting your values from but they are not even in the same galaxy let alone ball park.

The Licence for 4G is currently in the tens of thousands range, the hardware is a further few tens of thousands.

All in all you could have an operational network for under £100k. Now if you wanted to extend that country wide you would have to factor in additional technology, but in effect it would be amplified by say in your country the states. So you could have a country wide network up and running for around 5 million.

Of course you would have to build a business model around that infrastructure that meant you would recover the costs... however Microsoft or Google could do it without even thinking just to be able to offer their cloud based solutions unhindered.

The problem with the major tier one carriers is they have to carry the cost of their outdated network infrastructure such as copper loops and other analogue technology that surprisingly but true is still being used today, this is why their business upkeep is so high.

The large old carriers such as AT&T are ageing dinosaurs that has no real place in the post modern era.

Think of it this way, it's like buying an old car and spending thousands on it to try and get it to a reasonable standard..... when you can buy from a main dealer the same performing car if not better for less money.

Peace,

Korg.

I think what people keep losing sight of is the fact that net neutrality has *nothing* to do with how you access the internet or how much $$ you pay for that access.

Net neutrality refers to the concept that once your or anyone else's traffic (or packets) gets to the internet "backbone" it cannot be prioritized such that person or company A's traffic will get to its destination sooner than person or company B's. I'll define "backbone" as the location or more accurately the piece of equipment that is the boundary between anyone's individual access to the internet and the internet itself.

Companies can and should charge whatever they want for access - based on the size of the access pipe, equipment provided to access the net, etc. The same goes for companies that host content. It's already done that way and the market itself determines pricing based on competition, etc.

With that said, the *instant* that the large backbone providers are allowed to prioritize any personal or commercial internet traffic - the internet as we know it is as dead as a doornail.

For so very many reasons...

Korg Trinity

onequestion
I was just talking to someone about how the internet is largely unregulated and in my opinion its because of our first amendment rights. Then i read this today...

This is such an ~American comment.... no offence but really???

The very idea that the internet's freedom comes from the American bill of rights is laughable!

Finally someone said it, . Just because the US loses net neutrality does mean the rest of the world will fall in line. Maybe some countries will follow suit with the US but these will be countries that will have close ties to the US, like Canada or the UK. Even then they would have to deal with their own respective populations based on their own laws governing internet use.

RedShirt73

Korg Trinity

onequestion
I was just talking to someone about how the internet is largely unregulated and in my opinion its because of our first amendment rights. Then i read this today...

This is such an ~American comment.... no offence but really???

The very idea that the internet's freedom comes from the American bill of rights is laughable!

Finally someone said it,

. Just because the US loses net neutrality does mean the rest of the world will fall in line. Maybe some countries will follow suit with the US but these will be countries that will have close ties to the US, like Canada or the UK. Even then they would have to deal with their own respective populations based on their own laws governing internet use.

edit on 5-11-2013 by RedShirt73 because: (no reason given)

No one is talking about the internet in other countries, the entire thread is about how the internet operates in America. How the inherent operates in America will most definitely affect the content broadcast to and from which will definitely affect the Internet's content around the world, but that is not the issue being discussed.

I think their is a fundamental misunderstanding on the otherside of the pond of how large the U.S. is. I see it time and again in posts on threads.

The conversation I'm having with Korg who believes a network can be setup nationwide for $500k is a prime example just one 4g tower costs $200k to build which doesn't include the fiberoptics to connect... Also citing my state 1 of 50 which is larger than France.

Perfect! Maybe this will push more people's energies into developing a viable alternative to the military-funded project commonly known as "the internet".

We've come a long way in the last 25 years. The next leap should be decentralized, peer-to-peer roaming hives.

reply to post by SasquatchHunter


One of my previous jobs was setting up these networks. I know the costs involved and all the processes needed to even begin to setup a fibre-optic network nation-wide. You wouldn't be able to run a DS3 cable from Calgary to Edmonton for $500,000.00. I've seen estimates for running cable that cost roughly $1.2 million for a DS3 from Calgary to Winnipeg (one cable).

RedShirt73
reply to post by SasquatchHunter

 

One of my previous jobs was setting up these networks. I know the costs involved and all the processes needed to even begin to setup a fibre-optic network nation-wide. You wouldn't be able to run a DS3 cable from Calgary to Edmonton for $500,000.00. I've seen estimates for running cable that cost roughly $1.2 million for a DS3 from Calgary to Winnipeg (one cable).

That sounds way more accurate and I didn't know the actual cost of cables. That alone puts this debate to rest not a chance anyone can compete at that level without massive funding.