Well, good for Sen. Bayh. According to Talking Points Memo, the good Senator has signed on to support Net Neutrality. I’m not particularly familiar with the details, but at it’s heart, it’s a requirement that network providers can’t discriminate between the bits that pass through their networks so as to provide better service to favored people, content, or businesses.
Telecomm companies seem to be arguing that if they could only charge for preferential treatment of bits traveling along their wires, then services for customers would blossom and innovation would explode. I think I heard this one before during the Telecomm Act of 1996, and I don’t think the predictions quite panned out. (How much competition do you see in local telephone service? How much has your cable bill gone down?) So, I’m skeptical of the telecomm claims.
I think Senator Bayh is on the side of the angels on this issue.
I totally agree.
Man, Bayh might actually get my vote for President in 08 if he keeps this up.
It’s your fault, Masson. Get my here by keeping me posted on DST changes, then slowly show me things that Democratic politians are doing that I agree with. You’re evil. :)
BTW, if you want a funny explanation of the Net Nutrality debate, check this out:
http://www.askaninja.com/news/2006/05/11/ask-a-ninja-special-delivery-4-net-neutrality
Hehe. Sorry ’bout that. Information is contagious that way. Heck, I’m the product of a similar phenomenon. I never voted for Bill Clinton. I even helped campaign in a small way for Bush/Quayle ’88. But the combination of huge deficits and the Clinton impeachment pushed me into interactions with others who didn’t like those things — many of them Democrats. Then I found out that Democrats aren’t always wrong and even made the judgment call for myself that, these days, Democrats are more often right than the Republicans, particularly on the federal level. And, it’s my hope that time in the wilderness will have improved Democratic ideas about governance. When they finally retake power, I’ll surely be disappointed, but hopefully not too much.
I am glad Bayh took the right stand on this issue.
Bayh needs to sit on the fence less and take stands on more issues.
If he does this he may actually be able to get The Dem nomination.
Mike Sylvester
Doug, let me try to boil down the Hands Off The Internet position for you a little more clearly.
What we’re saying is this–the current system simply doesn’t make sense. If you log onto the internet, come to your blog, make a few posts, read a few friends’ blogs, and log off, you use X bandwidth. If your neighbor, meanwhile, logs on from three computers at once, has downloads and uploads flying back and forth of videos, music, VOIP packets, maybe gaming online, and say he leaves a few of his computers uploading and downloading 24/7, he’s using waaay more than your X bandwidth.
But when his bill arrives in the mail, he pays the same as you do. So while he costs your ISP more to service, you both pay the same–you subsidize his internet usage. To me, that simply doesn’t make sense.
I’m pretty sure an ISP is free to set usage limitations on its customers and to charge more if they exceed those limitations. I don’t think a Net Neutrality requirement alters that ability of an ISP, so I’m not sure your example fits.
I think there is a great deal of confusion about what “net neutrality” means. While I agree that agreements to favor say YouTube over Google Video would not be good at certain times it is entirely appropriate to favor some connections over others. For instance VOIP phone calls travel over the internet and a regulation that forbids 911 VOIP calls from recieving preferential service is counterproductive. The current proposal is overbroad and it needs to be evaluated carefuly by people who understand the issues.
See also:
http://blogs.globalcrossing.com/tiered-peering
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/06/version-of-net-neutrality-i-can.html