God made the food, but the devil made the cooks - Anon
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Big web players push net neutrality
SOME OF THE WORLD'S biggest Internet and technology companies have written a letter in support of regulations that will preserve an open and free Internet in the US.
The issue of net neutrality is being debated worldwide, particularly in Europe where discussions have taken place at the European Union as part of a reform of the Telecoms Rules of 2002.
The Swedish presidency governing EU affairs recently limited debate on the issue, effectively deciding that European broadband operators should be allowed to restrict access to services and applications at their discretion, a blow to Europe's net neutrality supporters.
The US letter (PDF) sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday seeks to give Americans a freer Internet than the Europeans currently enjoy, and disparages numerous letters that the FCC received last week from net neutrality opponents including congressmen, governors, telecoms firms and 72 members of the House of Representatives.
The letter is addressed to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and signed by the chief executives of Internet giants including Amazon, Google, Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, YouTube, Expedia, Twitter, Mozilla, eBay, Flickr and Craigslist. Large technology companies such as Sony Electronics have also signed the letter.
It is due to arrive ahead of the FCC's plan to release more details on Thursday about the regulation that it wants to pass to preserve net neutrality.
"We write to express our support for your announcement that the FCC will begin a process to adopt rules that preserve an open Internet," said the letter, now available through The Wall Street Journal.
"An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail. This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity.
"America's leadership in the technology space has been due, in large part, to the open Internet. We applaud your leadership in initiating a process to develop rules to ensure that the qualities that have made the Internet so successful are protected."
Key telecoms firms and internet operators opposing the regulations include AT&T and Comcast, both of which argue that the government should not be allowed to tell them how to run their networks.
The operators claim that they want more control over availability in order to provide a better quality of service, but preservers of net neutrality believe that the operators want control in order to favour their own services over competitors'.
The letter is particularly noteworthy as it carries signatures from 10 members from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a body that has jurisdiction over the FCC. µ
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Am I the only one that doesn't eat poop as you talk about it so freely?
AT&T should have been closed down as soon as it was found they spied illegally on half the US population, and hearing what dark sides they are on since nicely drives that home.
Good job giving them immunity obama, you're certainly showing us a new america.
Couldn't agree more mate.
I read an article about a year ago that said the new CEO of Virgin Media thinks that sites like bbc.co.uk should pay him for their content to be delivered on his network quicker than others' websites, and that they should pay him for the wonderful iPlayer clogging up his network.
The only reason I am still with them is because it's better than paying Murdoch for TV. Very seriously thinking about getting TalkTalk (never thought I'd say that!) after their efforts to stop uber-nazi-not-labour Mandleson and his corporate chums the other day!
If ISP sells you a unlimited plan then this is what its name says unlimited, if you pay for 50 GB then you know how much you can download. Please dont sell me a "unlimited" plan with limit (false advertising). It is problem of ISP that they were greedy and sold too much of unlimited access only to find out that infrastructure is not capable off supporting it, big plans of Managers for even bigger premiums at the end of a fiscal Year.
For Pete's sake. There is nothing intrinsically evil about traffic shaping. It makes sure that your interactive processes don't suffer because Timmy next door is downloading the "special" version of The Little Mermaid.
Uh... what's an Interactive process? Well, in my case, secure shell, but for the Internet Generation: World of Warcraft and other on-line games where every millisecond of lag is a nail in your coffin. Right? Right.
So now you add the accursed politicians and the greedy sods. The greedy sods want to sell better performance. The politicians don't generally have a clue of technical issues and either push for, to get a finger in the pie, or push against, because they want lots of nice voters.
So now, performance depends on political issues rather than technical ones. Thank you very much for buggering up the net, you bastards.
Net neutrality is like poop. Eat it.
nECrO, I couldn't agree with you more.
Our FTC (Federal trade Commission)can't see a case for monopoly abuse against Intel and we let the RIAA and MPAA sway our politicians to police the internet to uphold their out-of-date business model, but we look to be gettting at least this right.
Comcast and AT&T want control to assure quality like I want to win the lottery so I can donate the money to charity. If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you....