Sorry for the (annoying) interstitial window today regarding Net Neutrality. 

If you are interested in getting more information, just use your favorite web browser and search "Net Neutrality". 

The main site for this is: https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Some news articles I randomly picked (a few from tech-centric sites):

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15957...neutrality

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017...rules.html

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/26/technolo...index.html

https://twitter.com/timberners_lee (Not a news article, but the opinions of the man who essentially 'created' the internet.)

For the video inclined, John Oliver has done some pretty good segments that are not super-tech heavy:
From 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
From May, 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak
Followup from May video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI5y-_sqJT0

From the Wall Street Journal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p90McT24Z6w


I am happy to discuss any technical questions or whatnot related to Net Neutrality. If you wanna to political, please take it to the appropriate sub-forum. 


(Please note, this is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any of the message board's administrative or moderation staff)

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I was wondering what that was. I've seen them all over the web this morning.

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What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is agoin' on here???

So, if I'm following, Net Neutrality is already the law. It's just these companies are looking to change the law, and this cause is intent on not letting that happen.

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'02

So, if I'm following, Net Neutrality is already the law. It's just these companies are looking to change the law, and this cause is intent on not letting that happen.

Essentially yeah. Since two years the FCC considers the internet to be a Title II utility. Title II affords considerable protection for consumers. Among these protections is net neutrality. With the new administration most of the senior staff at the FCC has been replaced, partly with former lobbyists for ISP's. This new staff wants remove the Title II classification which carries with it all kinds of nasty implications for consumers.

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So, if I'm following, Net Neutrality is already the law. It's just these companies are looking to change the law, and this cause is intent on not letting that happen.

Effectively correct. 

Part of it is reclassifying what category the ISPs like Comcast & Verizon & AT&T fall under and by doing so would change what regulations they must obey. 

At the end of the day the ISPs want the ability to tamper with and prioritize specific websites/data sources over others.

And, because the ISPs want it bad enough to run national advert campaigns and spend millions upon millions lobbying and team up with their ISP rivals, they want it to save themselves money. Which means they are not gonna be speeding up the sites that pay them extra (or make them extra money), they will slow down the sites that don't.


In summary, how does this site get to you?
We pay a per-GB fee* to transmit data to the 'central core' of the internet**. You pay some fee (per GB or a flat rate for internet) to access that same 'core'. All is happy.
What ISPs want is to be able to charge extra to some sites — we can use Netflix as an example is an example — because Netflix uses so much data that it drives up the network utilization on ISP's networks (and thereby makes them need to increase their infrastructure's performance to handle everyone watching Netflix). 
But, since they can afford it and their customers demand it (buffering sucks!) they would. But we couldn't. So our site could be slowed down.

It's an old picture and an extreme case, but there is no legal reason why this couldn't happen. And since most areas have 1 or 2 ISPs, they could all agree and do it and there is no way around it.




*We pay per GB because that's AWS's billing rate to help lower the costs for sites that don't use much data. Many other hosting providers just bill you a flat rate for a specific speed of connection. 
**There is no central core, but it's enough of an example to make this make sense.

Attached Files

  what-is-net-neutrality-isp-package-diagram.jpg (Size: 332.75 KB / Downloads: 16)

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Net Neutrality is a Regulation not a law. There is a big difference. Through the back door the previous administration had Google out to the white house multiple times to help "write" the regulation.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made some last-minute revisions to his net neutrality plan after Google and public interest groups pressed for the changes, according to sources at the commission. Google, Free Press and New America’s Open Technology Institute last week asked the commission to revise language they said could unintentionally allow Internet service providers to charge websites for sending content to consumers. Such a scenario could open the door to an avalanche of new fees for Web companies and threaten their business models.

We the people were not allowed to see the rules.

Title II was written for telegraph lines. The government ruins everything it touches. Good luck today with net neutrality day.

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The Khan Years

Patience, Persistence, and Piss Poor General Managers.