Net Neutrality is a term that pretty much describes the status quo of the internet today. That is to say that the Internet is neutral and there is no restriction on what websites and content the consumer may view. However the ISPs that provide the internet in your home want to change things. They want a tiered internet in which they want to create different levels of the internet in which if you want “premium” content you will have to pay more.
What this could easily lead to is the ISPs putting certain websites and types of content on one tier and other content on the other. Let’s say content which they or their parent companies own. So while the lower tier of one company allows you to stream video from Hulu, you cannot stream videos from Youtube unless you’re paying for the higher tier of internet.
This will create inequality, something that is shared on the web might be available to some people but not to others, this will be vastly different from the internet we use today where one voice is equal to another and not smothered by the companies controlling major assets in the Internet.
Image via CrunchBase
Recently, Google and Verizon announced that they wish to create such a tier, in order to get Google content (which includes Gmail, Youtube and Google Docs) faster to individuals if they are willing to pay for it. This would start to replicate the Cable subscription model, which has risen in costs since the deregulation that has occurred after the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
You should care because the equality that allows all of us to share our ideas with everyone will fade away and only the ideas that a certain ISPs like will allow to perpetrated to the masses. I want to be able to see Youtube videos, read from the New York Times, check my Facebook, and share things with everyone through this blog. I don’t want that to change even if the Big Media Companies whine that there is not enough bandwidth for it. It’s not true! There is enough bandwidth for it, they just want more money for providing content. This is exemplified by the proposal by Google and Verizon. Let’s take a stand for Net Neutrality and against the corporations trying to take this equality away from us!
Conservative think-tanks have stated that forcing Net Neutrality is unconstitutional as it seems to violate the First amendment, and seeing as how the Supreme Court stated that use of money falls under free speech (Citizens United v. FEC) the equality of the internet could be in jeopardy in the near future.
The FCC has not taken a staunch position for Net Neutrality and with pressures from large media conglomerates it could fall over quite easily and allow Net Neutrality to diminish and endanger our liberty to express ourselves on an equal playing field. Let’s not allow another bill to pass similar to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, what a blunder that is been for the United States.
Sure companies can charge whatever they want for the internet service they provide but when they divide the internet and make deals specific to one company such as the Google-Verizon proposal that infringes on the rights of smaller companies and businesses to provide content to consumers at the same speed as the larger companies. Thus everyone will move to Google products because they can get it faster, it creates an unfair advantage.
Alex I’m not asking for more regulation, I just don’t want de-regulation of internet equality. In fact if de-regulation occurred then smaller internet businesses, which is a large part of the internet would suffer as they wouldn’t have enough capital to make deals with ISPs to be allowed on the higher tier.
As to the Telecommunications Act, Yes there could be genuine increases in the cost of cable providers. But these aren’t genuine increases. The cost of of Cable TV prices have increased at three times the rate of inflation, since the passage of the bill, while the same cable companies’ prices on long distance and local telephone calls have gone down! All three functions run on the same wire. Sure we have more channels but if we compare basic cable prices the differences are extreme.