Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

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Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

It's good for everyone
0
No votes
It's good for the ISP
0
No votes
It's good for the end user
3
50%
It's bad for the end user
1
17%
It's bad for the ISP
2
33%
It's bad for everyone
0
No votes
I don't know and want to stay neutral
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 6

Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

Postby Spock » Tue 2008 Apr 15 8:13

Ref1: Net Neutrality - Wikipedia
Ref2: Stop Virgin from destroying the Internet
Ref3: Comcast throttles BitTorrent
Ref4: Google Search on "Net Neutrality"

I thought this might be a good way to inform you about what your ISP may be trying to do ...

You may make up to 2 choices and (for now anyway) will be allowed to change your vote.
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Re: Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

Postby Spock » Tue 2008 Apr 15 8:35

My comment on this is that it's simple economics. It takes better, more expensive equipment to give higher speeds. It's only fair that a company that provides the higher speed be allowed to recover its costs and a fair profit.

What I object to is that (evidently) they now want to limit the bandwidth I've paid for if the site I'm trying to connect to hasn't paid them extortion. :poke:
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Re: Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

Postby cmptch » Tue 2008 Apr 15 1:21

I have yet to see broadband neutrality. Mediacom, for example, limits the ports used for SMTP. If your outgoing server is not mediacom, you have to at least configure your mail client to send the mail through mediacom. Pain in the butt. Then with your return address set as something else, ATT networks cut you off for spamming withing a few short months and people on those networks are not recieving your mails...bad for businesses.

Let's talk download clients. BitTorrent. I beta test and evaluate Microsoft software. The fastest download speeds...BitTorrent. If this protocol is limited, I'll have to slag through ftp, which I find can be slower, or I have to PURCHASE an Evaluation copy. I'd rather download and burn...much cheaper.

Furthermore, I also like to check out new linux versions, just for fun. I generally use BitTorrent for that as well.

Propriety Hardware. We already have to use proprietary ADSL modems. Without neutrality, we may have to use proprietary routers or Hubs. I don't want to spend the extra dollars on an ATT branded router, too.

Cable Internet: Cable companies provide IP Phone systems at a high rate. If they decided to limit IP telephony to their company alone...you see where this is going.

If ATT decided to stop MSN Messenger and ICQ, where are we on the messenger front? Prices for Skype will go up, and quality may go down because forced to purchase bandwidth with ISPs, etc...
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Re: Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

Postby Terminator1138 » Tue 2008 Apr 15 5:28

overall I believe its bad for everyone clients and ISP both. If I pay for a service and it allows for a certain speed, you bet I would expect that speed or they will loose me as a client, which is bad for the ISP. Seems to me people have forgotten what the net is there for. I remember the early days of the net and even earlier chat systems like ISCA etc. I spent more nights on ISCA back in the day than I do now which is scary.

Anyway, Net Neutrality IMO is not good for anyone.
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Re: Is Net Neutrality good or bad?

Postby Spock » Tue 2008 Apr 15 7:57

Terminator1138 wrote:... Net Neutrality IMO is not good for anyone.


I think you may have the terminology reversed here. Are you saying you are for allowing ISP's to limit bandwidth if you don't pay an extra fee so your users can access your site at full speed!? Conceivably, you would have to pay that fee to every ISP out there! Net Neutrality means that if you are an ISP, you must allow full bandwidth to everyone whether they pay directly for your service or are just visiting.

[Added]
I just changed my vote, as I also had mixed up the message with the desire. Net Neutrality is what will allow us to keep usage of full broadband no matter where we visit.
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