Net Neutrality
One of the biggest issues facing the internet right now is 'Net Neutrality,' Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't familiar with the concept or issues. The battle is between content providers such as Google and Skype, and broadband providers such as Comcast or Verizion. The outcome, however, affects end-users of the internet, like you and I, as well as smaller internet content providers such as www.carsforsale.com.
Generally speaking, the net is very egalitarian in its current form. If you start an MSN Messenger chat, your data is treated with an equal priority as your neighbors' data, which might be a web page. This equality is the 'neutrality' part of net neutrality.
Broadband providers have a little different perspective. They see the Googles of the world getting rich using the provider's network to deliver their data to the end users, while they get no cut at all. There are two different ways the providers can attempt to level the playing field:
- They can charge the content provider outright for the right to pass traffic across the broadband network, or
- They can prioritize the traffic of a competitor so the end user experience for the competitor's customers are better than the first provider.
Both of these methods will have a chilling effect on the internet. They can both lock small and emerging businesses from the market as well as lock end users into specific services that their ISP has established a financial relationship with. As an end user myself, I don't want my ISP where I ought to go for my news, VoIP, etc.
This past year, the House of Representatives passed a telecommunications bill that touched on this topic but is considered weak in terms of consumer protection. The senate is currently considering bill HR.5252, which does have meaningful protections built in.
www.savetheinternet.com is a great site that goes into a lot more detail on this issue. They have a list of current senators and the position many of them take on net neutrality. The link is here.
What can you and I do? Contact your senator! Here's a complete list of senators, as well as their phone numbers and a link to a contact form. Let them know where you stand on this issue.
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