The Internet is all about people in funny hats making things that people like.

Picture yourself logging onto your favorite website whether it be news, gossip, or online shopping. After a series of clicks, you search through the site and when you feel content that you have not missed anything you log off your computer. Now, imagine that you go back tomorrow and your favorite website is blocked or no longer provided by your ISP. What's up with that?

According to the Organization for Econmic Cooperation and Development the average American internet user pays about 12 dollars for one megabit-per-second of online downloading. Similarly, recent research performed by Kagan Research found that over the past nine years, major telecom organizations have spent a whopping 105.3 billion dollars upgrading their services and in the words of Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, " . . . for Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts." He probably thought this up while riding in the back of his Maybach.

Well if you're one of those very special few who have missed the boat on this issue, you are sadly uninformed. The issue of Net Neutrality is rapidly spreading on the forefronts of national policy. It has passed the House of the Representatives and reached the Senate. And as Net Neutrality gains widespread publicity, its opponenets and supporters getting their pitchforks and sharpening their axes. This won't be pretty!



As described in the video, the way the internet works today is that everyone is on the same playing field, that is, we all have equal acces to the internet and its applications. In addition, everybody's website, whether it be NBC or MySpace, gets the same speed and quality. However, large multi-billion dollar corporations such as Time Warner, Comcast, and Verizon want to change this by offering better services only for those who pay them high royalty fees. Does that sound fair to you? Why should the internet be commodified even moreso than it is already? Is there really a need for fast lanes on the information super highway or are these telecomm companies just fishing for away to get out of the red?

In 2006, Vinton Cerf, co-designer of TCP/IP said in a congressional speech pertaining to
Net Neutrality that,

"The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many
ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part
of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or
services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows
people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By
placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the
network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an
explosion of offerings -- from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging -- that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design. "Many people will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications placed on the network . . . As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online" (Jones, 2007).

The definition of Net Neutrality is subject to personal preference and opinion. The Wall Street Journal (2006) defines it as "[having] to do with how much control the companies that build and maintain the Internet pipelines-mostly telephone and cable companies-should have over the content that runs through those pipelines, and whether they can force Internet content providers to pay for the privilege." Similarly, Tim Wu, a Law Professor at Columbia University refers to Net Neutrality as "a network design issue based on the idea that information networks are often more valuable when they are less specialized -- when they are a platform for multiple uses, present and future" (Jones, 2007). So, in short, Net Neutrality is actually more important than you might actually think.

Savetheinternet.com argues that "amounts and type of bandwidth usage need not be specifically charged for, beyond the basic and minimally discriminatory fees for access to ISP servers" (Wikipedia, 2007). In response to government anti-tiering regulations, large corporations have lobbied that "a lack of differentiated funding sources has slowed their own implementations of new technologies and also resulted in elevated prices for many of their customers" (Wikipedia, 2007). What are these funding sources other than a lame excuse for corporations to pick our pockets. You know what, even if I were deaf, dumb, and blind, I still would not believe those philandering usurpers who run corporate America, claiming to act in the best interest of the consumer.

In the end it is all about one thing, GREED.

According to Jones (2007), Researchers at the University of Florida's department of decision and information sciences found that “improving the infrastructure [of the internet] would reduce the need to pay for preferential treatment but the incentive for broadband service providers to expand and upgrade would decline if net neutrality ended.”

But what is the need for preferential treatment. There is select treatment on airlines and cruise ships, isn't that enough? Why must the one truly widespread and penetrated invention be proprietized and divided up to the point of it's extinction, for the selling of service will only lead to a differentiation in service. You see that guy who just pulled up next to you in the Ferrari, you'd better believe that he gets his email and his downloads faster than you.

Net Neutrality serves to maintain the ideals of freedom, equality, and liberty that our nation was built upon. To commodify the internet is the same as instating a literal caste system. Some might argue that the elite deserve better service. But why? Just because they have money and power does not mean that they are any better of a person. It is bias to those who can afford it and that is completely against the principals upon which the internet was created. The internet should be equally accessible to all and not subject to corporate welfare! The fact of the matter is that we pay large organizations to provide us with the best internet possible, anything short is unacceptable. It is their job to make advances in computer technology for their duty is to serve the consumer. By segregating access to the internet, these corporations are providing their consumer's with a disservice. Lets talk about business ethics, oh wait, those went extinct with the dinosaurs.

References

Efrati, A. (2006). A Battle for Control of the Web. Retrieved April 11, 2007 from http://wsjclassroom.com/archive/06sep/htop_netneutrality.htm#facts.

Jones, K.C. (2007). Net Neutrality Debate Remains Contentious. Retrieved April 11, 2007 from http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001557.

Network neutrality. (2007, April 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:07, April 11, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Networkneutrality&oldid =121830457