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Are you for or against net neutrality?

Are you for or against net neutrality?

  • Total voters
    37
I am completely against the government taking control of the internet.

I do give them credit for devising such a sly strategy on this though, using comcasts blocking of p2p sites as a strategy, but I do not for a second believe that's the real reason the government wants to take control of the interwebz. Honestly handing the reigns of control from ourselves and the free market, to the government sounds like a very, very, bad idea.
 
damianvincent said:
I am completely against the government taking control of the internet.

I do give them credit for devising such a sly strategy on this though, using comcasts blocking of p2p sites as a strategy, but I do not for a second believe that's the real reason the government wants to take control of the interwebz. Honestly handing the reigns of control from ourselves and the free market, to the government sounds like a very, very, bad idea.
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When has the FCC ever done anything that broke your back though?
 
As much as I hate government involvement in things i have to support net neutrality given the way things are now.

They shouldn't be blocking sites. That's just not right.
 
Kal'Stang said:
I know what you're saying and I understand the concern. I currently live 25 miles outside of town surrounded by mountains. The only available type of internet is either satellite or dial up. But I still think that they have a right to block whatever they want since we are just using/renting their property. It's not ours. We should not have the ability to tell them what they can and cannot do with their property. It's like the government coming into your house and telling you that you're not allowed to have a dog in your own home.
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As I understand it, it's not entirely their property (the transmission lines and such, that is).

Either the Gov. subsidized their installing those lines, or the Gov. said "here, if you install these lines, we will prevent anyone else from competing with you in that area."

Or some combination of the two.

Then again, perhaps my understanding of the situation is incorrect.
 
If you are a consumer, I don't see how you could be against net neutrality, it only ensures the best quality of product for the consumer. If you are a telecom company, I could understand how you could be against it. Dividing the internet into a tiers, or restricting access to certain sites by certain ISP's is only bad for the consumer and a law that states that you can't do this can only be helpful, as I see it. The FCC is already doing a decent job of preserving net neutrality, I believe.
 
Opteron said:
If you are a consumer, I don't see how you could be against net neutrality, it only ensures the best quality of product for the consumer. If you are a telecom company, I could understand how you could be against it. Dividing the internet into a tiers, or restricting access to certain sites by certain ISP's is only bad for the consumer and a law that states that you can't do this can only be helpful, as I see it. The FCC is already doing a decent job of preserving net neutrality, I believe.
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My impression is that it's a bit more complicated than this.
 
So from what I'm hearing, we want to turn control of our beloved internet to the government to be run by the likes of Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Barrack Obama, because in what must be highly rural area's sometimes only one option for the internet is currently available?

Guys I would advise patience, and wait for multiple carriers in your locations, before we ruin the internet all together. The greatness of the internet is it's openness, it's the final frontier that any of us can explore. Open source, free software, free news, free information, it'll go away with government control, who will bend the internet to the corporate cabal, cable and radio are now dominated by. Lets keep the internet open to everyone, not three main corps dumbing all content down to the lowest common denominator at all times. The government is cracking down on P2p action all across the country, don't believe they are the ones to protect the system, this has grown out of no government control, just the opposite of what they would claim is the cure for one companies abuses. Boycott comcast, pepper them with letters why people will take any other option but comcast, and when it costs their bottom line their policies will change. Bad market driven decisions can be undone, bad government laws never go away.

Bottom line we need to keep the government out of the internet!
 
damianvincent said:
So from what I'm hearing, we want to turn control of our beloved internet to the government to be run by the likes of Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Barrack Obama, because in what must be highly rural area's sometimes only one option for the internet is currently available?

Guys I would advise patience, and wait for multiple carriers in your locations, before we ruin the internet all together. The greatness of the internet is it's openness, it's the final frontier that any of us can explore. Open source, free software, free news, free information, it'll go away with government control, who will bend the internet to the corporate cabal, cable and radio are now dominated by. Lets keep the internet open to everyone, not three main corps dumbing all content down to the lowest common denominator at all times. The government is cracking down on P2p action all across the country, don't believe they are the ones to protect the system, this has grown out of no government control, just the opposite of what they would claim is the cure for one companies abuses. Boycott comcast, pepper them with letters why people will take any other option but comcast, and when it costs their bottom line their policies will change. Bad market driven decisions can be undone, bad government laws never go away.

Bottom line we need to keep the government out of the internet!
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Comcast is my only cable internet option (as far as I'm aware).

I dislike them for various reasons, one of which is that they take their service down for short lengths of time on the weekends, forcing me to read a book occasionally... :mrgreen:
 
damianvincent said:
So from what I'm hearing, we want to turn control of our beloved internet to the government to be run by the likes of Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Barrack Obama, because in what must be highly rural area's sometimes only one option for the internet is currently available?

Guys I would advise patience, and wait for multiple carriers in your locations, before we ruin the internet all together. The greatness of the internet is it's openness, it's the final frontier that any of us can explore. Open source, free software, free news, free information, it'll go away with government control, who will bend the internet to the corporate cabal, cable and radio are now dominated by. Lets keep the internet open to everyone, not three main corps dumbing all content down to the lowest common denominator at all times. The government is cracking down on P2p action all across the country, don't believe they are the ones to protect the system, this has grown out of no government control, just the opposite of what they would claim is the cure for one companies abuses. Boycott comcast, pepper them with letters why people will take any other option but comcast, and when it costs their bottom line their policies will change. Bad market driven decisions can be undone, bad government laws never go away.

Bottom line we need to keep the government out of the internet!
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You are misinformed. This is about keeping internet companies from putting priority over things they want you to do, essentially controlling how you gain information and such, the government in this instance is trying to institute less.

Your essentially sugesting though that comcast would listen to people. Yeah just like BP did...
 
I am against government regulation of the internet. I don't want someone else deciding what is "good, bad, and unfair." It's just too unstable.

What I AM for is making Internet providers follow the lines of the contract you sign with them. If I buy a 5 meg internet connection, they are OBLIGATED BY LAW under that contract to provide me with that fast of a connection, regardless of where it goes to My end of the connection must live up to that standard. All necessary legislation is already in place. The most that could be passed is a law saying that internet providers are not allowed to throttle traffic (didn't that happen already?). I am opposed to throttling, and I won't sign a contract with an internet provider that does.
 
How the heck would the government enforce such legislation? How would they ever hear the complaints? All I hear is "we'll make it illegal for _(big company)_ to do _(somethingorother)_, which is bad because you won't have a free internet anymore." I think it's just another attempt to get a foot in the door in order to shut people up, including all of the sites with "radical opinions" and "damn lies". Maybe they'll include a couple of lines to shut down or block wikileaks? All in the name of "good". Don't trust that lawmakers will always do everything right. Since the term "net neutrality" is so vague, they can drum up statistics, like this poll, and say "a majority wants it", and use it to SLOW DOWN connections to news outlets that are "hogging the internet". They can do it, but never will I give my consent to give the Federal Government more power on these grounds.
 
I'm for it for the most part. However, I think the days of the completely unlimited free and open internet are coming to an end one way or another. We're using more bandwidth at an ever-increasing rate, and it costs a lot of money for the ISPs to keep up with that demand. Especially when you get into things like P2P file sharing and the massive amounts of bandwidth that such sites use. Eventually, I think something is going to have to give

I don't like any solution that allows anyone (the government or the ISPs) to control what consumers can access online (throttling or not allowing access to certain sites, etc.)

The best solution I think would simply be to stop giving people unlimited data usage with their internet plans.

So in addition to coming with a bandwidth limit (i.e. 6 Mb/s), you would also have a monthly data limit. The ISPs could most likely set it to a number that 90% or more of their customers would never notice and still cut down on overall costs quite a bit, since like a lot of things, a small fraction of internet users eat up a much larger portion of an ISPs total bandwidth capability than their numbers indicate they should. The people that use the most, would pay the most. This seems like the fairest solution I can think of, and it solves the (legitimate) issue which is at the heart of the whole net neutrality debate.
 
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