Network Neutrality

OK, here's how the net works as I understand it:

1. As a home user, I pay my ISP for the amount of bandwidth I use (more or less). If I want to read email only, I get a nice cheap dial up account. If I want to download streaming videos, torrent the latest 24 series in one day, or play Halo 2 24x7 with 16 mates, then I pay for the extra bandwidth.

2. As a business, if I want a simple 10 page website detailing my operation, I get a nice cheap hosting account. If I want to host streaming video to 10 million people, I pay a wee tadge more for my hosting.

3. As an ISP/network access middle-man, I pay my upstream provider more money for more bandwidth, and as a core backbone provider, I charge ISPs for the amount of bandwidth they use, and if I want to increase the bandwidth I make available to ISPs, I charge them more, and then fork out on new infrastructure and staff.

Nice and simple. At each stage of the game, everyone pays more money for more bandwidth.

But now, big businesses want to change the rules: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Network Neutrality)

Under these proposed US laws, if Amazon want to send their data to me, they'll have to pay more to the network providers than Barnes and Noble to send me the data I've requested, using bandwith which both Amazon and myself have already paid for.

How fucking twisted is that?

(and no, I've no idea how this will work in practice... if I type in "amazon.com", do I end up at bandn.com?I'm not sure.. but if Congress pass it, the networks will find a way...)

posted by Blakey UK @ 11:47 am