News - Web CEOs lobby FCC over net neutrality

[HEXUS]

CEOs from major Internet companies have sent a new letter to the FCC in support of stauncher net neutrality laws.

Read more.

[aidanjt]

...that strict regulations would interfere with the way firms managed their networks

That's kinda the point, is it not? The whole point of paying an ISP for internet access is to have.. well, internet access. Having an ISP limit your access to the internet, means you no longer have internet access, merely some internet access. Network management should be performed at the user endpoint, not by the man in the middle. Ideally, consumer routers should be smarter and more powerful as standard. The technology is freely available, after all.

[Jennifer E-Victims]

Yes, the Internet industry is divided between those that pay and those that don't. Those that opposed net neutrality are those putting in the infrastructure and those that are for it are those that consume the resources and make huge profits off it.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there shouldn't be net neutrality but perhaps content provides that use huge bandwidth need to contribute more to the infrastructure.

[aidanjt]

Shouldn't it be the other way around? After all, it's the content providers which foot the bill for delivering high bandwidth applications, paying with multiple complex deals with advertising, delivering corporate/government solutions, sometimes direct consumer subscriptions, etc. Providers maintaining server farms, and connecting directly to carriers, or using high bandwidth hosting isn't exactly small potatoes. While the ISPs fork in healthy profit levels, with cash flow directly from the consumers. For ISPs to expect payment from both producers *and* consumers is absurd, after all, without producers creating content for ISP customers to consume, there'd be no need for ISPs in the first place. Carriers (such as AT&T, coincidentally) already enjoy cashflow from both ends. And that is silly enough.

If ISPs need more money to develop better infrastructure, it's up to them to bill their customers accordingly, strike deals with other businesses, loan from banks, garner investor interest, and/or float their company on the stock exchange, whatever they need to do to maintain their infrastructure projects. Hence why I maintained the position in another article that ISP customers should more ideally pay by the volume of data they consume.

ISPs blocking off sites and services which aren't paying them cash is pretty much akin to coercion/eliciting bribery/'protection' money. Imagine if e-victims.org was getting a load of hits, and ISPs started threatening to block your site if you didn't pay each of them £10,000 a year, not exactly fair and open internet, is it?