The FCC has an understanding with the broadband providers in the telecom and cable industries. All consumers and websites will have the same access to bandwidth. A site that takes up very little in terms of data transferred from an internet company is treated no better than YouTube, which uses a lot of bandwidth capacity.
The FCC is charging that Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has broken the net neutrality pact. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Comcast stands accused by software companies, public-interest groups and academics of degrading customers' ability to use file-sharing software, which enables users to send high-quality video files over the Internet."
While broadband subscribers and websites would all like to be treated as equals, they do not all use equal internet capacity. Video sites not only use more bandwidth, they can take capacity from other customers on the network. Cable and telecom companies do not have infinite access to push and pull bits though their systems. To improve that access they would have to spend billions of dollars to upgrade their cooper and fiber lines.
The time may come, and it may be soon, that the democracy of the internet goes away. Consumers and web properties who fill the "pipes" with content may well have to pay a higher toll.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24wallst.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-10-2008 @ 5:12PM
Robb Topolski said...
Dear Doug,
You said, "The time may come, and it may be soon, that the democracy of the internet goes away. Consumers and web properties who fill the 'pipes' with content may well have to pay a higher toll."
Since when has democracy been weighed that way?
Surely democracy is not harmed because Google and Yahoo have to pay more for their Internet connections than I do.
Democracy is harmed when someone decides to discriminate on Internet traffic already on the wire. Democracy is harmed if my ISP decided that articles by Douglas A. McIntyre are terrible, and rewrote/redirected my requests to read them to Jonathan Berr's articles, instead.
Robb Topolski
Comcast customer
Network Neutrality proponent