11 ms·

Tim Berners Lee slams Internet fast lanes: ‘It’s bribery.’

237 points by esolyt 12y ago

nickik 12y ago
I think that offering a range of diffrent models of threwput and latancy can only be good for the internet as a hole. What I am conserned with is this, I want to tell the ISP what packets should run with what characterisitcs. I am completly against the ISP making deep packet inspection and deciding the selfs what packets to drop or dely. I think like in everything else, when you have a finite resources you need a market. Having every packet be the same and then just randomly drop them, is just bad for the internet as a hole. We need QoS we need to be able for some services to run with priority. When I play video games or skype I dont wanne wait, if I torrent every episode from a podcast the latency does not intrest me so much. So Im am PRO net neutrality in this sence, the ISP is not allowed to look into my packets and change there priority.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  It's 'throughput', not 'threwput'. That aside, it's not about what you tell the ISP, it's what the ISP tells the company you're trying to connect to or that tries to connect to you. We need QoS but on the core of the net to avoid congestion, not on the edges to artificially induce congestion! You paid for flat-rate X bits per second up/down internet service then that is what you should get! So DPI and QoS have a spot but only where they are used to improve the service. The ISPs are now essentially trying to sell their bandwidth twice, once to you - the subscriber - and then again to the companies that those subscribers wish to communicate with. If they didn't want us to communicate then they should get out of the ISP business. What I pay for I should be able to use.
  - nickik 12y ago
    Like I said, they should not be allowed to make choices about my packeges this includeds looking at where Im sending them and slowing it down or speeding it up based on destination. Maybe I defined it to narrowly when I said deep packege inspection, I really meant any choices about my packeges speed should be based on what terms I sent it out. I think a good buissness model would sell me a standard flat rate and some low latancy GBs. If a ISP does not improve there network, then I can switch to another one.
  - gress 12y ago
    It's froopught actually.
jbza 12y ago
I can't help but wonder if the fate of Internet infrastructure will follow that of transport infrastructure (Build-operate-transfer : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-operate-transfer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-operate-transfer) Based off history, it seems that private ownership of common property is doomed to fail.
- zo1 12y ago
  "Based off history" Haven't read/heard much on this... Curious of examples? "private ownership of common property" Bit of an oxymoron you got going there. If something is privately owned, it can't be common(public) property by definition. Even so, we have yet to establish that internet infrastructure is somehow "common/public property". I'm curious how you think that's the case (that internet infrastructure is public property)?
  - netcan 12y ago
    I think he means privatisation of services traditionally public, in the vast majority of historical periods and places. Ports are an old example roads are another. Transport infrastructure is historically most commonly expanded and enhanced as the state gets stronger and wealthier, and as it becomes more empire than state.
  - _ak 12y ago
    The classic historic example is the Commons and their subsequent enclosure in England. Common land that was free to be used by commoners for centuries was suddenly divided up and enclosed, often enough by force, and even went so far as prople rioting and revolting over it because people were robbed of a big part of their livelihood.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    I think it gets to the fact that if enough people need to use private property, it is started to be considered as "common" and private property rights get eroded to the point that it can not be considered private anymore. Like "too big to fail", "too big to be controlled by anybody but the government" is a popular thing. Now, the nominal ownership may be or not be private, but with enough regulation the difference would be only in profit sharing arrangements and not in actual control over the property. So when the parent post says "doomed to fail", it's not because there's something inherently faulty in private property. It's because people can't tolerate the perceived absence of control over such big things.
porqupine 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Modern_Colossus_of_Rail_Roads_-_Keppler_1879.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Modern_Colossus_of_Rail_Ro...
3327 12y ago
Not to be feared. Let it pass. Please let it pass. This is all that is needed for a company like google or someone else to disrupt the system. This is the final chess piece for Verizon and similar scum to finally get run over.
menriquez 12y ago
it boggles my mind that people don't see this for what it so obviously is...a law of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats. large corporation want to throw huge sums of money around to each other to control what their "customers" get access for...its that's simple. do you think that when amazon loads in .4 sec and disruptiveStartUp.com loads in 2, that consumers won't highly prefer just going to the faster one?? esp. on mobile?
teddyh 12y ago
More like a protection racket, really.
twirlip 12y ago
See, telling Congress that something is "bribery" and expecting Congress to think that's something bad is just wishful thinking on TBL's part, bless his heart.
zwieback 12y ago
Did Tim envision internet bandwidth consumed by Netflix? Is the current mix of content we consume something he approves of? Instead of staking out absolutist positions it would be helpful to come up practical solutions now. Some form of fast lanes is inevitable over time and just maybe it could improve the situation of people like me who would likely remain on the "normal speed" lanes.
- themartorana 12y ago
  I can't tell if this is defeatist or just insane. Who cares if he envisioned Netflix in the past, his comments are in the light of the present. So yeah, I'm sure bandwidth needs of today - and he's pretty smart, so I'm gonna go with tomorrow - are probably considered in his statement. But we're not talking about consumption, we're talking about the speed at which I can consume. If you pay for 1G/m and I pay for 1TB/m at 100mbps, I expect all content, no matter it's nature, be delivered at the same maximum capacity reaching 100mbps to you and me equally, no matter the content. I already pay more to be able to stream a mass of content but we still should enjoy equality of delivery of the content we choose to engage in, without a middle party deciding which of that is more important for us.
  - zwieback 12y ago
    Exactly, thanks for making my argument more convincingly. I would love to have the people who are willing to pay for 1TB/m subsidize my slower tier. Forcing everyone to have a transport layer that's independent of the content is not a great idea. If you were going to design a new network today you would never go down that path.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Forcing everyone to have a transport layer that's independent of the content is not a great idea. If you were going to design a new network today you would never go down that path. Actually, yes I would (not the OP). Packets go in, packets come out.
- porqupine 12y ago
RA_Fisher 12y ago
If we don't allow ISPs to throttle things like Netflix, isn't the impact that all other packets might suffer latency? In that case, is NN a subsidy to large content producers?
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Not if they implemented customer-controlled QoS with guaranteed throughput at x% of their advertised speed and best effort for the rest.
- themartorana 12y ago
  No. This is like a library giving me an approved book all at once while taking anything on the non-approved list and giving me one page a week. That's all.
- Vendan 12y ago
  It's more like the ISP's oversold bandwidth and now they are being dinged for it.
- rakoo 12y ago
  Instead of ISPs throttling someone, what about they building bigger pipes for everyone ?
rayiner 12y ago
M-W defines "bribery" in relevant part as: "money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust." It's only "bribery" if the recipient is in a position of trust. The ISP's are not. They are just businesses operating their wholly private networks. Paying someone to use their private property for your benefit isn't "bribery." It's a basic commercial transaction. E.g. it's not "bribery" for me to pay an Uber Black driver more than an Uber X driver to take me somewhere.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  You are narrowly interpreting 'position of trust', ISPs are not only in a position of trust (we give them ALL of our data to look at), they are because of their trusted position subject to all kinds of directives historically more associated with post offices and telephone companies. They carry our data. As such we trust them very much. The full quote of what TBL said was this: "We need rules," said Berners-Lee. "If businesses are to move here and start here rather than start in Europe or Brazil or Australia — they're going to look around and make sure, 'Oh, does the power stay up?' And they'll look for other things. 'Is the Internet open?' Will they have to effectively bribe their ISPs to start a new service? That's what it looks like from the outside. It's bribery." In other words, if you need to pay the gate-keeper for equal access to the subscribers then that's bribery because the common-carrier principle holds that no priority should be given to other people's packets over yours ('without discrimination') and VV. Allowing such differentiation could for instance cripple any voice-over-ip offering that was not sanctioned via deep packet inspection. That's what this is about, not about a narrow definition of bribery, not every word is to be taken literally but in this case it is close enough that I don't think you can pretend that you did not understand the slight metaphorical component and simply acknowledge that a gatekeeper that needs payment where none should be due is tantamount to having to bribe someone. Uber does not enter into it.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    Trusting our data (which btw is not true, that's why we have SSL and other crypto) has nothing to do with it. If somebody would pay your ISP for revealing your data - that would be bribery. However, paying ISP to get favorable business deal, like better channel, is no bribery - no more than hiring a private limo for higher price than riding a bus is a bribery of public transportation system. The business of ISP is to provide connections, and paying them for better connection become bribery only if you consider yourself somehow entitled to be provided these connections and not just entering a contract and paying for service. With all respect to Berners-Lee, I don't see where that entitlement would come from. >>> In other words, if you need to pay the gate-keeper for equal access to the subscribers then that's bribery because the common-carrier principle holds that no priority should be given to other people's packets over yours That's a circular argument. You declare that ISP has no rights to provide different levels of service (as if that was some obvious law and not the very point being argued) and then conclude that if they do it, it's bribery. But of course, pre-assuming this makes the whole discussion pointless as you declared the victory for yourself before it begun. However, that declaration is baseless - ISP can have different levels of service and do that regularly - they offer different bandwidths, different channel types, etc., etc. and restricting them from doing so serves to purpose but to satisfy a perverted feeling of "fairness" - maybe I cannot buy the best service but at least nobody else can too!
7952 12y ago
I am in favour of net neutrality but worry that everyone is defending a status quo that is still bad. For most consumers and buisness access to the net is hardly free in a financial sense. Entry level bandwidth on AWS/Azure/App engine is still very expensive and seems completely overpriced compared to storage. For the consumer lack of last mile competition and monthly contracts make competition almost impossible on a day to day basis. An entrepreneur could setup a WiFi hotspot in an area with poor coverage but no one would use it because we are all trying to do everything on a 3g data plan. I want competition for last mile access that allows the consumer to connect based on the best connection available regarldess of who has provided it. Companies should be paid for providing bandwidth and it makes sense to ask large players like Facebook and Nextflix to pay the bill ($0.2 per GB to guarantee a fast connection to the user should be reasonable). The only way to break the telcos is to fund open compeition.
- Vendan 12y ago
  If you are looking for a way to pay for last mile improvements, maybe you should look at the $75 million a year cable companies spend to try to make sure they won't have to? https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/16/how-telecoms-and-cable-have-dominated-net-neutrality-lobbying/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/16/how-telecoms-...
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> For the consumer lack of last mile competition and monthly contracts make competition almost impossible on a day to day basis. In the USA. In the UK I can choose between about half a dozen companies with prices as low as $5 per month for usable broadband. I don't think I've been 100% satisfied with any ISP but only in the customer service area (and mainly because network issues are hard to diagnose). Speed and price are generally OK and there is a lot of variety.
  - 7952 12y ago
    There is little incentive to provide FTTH or to connect rural areas. In some places there is only one 3g provider who you can only use if you have a billing account with that company. I agree that the UK is miles ahead of the US but can that last forever? What happens when FTTC and 4g are saturated? We are still mostly reliant on a few mobile operators + BT/Virgin for the last mile.
linguafranca 12y ago
How does this ISP issue affect the internet outside the US? I'm guessing it's not really going to change "The Internet" as a whole, just us in the US.
- esolyt 12y ago
  What happens in the US will eventually affect the rest of the world.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  It is not just about the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Directive
- smutticus 12y ago
  That's a good question. Ultimately the FCC only has jurisdiction over American operators. However, net neutrality as a concept is also being debated in other countries. When someone like TBL is commenting on net neutrality I'm never quite sure if he is referring to net neutrality in the USA, or to the wider concept. Precedentially net neutrality derives from the English common law's notion of common carrier. What you should expect this to mean is that the concept of net neutrality should be similar in all English common law countries. In practice I'm not always sure this is the case.
McCoy_Pauley 12y ago
What ISP's say to companies who want to use the internet, "Either you pay us to access your customers, or we break your kneecaps." This is about both monopolies and mafia business tactics.
vrama 12y ago
Internet has long provided the opportunity for a new comer to challenge the status quo because of net neutrality. Now we are creating a barrier of entry and it is going to be hard for new startups. American dream is correlated to equal opportunity for everybody irrespective of the background. That's what is stake at here.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  What does your 'American dream' have to do with net neutrality? It's not about America, it is about ISPs amassing power all over the world.
  - vrama 12y ago
    Elected representatives in America often portray themselves to uphold American dream (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream) ethos. But in practice they support policies that go exactly against that ethos and support gatekeeper policies like net neutrality. Yes it is a global issue. I am putting forth an argument in an American context.
josteink 12y ago
So the man who decided that DRM in HTML5 was a good thing has an opinion on the well-being of the world wide web, eh? Sorry if this sounds bitter. I'm just posting from a browser unable to access HTML5 content at a regular interval. It's an open source browser, and the suggested "fix" is always using a closed-source browser, OS or both. I thought this web-thing was supposed to be open and cross platform?
- dasil003 12y ago
  It's not a fair comparison at all. The internet is infrastructure for all globalized network applications. DRM is just software implemented by individual applications that you can take or leave. Whether it exists in a standard is utterly irrelevant to the copyright holders who are DRM's raison d'etre, and keeping it out of standards is an idealogical stance that has no practical benefit. All that would do is make sure that Netflix et al continue to use Flash/Silverlight or whatever proprietary plugin meets the Studios ever-more-stringent DRM requirements. If you think standards bodies can do anything that places even the slightest bit of pressure on content rights holders to abandon DRM you are comically delusional. Studios have the content, they dictate the terms (why do you think Netflix got into the production business?).
yarrel 12y ago
Simply use DRM. Some media can be marked as "slow download" and the web browser has to respect this. Write it into the HTML spec et voila! One happy Tim Berners-Lee.

237 points by esolyt 12y ago

I think that offering a range of diffrent models of threwput and latancy can only be good for the internet as a hole. What I am conserned with is this, I want to tell the ISP what packets should run with what characterisitcs. I am completly against the ISP making deep packet inspection and deciding the selfs what packets to drop or dely. I think like in everything else, when you have a finite resources you need a market. Having every packet be the same and then just randomly drop them, is just bad for the internet as a hole. We need QoS we need to be able for some services to run with priority. When I play video games or skype I dont wanne wait, if I torrent every episode from a podcast the latency does not intrest me so much. So Im am PRO net neutrality in this sence, the ISP is not allowed to look into my packets and change there priority.

jacquesm 12y ago
It's 'throughput', not 'threwput'. That aside, it's not about what you tell the ISP, it's what the ISP tells the company you're trying to connect to or that tries to connect to you. We need QoS but on the core of the net to avoid congestion, not on the edges to artificially induce congestion! You paid for flat-rate X bits per second up/down internet service then that is what you should get! So DPI and QoS have a spot but only where they are used to improve the service. The ISPs are now essentially trying to sell their bandwidth twice, once to you - the subscriber - and then again to the companies that those subscribers wish to communicate with. If they didn't want us to communicate then they should get out of the ISP business. What I pay for I should be able to use.
- nickik 12y ago
  Like I said, they should not be allowed to make choices about my packeges this includeds looking at where Im sending them and slowing it down or speeding it up based on destination. Maybe I defined it to narrowly when I said deep packege inspection, I really meant any choices about my packeges speed should be based on what terms I sent it out. I think a good buissness model would sell me a standard flat rate and some low latancy GBs. If a ISP does not improve there network, then I can switch to another one.
- gress 12y ago
  It's froopught actually.

jbza 12y ago

I can't help but wonder if the fate of Internet infrastructure will follow that of transport infrastructure (Build-operate-transfer : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-operate-transfer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-operate-transfer) Based off history, it seems that private ownership of common property is doomed to fail.

zo1 12y ago
"Based off history" Haven't read/heard much on this... Curious of examples? "private ownership of common property" Bit of an oxymoron you got going there. If something is privately owned, it can't be common(public) property by definition. Even so, we have yet to establish that internet infrastructure is somehow "common/public property". I'm curious how you think that's the case (that internet infrastructure is public property)?
- netcan 12y ago
  I think he means privatisation of services traditionally public, in the vast majority of historical periods and places. Ports are an old example roads are another. Transport infrastructure is historically most commonly expanded and enhanced as the state gets stronger and wealthier, and as it becomes more empire than state.
- _ak 12y ago
  The classic historic example is the Commons and their subsequent enclosure in England. Common land that was free to be used by commoners for centuries was suddenly divided up and enclosed, often enough by force, and even went so far as prople rioting and revolting over it because people were robbed of a big part of their livelihood.
- smsm42 12y ago
  I think it gets to the fact that if enough people need to use private property, it is started to be considered as "common" and private property rights get eroded to the point that it can not be considered private anymore. Like "too big to fail", "too big to be controlled by anybody but the government" is a popular thing. Now, the nominal ownership may be or not be private, but with enough regulation the difference would be only in profit sharing arrangements and not in actual control over the property. So when the parent post says "doomed to fail", it's not because there's something inherently faulty in private property. It's because people can't tolerate the perceived absence of control over such big things.

porqupine 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Modern_Colossus_of_Rail_Roads_-_Keppler_1879.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Modern_Colossus_of_Rail_Ro...

3327 12y ago

Not to be feared. Let it pass. Please let it pass. This is all that is needed for a company like google or someone else to disrupt the system. This is the final chess piece for Verizon and similar scum to finally get run over.

menriquez 12y ago

it boggles my mind that people don't see this for what it so obviously is...a law of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats. large corporation want to throw huge sums of money around to each other to control what their "customers" get access for...its that's simple. do you think that when amazon loads in .4 sec and disruptiveStartUp.com loads in 2, that consumers won't highly prefer just going to the faster one?? esp. on mobile?

teddyh 12y ago

More like a protection racket, really.

twirlip 12y ago

See, telling Congress that something is "bribery" and expecting Congress to think that's something bad is just wishful thinking on TBL's part, bless his heart.

zwieback 12y ago

Did Tim envision internet bandwidth consumed by Netflix? Is the current mix of content we consume something he approves of? Instead of staking out absolutist positions it would be helpful to come up practical solutions now. Some form of fast lanes is inevitable over time and just maybe it could improve the situation of people like me who would likely remain on the "normal speed" lanes.

themartorana 12y ago
I can't tell if this is defeatist or just insane. Who cares if he envisioned Netflix in the past, his comments are in the light of the present. So yeah, I'm sure bandwidth needs of today - and he's pretty smart, so I'm gonna go with tomorrow - are probably considered in his statement. But we're not talking about consumption, we're talking about the speed at which I can consume. If you pay for 1G/m and I pay for 1TB/m at 100mbps, I expect all content, no matter it's nature, be delivered at the same maximum capacity reaching 100mbps to you and me equally, no matter the content. I already pay more to be able to stream a mass of content but we still should enjoy equality of delivery of the content we choose to engage in, without a middle party deciding which of that is more important for us.
- zwieback 12y ago
  Exactly, thanks for making my argument more convincingly. I would love to have the people who are willing to pay for 1TB/m subsidize my slower tier. Forcing everyone to have a transport layer that's independent of the content is not a great idea. If you were going to design a new network today you would never go down that path.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Forcing everyone to have a transport layer that's independent of the content is not a great idea. If you were going to design a new network today you would never go down that path. Actually, yes I would (not the OP). Packets go in, packets come out.
porqupine 12y ago

RA_Fisher 12y ago

If we don't allow ISPs to throttle things like Netflix, isn't the impact that all other packets might suffer latency? In that case, is NN a subsidy to large content producers?

nitrogen 12y ago
Not if they implemented customer-controlled QoS with guaranteed throughput at x% of their advertised speed and best effort for the rest.
themartorana 12y ago
No. This is like a library giving me an approved book all at once while taking anything on the non-approved list and giving me one page a week. That's all.
Vendan 12y ago
It's more like the ISP's oversold bandwidth and now they are being dinged for it.
rakoo 12y ago
Instead of ISPs throttling someone, what about they building bigger pipes for everyone ?

rayiner 12y ago

M-W defines "bribery" in relevant part as: "money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust." It's only "bribery" if the recipient is in a position of trust. The ISP's are not. They are just businesses operating their wholly private networks. Paying someone to use their private property for your benefit isn't "bribery." It's a basic commercial transaction. E.g. it's not "bribery" for me to pay an Uber Black driver more than an Uber X driver to take me somewhere.

jacquesm 12y ago
You are narrowly interpreting 'position of trust', ISPs are not only in a position of trust (we give them ALL of our data to look at), they are because of their trusted position subject to all kinds of directives historically more associated with post offices and telephone companies. They carry our data. As such we trust them very much. The full quote of what TBL said was this: "We need rules," said Berners-Lee. "If businesses are to move here and start here rather than start in Europe or Brazil or Australia — they're going to look around and make sure, 'Oh, does the power stay up?' And they'll look for other things. 'Is the Internet open?' Will they have to effectively bribe their ISPs to start a new service? That's what it looks like from the outside. It's bribery." In other words, if you need to pay the gate-keeper for equal access to the subscribers then that's bribery because the common-carrier principle holds that no priority should be given to other people's packets over yours ('without discrimination') and VV. Allowing such differentiation could for instance cripple any voice-over-ip offering that was not sanctioned via deep packet inspection. That's what this is about, not about a narrow definition of bribery, not every word is to be taken literally but in this case it is close enough that I don't think you can pretend that you did not understand the slight metaphorical component and simply acknowledge that a gatekeeper that needs payment where none should be due is tantamount to having to bribe someone. Uber does not enter into it.
- smsm42 12y ago
  Trusting our data (which btw is not true, that's why we have SSL and other crypto) has nothing to do with it. If somebody would pay your ISP for revealing your data - that would be bribery. However, paying ISP to get favorable business deal, like better channel, is no bribery - no more than hiring a private limo for higher price than riding a bus is a bribery of public transportation system. The business of ISP is to provide connections, and paying them for better connection become bribery only if you consider yourself somehow entitled to be provided these connections and not just entering a contract and paying for service. With all respect to Berners-Lee, I don't see where that entitlement would come from. >>> In other words, if you need to pay the gate-keeper for equal access to the subscribers then that's bribery because the common-carrier principle holds that no priority should be given to other people's packets over yours That's a circular argument. You declare that ISP has no rights to provide different levels of service (as if that was some obvious law and not the very point being argued) and then conclude that if they do it, it's bribery. But of course, pre-assuming this makes the whole discussion pointless as you declared the victory for yourself before it begun. However, that declaration is baseless - ISP can have different levels of service and do that regularly - they offer different bandwidths, different channel types, etc., etc. and restricting them from doing so serves to purpose but to satisfy a perverted feeling of "fairness" - maybe I cannot buy the best service but at least nobody else can too!

7952 12y ago

I am in favour of net neutrality but worry that everyone is defending a status quo that is still bad. For most consumers and buisness access to the net is hardly free in a financial sense. Entry level bandwidth on AWS/Azure/App engine is still very expensive and seems completely overpriced compared to storage. For the consumer lack of last mile competition and monthly contracts make competition almost impossible on a day to day basis. An entrepreneur could setup a WiFi hotspot in an area with poor coverage but no one would use it because we are all trying to do everything on a 3g data plan. I want competition for last mile access that allows the consumer to connect based on the best connection available regarldess of who has provided it. Companies should be paid for providing bandwidth and it makes sense to ask large players like Facebook and Nextflix to pay the bill ($0.2 per GB to guarantee a fast connection to the user should be reasonable). The only way to break the telcos is to fund open compeition.

Vendan 12y ago
If you are looking for a way to pay for last mile improvements, maybe you should look at the $75 million a year cable companies spend to try to make sure they won't have to? https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/16/how-telecoms-and-cable-have-dominated-net-neutrality-lobbying/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/16/how-telecoms-...
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> For the consumer lack of last mile competition and monthly contracts make competition almost impossible on a day to day basis. In the USA. In the UK I can choose between about half a dozen companies with prices as low as $5 per month for usable broadband. I don't think I've been 100% satisfied with any ISP but only in the customer service area (and mainly because network issues are hard to diagnose). Speed and price are generally OK and there is a lot of variety.
- 7952 12y ago
  There is little incentive to provide FTTH or to connect rural areas. In some places there is only one 3g provider who you can only use if you have a billing account with that company. I agree that the UK is miles ahead of the US but can that last forever? What happens when FTTC and 4g are saturated? We are still mostly reliant on a few mobile operators + BT/Virgin for the last mile.

linguafranca 12y ago

How does this ISP issue affect the internet outside the US? I'm guessing it's not really going to change "The Internet" as a whole, just us in the US.

esolyt 12y ago
What happens in the US will eventually affect the rest of the world.
jacquesm 12y ago
It is not just about the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Directive
smutticus 12y ago
That's a good question. Ultimately the FCC only has jurisdiction over American operators. However, net neutrality as a concept is also being debated in other countries. When someone like TBL is commenting on net neutrality I'm never quite sure if he is referring to net neutrality in the USA, or to the wider concept. Precedentially net neutrality derives from the English common law's notion of common carrier. What you should expect this to mean is that the concept of net neutrality should be similar in all English common law countries. In practice I'm not always sure this is the case.

McCoy_Pauley 12y ago

What ISP's say to companies who want to use the internet, "Either you pay us to access your customers, or we break your kneecaps." This is about both monopolies and mafia business tactics.

vrama 12y ago

Internet has long provided the opportunity for a new comer to challenge the status quo because of net neutrality. Now we are creating a barrier of entry and it is going to be hard for new startups. American dream is correlated to equal opportunity for everybody irrespective of the background. That's what is stake at here.

jacquesm 12y ago
What does your 'American dream' have to do with net neutrality? It's not about America, it is about ISPs amassing power all over the world.
- vrama 12y ago
  Elected representatives in America often portray themselves to uphold American dream (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream) ethos. But in practice they support policies that go exactly against that ethos and support gatekeeper policies like net neutrality. Yes it is a global issue. I am putting forth an argument in an American context.

josteink 12y ago

So the man who decided that DRM in HTML5 was a good thing has an opinion on the well-being of the world wide web, eh? Sorry if this sounds bitter. I'm just posting from a browser unable to access HTML5 content at a regular interval. It's an open source browser, and the suggested "fix" is always using a closed-source browser, OS or both. I thought this web-thing was supposed to be open and cross platform?

dasil003 12y ago
It's not a fair comparison at all. The internet is infrastructure for all globalized network applications. DRM is just software implemented by individual applications that you can take or leave. Whether it exists in a standard is utterly irrelevant to the copyright holders who are DRM's raison d'etre, and keeping it out of standards is an idealogical stance that has no practical benefit. All that would do is make sure that Netflix et al continue to use Flash/Silverlight or whatever proprietary plugin meets the Studios ever-more-stringent DRM requirements. If you think standards bodies can do anything that places even the slightest bit of pressure on content rights holders to abandon DRM you are comically delusional. Studios have the content, they dictate the terms (why do you think Netflix got into the production business?).

yarrel 12y ago

Simply use DRM. Some media can be marked as "slow download" and the web browser has to respect this. Write it into the HTML spec et voila! One happy Tim Berners-Lee.