Net Neutrality.
I’d like to take a moment to be sure that you’re aware of a piece of legislation currently under consideration in the House of Representatives. It’s the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006” also known as the COPE Act (HR 5252). If you’re reading these words, you use the internet, and therefore this legislation will affect you.
In a nutshell, providers will be able to charge companies to provide good access to their sites. For instance, if Amazon chooses not to pony up the dough, a provider would be able to slow access to them to a crawl. Search engines might redirect you to Barnes and Noble.
That’s bad enough if you’re a large, monolithic corporation. What if you’re a small business? What if you’re a blogger? Or what if you’re an individual sending data to someone using a service that hasn’t paid a fee to your service? How long would it take for your information to get to its destination? Call me nuts, but I believe that photos of your child should get to Grandma before that child grows up.
Preserving the idea that information should be able to flow freely is a concept called “Net Neutrality.” Net neutrality understands that fees to maintain connections are required, but not selective fees that penalize the little guy or gal.
Without net neutrality, small businesses and individual users will be negatively affected. It will come as no surprise that the lobbyists for this bill are large telecom companies.
To add insult to injury, the bill also permits providers to ignore less-profitable areas when providing service. In other words, if you’re not in a densely packed residential area, you may be out of luck. Nice knowing you, Wyoming.
This bill is expected to reach the floor of the House by mid-May, so I’m writing a snail mail letter to my Representative in Congress now. If you’d like to learn more, and I certainly encourage you to do so, visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/ . They are in favor of net neutrality. They also have a petition you can sign.
For more info, check out:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.internet09may09,0,4559120.story
http://www.freepress.net/congress/billinfo.php?id=169
It’s an important issue that’s not being carried by the mainstream media. I hope you’ll take the time to learn more.
This situation frightens me incredibly. Mary and I are a prime example of the small business owner that would be signifcantly impacted if this passes. If we are forced to pay higher prices for higher bandwidth, then we will go under faster than you can blink.
One of the things our country prides itself on is the ability to start and maintain a small business. It’s not easy, but it is possible. For many of us, you included, continuing a business on the internet will stop being cost effective and suddenly we won’t be able to keep it up.
We will see an even further reaching situation, though, if this goes through. All those businesses that require huge amounts of bandwidth will have to raise their prices. ebay will have to raise it’s sellers fees, amazon will have to charge more for their goods, games like World of Warcraft and Everquest will have to charge more monthly, games like DragonRealms will likely have to close its doors. It’s not just the business owners that will be impacted by this, but the consumers as well. What we’ve come to know of as convenience will be a privilege that only the wealthy can afford.
I suspect that even if it passes, in the end the providers will realize that they can’t impose too astronomical of a fee on their customers, or their business will collapse, too. It doesn’t make sense to kill their own market. But I do suspect that a lot of small businesses will go under and many a rate will be raised before it all balances out.
This situation frightens me incredibly. Mary and I are a prime example of the small business owner that would be signifcantly impacted if this passes. If we are forced to pay higher prices for higher bandwidth, then we will go under faster than you can blink.
One of the things our country prides itself on is the ability to start and maintain a small business. It’s not easy, but it is possible. For many of us, you included, continuing a business on the internet will stop being cost effective and suddenly we won’t be able to keep it up.
We will see an even further reaching situation, though, if this goes through. All those businesses that require huge amounts of bandwidth will have to raise their prices. ebay will have to raise it’s sellers fees, amazon will have to charge more for their goods, games like World of Warcraft and Everquest will have to charge more monthly, games like DragonRealms will likely have to close its doors. It’s not just the business owners that will be impacted by this, but the consumers as well. What we’ve come to know of as convenience will be a privilege that only the wealthy can afford.
I suspect that even if it passes, in the end the providers will realize that they can’t impose too astronomical of a fee on their customers, or their business will collapse, too. It doesn’t make sense to kill their own market. But I do suspect that a lot of small businesses will go under and many a rate will be raised before it all balances out.
I hope you don’t mind, but I quoted this description (under your name) on a local message board. I thought you made some excellent points on behalf of “the little guy” that showed how this will affect even the most casual users, a position not adequately explained in the particular thread I was reading.
I hope you don’t mind, but I quoted this description (under your name) on a local message board. I thought you made some excellent points on behalf of “the little guy” that showed how this will affect even the most casual users, a position not adequately explained in the particular thread I was reading.
Thank you, I’m flattered!
Thank you, I’m flattered!