Unless you were hiding in a cave or under a rock, you heard about the FCC's ruling today regarding Network Neutrality. The term has been tossed around for nearly 6 or 7 years, but it was not until the last few days that most of the casual Internet users heard about it and even cared to find out what it meant. And even more so, what it meant to them. Let me see if I "can help ya out there partner."
For the most part, and in layman's terms, Net Neutrality essentially means "No Discrimination". Okay.. well that is all well and good. But you ask, discrimination against who? Against everyone. The best way I can describe this so that it is understandable by the widest audience is with an example.
Ok.. so here you are. A normal Internet user. And you get your Internet access from Comcast. A rather large service provider of cable, telephone and Internet services. Especially in the Midwest United States. Comcast has been known (in some of the more advanced techie circles) to "traffic shape". Traffic Shaping is when the service provider either slows down or speeds up your Internet speeds based on what they deem appropriate. And they have been accused of doing this for many different reasons.The biggest accusation was based on a small percentage of their customers who used too much bandwidth. Well Comcast did not like that so they "squeezed" the pipeline of those users resulting in less bandwidth (speed for the most part) for those users. Ok I am getting off the subject here a bit. So back to "average Joe Internet user" from our example. So our average user just noticed that his Internet speeds are not what he feels he is paying for and decides to start shopping around and wants to do so by looking around on the Internet for other service providers in his area.
So average Joe gets on the 'Net and starts searching Google but to his astonishment, the search results he is presented with are nothing like what he thought he would see. And this is where that wonderful phrase 'Net Nuetrality' enters the picture. Because in our example, Comcast had removed their competitions web sites from what their customers can access on the Internet. And that is what Net Neutrality aims to prevent. The FCC is trying to put a law down that basically states that nobody can change what is presentable on the Internet. That nobody has the right to remove, add, change, or otherwise adjust what is on the Internet based on their needs or wants or what might be good for only their company.
This law is well long overdue in my opinion. But many think that there are too many loopholes. Or that the laws that are being set forth are just too weak to have any kind of positive effect. Especially with the loopholes part of the consideration. I have yet to read the whole thing, but from what I have seen I would agree that some of the wording is a bit on the weak side. However I still feel that it is better than nothing. Because there have been quite a few accusations thrown at a few companies, namely Comcast who provides my service. Traffic Shaping and Bandwidth usage is a hotly debated topic. Because there are some factual cases where Comcast has given some customers the lower tier of their service even though the customers paid for the higher tier. They did this based on the fact that most people do not know what they are dealing with when it gets to the more technical side of things. The problem arises for them when they do this to a customer who actually does know what is going on.
We will have to wait and see what becomes of the Net Neutrality debate and if any further changes are made to the current laws or if new laws get enacted. I think this is a good start. You have to remember that this debate was raging for nearly seven years. That is a long time for a discussion that does not bear any fruit. In a way, you can say if its not broke, don't fix it. But those who say that just don't realize that sure it may not seem broken to you, but the Internet is on the verge of a breakdown if certain companies are net held in check. Giving a service provider full reign to do with as they please does not help anyone. It especially does not help the consumer. And after all, isn't that who we are trying to watch after in a case like this? I believe so.
