Net Neutrality
A bill (H.R. 5252: the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act. Analysis of COPE.) that all but creates a multi-tiered internet has passed the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate. Why should you care? Well, because a multi-tiered internet can stifle innovation and hurt your experience on the internet.
The bill originally had an amendment that insured net neutrality, which would make sure that all internet content providers are created equal. This amendment was backed by many providers of internet content, such as Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. This amendment was voted down a few days ago, basically setting the stage for a multi-tiered internet.
Top level service providers (the guys who control the infrastructure that the internet runs on) and telcos have been the driving force ($$$) behind the removal of the net neutrality amendment from COPE. They say that in order for the infrastructure to be improved, they need to get more money. They want to charge the content providers instead of the consumers. The thing is, the content providers are already paying out the butt for all of the bandwidth (a resource consumed by pushing and pulling data over a network, such as the internet) that they consume on a daily basis serving content to consumers. Without the net neutrality amendment, the telcos and top level service providers are able to charge the content providers twice for services that they are already paying for.
Another consequence of COPE is that it allows telcos to prioritize traffic. This also can create a multi-tiered internet. Under the system that this bill creates, the content providers with the most money will get higher priorities on the internet when it comes to delivering content. Basically, it artificially speeds up the connection between a client and a server if you have the money, or artificially degrades the performance of said link if you don’t. If two servers, each run by a different company, have the same bandwidth available to them, the server who’s owner pays the telcos more money will have the traffic to his server get a higher priority over the traffic to the other server. The telcos say that traffic prioritization is important to providing future services, such as Voice Over IP (VOIP) and Internet Television (IPTV), which function better if they are given a higher priority. (What doesn’t perform better when given an unfair advantage? Barry Bonds sure is better when he’s on steroids and everyone else isn’t, but that’s another rant.)
All of this inevitably leads to an internet where only the rich corporations can provide a satisfactory experience to end-users. The days of innovation by individuals and small start-ups on the internet could be quickly coming to an end. If COPE had been passed into law just a few years ago, think about what the internet might be like now. Google could have shriveled up and gone away because Microsoft and Yahoo could have afforded higher prioritization, leading to Google perform badly and, subsequently, loosing its user base and going out of business. We would still all be using MapQuest to get maps because no one would have gotten the idea to apply AJAX to maps to create Google Maps (which drove Microsoft and Yahoo to create Live Local and Yahoo Maps, respectively). Innovative web apps and social networking would have never taken off (say goodbye to Facebook and MySpace. (Really, MySpace should just go away. Talk about the cesspool of the internet. It makes my eyes bleed just thinking about it.))
All in all, I think that COPE is a horrible idea. I’m sorry to say that my Representative, Bob Ney (R), voted Yea for this bill. (Voting results for H.R. 5252.) If your representative voted Yea for this bill, please help by giving him an earful about the mistake that he made. I’ve done my part. Now it’s time for you to help preserve the free, unified internet as we know it.
Edit: I found this article on CNN about net neutrality, written by the creator of Craig’s List.