Net Neutrality
mitch @ 3:30 pm on May 25, 2006
For those that haven’t heard about the issue, at the heart of it, the Bells are wanting more money. Currently they don’t think they would be able to get more money of of Joe consumer without a huge outcry (and they would be correct), so they’re looking for other places. They are wanting to charge (for instance) Google, for “improved service” or since they view themselves as providing Googles customers, if they don’t want degraded service, they should pay up(ie: they’re threatening to purposely degrade their customers access to Google, if Google doesn’t pay up). Now, this is simply absurd… Google already pays their uplink providers (they have multiple), for an internet connection. You, the consumer, pay your internet connection fees… now why should you have to pay extra to connect to say Google? (I know, technically it would be Google paying… but believe me it all comes back around)
I know what your saying… you shouldn’t have to right? Right! you definately shouldn’t have to. The bells are making plenty of money (record profits from what I hear…) Oh and they’re not the only ones all for this Tier’d Internet, Cisco among others are all for it. And why wouldn’t they be? If the Bell’s have to upgrade network equipment to micromanage everyones bandwidth usage… Yeah thats right, it all comes down to money, but doesn’t everything?
Anyway, on to the purpose of why I’m writing. I came across a quick writeup from a group called “tele-truth” their mission is simply: “TeleTruth is a national, independent, customer advocacy group, dedicated to fixing the problems in telecommunications — from customer overcharging and harm to competitors, to the customer issues surrounding Broadband deployment and competition.” Their website can be found at: http://www.teletruth.org. They have written a book that looks awfully interesting and a quick Ad/summery for it can be found here: $200 Billion Broadband Scandal. Which poses some interesting questions… I would definately need to read more on the subject to know for sure, but at first sight I’m more apt to believe them. After seeing how hard Qwest fought against UTOPIA. When it was the hot topic here… And the rumors I hear of Qwest having lots of dark fiber laying in the ground. And nothing forbid Qwest from providing service on Utopia either… they just had to play on the same playing field as everyone else. Its sad really… All the more reason why I *hate* Qwest. So far, they haven’t gotten any money from me, and I’m going to keep it that way as long as I can.
I will start pushing for Utopia in South Jordan as thats where I will be living now, and Net Neutrality is in the best interests of the people and for the people! But don’t just believe what I say… do the research for yourself so you will know exactly why… but if you must just believe something… you can believe me, I won’t mind 
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