Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Net Neutrality

Again, it's been in the news for a while and talking heads just DON'T GET IT. Which is no surprise, they aren't paid to get it. They're paid to push Snapple. So I wrote my congressman, to make it pretty clear what the issue is, as I'm sure they aren't fully aware. To be clear, this isn't a slight on politicians, but ask a lawyer you know what they know about net neutrality and you'll get a good idea how most congresspeople see the issue.
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Congressman,

I know something as misunderstood as Net Neutrality is getting a lot of talk time with the pundits du jour, but I feel obligated to voice my concern. I understand the largest concerns being voiced are those of the largest "people" Google on one side and ATT on the other. The thing to be aware of here is that Google seems to be on the side of the people in this. They hold more fiber than any other entity in the United States.

The people of the US are already subject to traffic shaping and prioritization by their providers. This has been a well known fact by those of us in the industry who have to manage these devices. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon's digital download services (and soon Google TV) are threatening current content providers business models. This is to be accepted, as the Internet is still evolving the way we do business. The problem is the content providers also own the cables that run into our home. To use a bad analogy, the tubes are being squeezed into two different sections: the one the providers offer and the one they don't. If they aren't able to monetize the traffic they are putting it at a lower priority to your home.

The difficulty here is, some prioritization is good. For instance if you buy your phone service through this provider, you want the phone calls to come through even if your family is watching a TV show. But since there is no regulation in this area, there's no difference to the end users if the provider does the same thing to their Movie Service (TM) over Netflix or Hulu. This is clearly an abuse over the local monopolies we the American people have allowed the providers to hold.

As a congressman from the Tech State, I would hope you have heard from many people in this regard and work with your peers to present a rational (and easily understood) front to this threat to our digital democracy.
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I'd urge many to do the same, as the more people advertising this the better. We, the American People, need to make sure our representatives understand our concern. We don't have a lobby that does it for us.


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