Why You NEED to Care About Net Neutrality

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/21/need-care-net-neutrality/

Why You NEED to Care About Net Neutrality

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

Published December 21, 2010


Thanks for watching that YouTube video! That will be 50 cents, please.

Sound unrealistic? It's actually fairly likely, thanks to a ruling
handed down Tuesday by the FCC that will allow Internet service
providers to charge customers based on the amount of bandwidth they use.
And some argue that it's the greatest threat to freedom we face today.

Welcome to the complex world of net neutrality.

The basic problem is simple: As online video has grown in popularity,
thanks to sites like YouTube and Hulu.com, Internet service providers
(ISPs) complain that each consumer is more of a burden to service --
that's you, me and your next-door neighbor, Phil.

Today, Comcast, Time Warner, or whomever you pay monthly, charges you
and Phil more or less the same amount. But Phil watches four hours of
basketball online every night. Should he pay more for that? There's the
neutrality part, the argument that you should pay one fee for access to
the entire Internet, regardless of what type of content you watch or
which sites you visit.

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Well . that makes sense, right? If service providers could charge based
on the type of content you watch, they could easily create a system like
that of today's cable television market. Want HBO? It's an extra $5.
Want our streaming video package, with YouTube, Hulu, TV.com, and more?
That's $5 too. Don't pay and you can't watch. Period.

"Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium
and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to
pay for it," worried Minnesota senator Al Franken in an editorial at the
Huffington Post. ISPs argue -- and the FCC just agreed -- that they
should be allowed to charge based on the amount of bandwidth they use.
It remains to be seen whether the type of content will be protected,
however.

The more people speculate, the more the nightmarish scenarios quickly
pile up.

Consider the overlap between service providers and content providers.
Time Warner owns local channel NY1 in New York City. What's to stop the
company from optimizing access to its site -- and charging you more for
access to other local news? Sound silly? Don't forget that Comcast has
been fighting to buy NBC, at a proposed $13.8 billion.

Maybe that's why Franken called it the most important issue of our time.

Others agree -- but argue that the best thing we can do is absolutely
nothing.

Nothing is broken that needs fixing, wrote Robert McDowell, a Republican
commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, in an opinion
essay in the Wall Street Journal. "The Internet has been open and
freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research
project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global
network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect
consumers already exist."

Opinions are so diverse it's hard to wrap your head around, and all
perspectives seem realistic, at least on some level. Technologists are
passionate: TechCrunch editor John Biggs wrote that "if we stay silent
on this, the Internet will change."

Privacy advocates are worried: watchdogs at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation fear that rules will make it impossible for new companies to
launch, creating " barriers to entry for the next generation of garage
innovators."

Net neutrality may be designed to allow for a tiered Internet. Or it may
end up preventing one entirely. Who knows? The FCC held most discussions
behind closed doors, until this morning's debate and final approval of
the regulations.

But either way, it's bound to end up affecting your wallet. And you
should care -- if for no other reason than that.




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