[ExI] internet regulation as a public utility

[James Clement]

spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> I heard on the radio today that the US government wants to regulate ISPs
> in such a way as to forbid YouTube or others from being allowed to deliver
> content faster for a fee.  My intuition tells me that such regulation would
> be a bad thing: too much potential for abuse.  Lack of regulation has
> potential for abuse by big corporations.  We are used to that.
>
>
>
> I haven’t studied it deeply.  Your thoughts welcome please.  Comments from
> abroad also welcome.
>
>
>

Check out http://www.theopeninter.net/ and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L11kLmWha6o#t=42

The idea is that big IPS (ATT, Comcast, etc.) would create "preferred"
providers and would push those sites to you much faster than sites that
didn't pay them for this privilege. This could be implemented in various
ways, but the most likely would be that when you sign up for internet
service, they'd be able to sell you a package that favored the big
companies that paid them for that privilege. Sort of how TMobile now lets
you stream Rhapsody music <http://t-mo.co/1yrtsy6> for free, but you have
to pay for data from Pandora or other music services.

What's the effect? Startups would be left in the slow lane, and more and
more ordinary internet users would simply use only the services that their
ISP recommended, rather than new sites, since their experience would be
that most of those were "slow" to load, stream, etc. It could cripple the
ability of new websites/services to get new customers, since they couldn't
afford to buy a spot on the ISP's "preferred list."

Hope this helps,

James
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