Net Neutrality For Dummies

I just read an article from the lead singer of OK Go. I can't tell you any of the songs they sing, but I'm impressed at how much this guy gets Network Neutrality. I wanted to share this because it is the simplest explanation of Network Neutrality I have ever seen.

On the Internet, when I send my ones and zeros somewhere, they shouldn't have to wait in line behind the ones and zeros of wealthier people or corporations. That's the way the Net was designed, and it's central to a concept called "net neutrality," which ensures that Internet service providers can't pick favorites.

I'm not a big fan of the gov'mint getting involved in just about anything, but in this case, I think it will take the gov'mint to guarantee that all 1's and 0's are treated equally. Which, at the end of the day, is what Network Neutrality is all about.

After all, corporations only care about making as much money as possible on those 1's and 0's and if they can charge someone more money to give their 1's and 0's a higher priority than a competitor, then we know they will.

So how the hell do you insure that someone does not have favor over someone else?
They all can say OH we're neutral - but how is it confirmed?

(Asking as I have no idea how this all works in the back end)

Not sure how you confirm that other than getting a bunch of people to test their speeds to the same places.

The net needs to stay neutral. A tiered system is bad for (most) business, innovation, gaming, and sharing of information. It only concentrates wealth in the hands of the those that "own" the access points to the system.

Duck, there is a thing called Quality of Service. It actually tags the packets with specific settings. You can sniff the packets and determine this is happening.

This is kind of what happened with Comcast. They were sending a reset to people trying to use P2P apps. The reset packet tells the sender that the other to stop sending packets. People were sniffing the traffic and figured this reset packet was coming from comcast and not actually the person they were trying to contact.

The problem here is the FCC laid the smack down on Comcast, then Comcast sued the FCC and the courts agreed that the FCC couldn't actually do anything. Comcast as an Internet provider falls outside the rules of a common carrier that the FCC actually has the power to police. This is the problem we need to correct. The FCC needs to be able to do something to the providers that are manipulating traffic.

That is why Congress needs to enact rules that give the FCC the power to do something when someone breaks the rules. Or the FCC needs to change the status of Internet providers so they fall under a different set of rules that will allow them to do something.

Clear as mud?