Should the Government Regulate Net Neutrality?

Should the Government Regulate Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that says all information flowing across the Internet should be treated equally. But with more people streaming data-rich video and playing online games, the Internet faces congestion concerns. Should carriers be able to sell multi-tiered access to heavy users? Should sites that generate massive traffic -- like Google and Yahoo! -- pay extra fees? The U.S. Government is examining Net Neutrality and its financial, legal and social implications. Do we need federal intervention to ensure fairness, or is this an issue for the market to work out?

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NO!
  • tomcat2200
    Are you kidding me?

    The government has already tipped the scale away from net neutrality, by granting "exclusive" territories to Comcast and other companies that choose not to give the consumer fair services for the fees charged. You are obviously NOT a customer of Comcast, unless you are a Comcast marketing employee.

    I for one resent having 6-8Mb download speeds being paraded as the fiber optic level of service Comcast chooses to parade in their advertising. The upload speeds are a joke as well. There is no reason upload speeds should be any less than download speeds. This garbage hearkens back to the days that the ISP's were blocking people from hosting their own web sites. The dynamic IP addresses are actually an increase in the ISP's work to provide services. It allows them to charge twice the going rates to the business customers. The result is that no user will be allowed to host their own blog or web site. This is allowed to happen by dint of regulation.

    Hate to say it, but we are already the victims of Government (FCC) regulation.

    - tomcat2200US September 14, 2008 12:09AM

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    • Concerned Citizen
      Upload/Download Disparity

      I agree that Comcast has a HORRIBLE track record when it comes to things like Customer Service and other things.

      However, it is a very common in the broadband industry to have a download to upload speed disparity. This is because people download almost 10 times as much as they upload. In reality only those operating servers and such require equal amounts of bandwidth for upload and download. Partly because your download pipe is so much larger than your upload pipe is why when you download big files like say a Linux .iso (600mb-4gb) it comes to you so quickly.

      Everything else is scummy though including not allowing people to run their own servers. As long as they are paying for the connection and their machine hasnt been turned into a Zombie and attacking other machines then it should be fine.

      - Concerned CitizenCA May 17, 2009 9:10PM

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