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The issue of net neutrality has occasionally popped in and out of my radar. However, lately I’ve taken a deeper interest in the issue and what’s at stake is serious and rather disturbing. Basically, the issue of net neutrality concerns whether the big telecoms (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner) can control the content of the internet. This could mean…

• discrimination against rival content
• suppression of content
• tiered levels of bandwidth and content at different price points for the consumer
• prioritized bandwidth for content providers who can afford it

The telecom giants feel they have a right to control content because they provide the medium on which it is distributed. Net neutrality is the idea of keeping the internet in its current state, a medium free of control.

Recently, Harvard held a public FCC hearing on net neutrality. Comcast had narcoleptic employees squat in the seats to prevent legitimate people wanting to voice their opinion on the issue from participating in the forum. Another dastardly tactic from a corrupt, profit hungry company that is more concerned in appeasing the shareholder than the customer.

With the failure of net neutrality, the telecom industry is poised to reap huge profits by effectively creating a bidding war on content, then charging the consumer different prices for various content. Net neutrality strives to preserve content equality across the internet.

An electricity company does not dictate what appliances you can use. They don’t grant certain appliances electricity over other appliances just because a manufacturer has paid a premium to do so. Furthermore, they don’t demand more money from you for supplying electricity to a TV just because they know you use it often and they can earn more profits.

You pay a price for the internet, therefore you should be able to view and publish whatever content you want with the assurance that the content has not been tampered with or given less bandwidth/made less accessible because its provider or consumer couldn’t pay the telecom companies enough money.

Here are some sites that help better explain this important issue:

• Google Help Center
  
• Save The Internet

Here are some Youtube videos which do a good job presenting the issue and what’s at stake: