I have been meaning to post on this topic because I try to follow net neutrality and am interested in where it will go in the Obama administration.
As far as I am reading there is no copyright filtering provision in the federal stimulus package. Copyright filtering is sometimes confused with "reasonable network management allowed by net neutrality" as pointed out in the link posted. Copyright filtering would look at the content of the data sent while network management looks at the size of data being transfered.
With copyright in the digital age still being studied, I don't think we can start looking at the content being sent, lawyers will always side on preventing the flow of information. What companies like Comcast are doing is sending large packages of data sent over the internet to the back of the line when routing internet traffic. Comcast was caught doing this when slowing the transfer of data from users of bit torrents. The internet was furious and claimed censorship. Comcast said that 99% of its users don't send this much data so they were serving the majority of their customers.
This dilemma is leading to some companies having a tiered internet service charge, the more data you upload or download the more you pay. While I can understand this (Comcast provides a service albeit one with no competition) ) I hope it doesn't get to a point that a person can't start up a web tv station streaming television shows to users because it costs too much for the bandwidth. Broadband can't be purely private it must have a public component.
A good sign from the Obama administration is they want former head of Obama internet strategy Julius Genachowsk as FCC Chair. He should be very favorable to the internet and net neutrality.
One provision in the stimulus package I was upset with was huge tax breaks for broadband providers like Verizon.
While I understand Obama wanting to improve infrastructure I think Verizon has done a poor job at making broadband affordable going the way of outrageous cable pricing. Condition of affordability and wifi improvement should have been added.
I have been meaning to post on this topic because I try to follow net neutrality and am interested in where it will go in the Obama administration.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I am reading there is no copyright filtering provision in the federal stimulus package. Copyright filtering is sometimes confused with "reasonable network management allowed by net neutrality" as pointed out in the link posted. Copyright filtering would look at the content of the data sent while network management looks at the size of data being transfered.
With copyright in the digital age still being studied, I don't think we can start looking at the content being sent, lawyers will always side on preventing the flow of information. What companies like Comcast are doing is sending large packages of data sent over the internet to the back of the line when routing internet traffic. Comcast was caught doing this when slowing the transfer of data from users of bit torrents. The internet was furious and claimed censorship. Comcast said that 99% of its users don't send this much data so they were serving the majority of their customers.
This dilemma is leading to some companies having a tiered internet service charge, the more data you upload or download the more you pay. While I can understand this (Comcast provides a service albeit one with no competition) ) I hope it doesn't get to a point that a person can't start up a web tv station streaming television shows to users because it costs too much for the bandwidth. Broadband can't be purely private it must have a public component.
Wired had a nice article about Comcast.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-02/mf_brianroberts
A good sign from the Obama administration is they want former head of Obama internet strategy Julius Genachowsk as FCC Chair. He should be very favorable to the internet and net neutrality.
One provision in the stimulus package I was upset with was huge tax breaks for broadband providers like Verizon.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/big-verizon-tax-break-still-in-senate-stimulus-bill/
While I understand Obama wanting to improve infrastructure I think Verizon has done a poor job at making broadband affordable going the way of outrageous cable pricing. Condition of affordability and wifi improvement should have been added.