More on the Net Neutrality Debate as well as information dealing with the bandwidth of video

This story was originally published on July 7, 2008.

The Internet is the greatest technical development of the 20th century, (I think we can all agree witht that) and its open competition model has been the envy of other market sectors. Internet advances are being crushed by monopolistic carriers who are more concerned with censoring content than delivering services to customers. Those desperate statements sum up the positions of the two sides squaring off in an increasingly contentious debate about the Internet's future.

On one side of the debate are Internet service providers (ISPs), which are trying to build viable business models for delivering their services in a rapidly evolving marketplace. On the other side are watchdog groups who feel that the carriers' plans run counter to the Internet's primary mission.

One thing that I've come to realize about these two sides is that a major role in determining the "champion" is how effectively videos will load. This is because video requires loads of bandwidth!!!

Video applications such as online gaming apps take up more bandwidth than simpler applications such as e-mail. In addition, a growing number of carriers are delivering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that require clean connections from their starting points to their end points, thus making the file significantly larger.

Consequently, carriers have been experimenting with Quality of Service (QoS) features, which prioritize different types of traffic. In such cases, priority is given or taken from one application to improve the performance of another. In addition, what carriers charge customers varies with these services. In some cases, ISPs want to charge more for the extra bandwidth needed for video content from sites such as YouTube compared with the textual information from an e-mail service.

Net neutrality advocates view such practices as discriminatory, and want to make them unlawful. They feel that every user should have the ability to use whatever service he or she desires without any additional fees.


Information found at: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/The-Still-Simmering-Net-Neutrality-Debate-65270.html

In this article, it tells about how the two sides debating over whether or not Net Neutrality should be allowed or disallowed. It comments on how each one will have its ups and downs with the people of America and told about the "Ultimate Arbiter" as I like to call it. This judgmental factor is the use of video clips (with optional voice input) and the size of which they require to effectively download onto one's computer. Depending on how well these download and how patient/desperate people are to have them will depend on whether or not Net Neutrality will pass and how profitable the Net Neutrality business will actually be.