Well, recently I’ve been hearing a lot of things about Net Neutrality both for and against, and so I thought to myself, “Just what exactly is going on here?” That said, I decided to do a little poking around to see what I could dig up.

Right now, as a consumer of the internet, you simply hop on whatever device is handy, be it a laptop, desktop, or mobile, type in the URL you’d like to go to, and presto! You’re there. That’s all there is to it. We have the freedom to view and create any content that we should like, within the context of the law of course. This is in essence what Net Neutrality aims to preserve for our future. But what does it really mean, this all-encompassing term, Net Neutrality?

First, and foremost, there is the issue concerning ISP’s (Internet Service Providers). Right now, as a consumer or end-user, you pay for access to the internet. The money you pay is based upon a speed per month subscription. This means you might pay $30.00/month for 1Gbps down, or $50.00/month for 5Gbps down. We pay these premiums for unlimited access to both the internet and it’s content for each month with the knowledge that we have equal access to any site we should choose. If ISP’s get their way, they can begin controlling your access in a couple of different ways. The first way is to begin charging you, the consumer, for amounts of data consumed. So now, instead of paying for monthly access, you are paying for an amount of data you can access. Maybe they will charge $30.00 for 10GBs of bandwidth. This means now you’re being charged for the amount of data you’re actually using. This is akin to being charged by the minute on your mobile phones. Additionally, ISPs might like to not only limit the amount of data that you’re consuming, but also the types of data you’re consuming. This means that they would be capable of slowing down, or even blocking your access to sites and content not deemed important by or that might have a conflict of interest with your ISP.

So before, when the user went where they wanted to view/download any content they desired (so long as they paid their monthly fee, of course), this same user is looking at paying “by the minute” (really by the giga-byte) for their access to data across the web. Even then, this access is wouldn’t necessarily be guaranteed because your access to said site or file might be slowed or blocked. This will hold especially true if this is allowed because we will begin to see companies working together to promote their content. You might see Fox News (or Google, or CNN, or anyone for that matter) begin to pay Comcast for every hit on their site directed from Comcast’s “pipes”. Suddenly, it’s in Comcast’s best interest to promote the site that is paying them, and allowing better, quicker access to that site. And since there’s only so much room in the broadband connection at any given time, if some sites are being promoted, other sites may see themselves downgraded. This could easily encompass anything from political to just plain money hungry motives. This is not a road that we want to go down.

The flip side here, is that if Net Neutrality does indeed pass, the WWW as we know it will need some regulation, someone to over see everything and keep everyone in their place. Who better than the FCC? Well, okay, I was just kidding really. About it being a good idea that the FCC is allowed another job to oversee. But honestly, and the real truth of the matter, is that currently it would sort of fall under their jurisdiction, if you will, and they really would be the ones to over see it. And while I’m not necessarily targeting the FCC for or against this, is it really a great idea to have the big ‘G’ watching you surf the web and making sure that companies don’t take advantage of the structure of the web? Well, I’ll let you decide that because quite frankly that is an entire other post with just that one idea, “Who should over see the Net?”

Other stipulations concerning this whole debate that I know of are this.

There is a thought, by Glenn Beck and whoever he’s preaching to, that Net Neutrality is something that no one is talking about, and is ultimately an evil plot started by, or mainly solicited by, one organization: Free Press.

I am linking the video to Glenn and his rant below. Now, concerning this video, he will state that Free Press is trying to uproot people from the web, trying to silence voices, etc. Essentially, they are trying to eliminate the our rights to freedom of speech under the dubious guise of the 1st Amendment. Now, that said, I have looked over a lot of material, thanks to a semi-heated debate between a friend and I and have only really found one link tackling both Net Neutrality and Free Press in a negative manner, i.e. trying to eliminate freedom. So, is Free Press’ main goal to shut up people on the web? Maybe, to be honest though, I checked and didn’t see anything to the like, and by looking at their name, mission statements, and press/buzz around their brand, it seemed like they were after quite the opposite. However, that’s not my point here. My point is that regardless of agenda, they are in support of Net Neutrality. And just because they may or may not have said (so far unprovable) agenda, does not mean that is what Net Neutrality is all about. Furthermore, if you actually watch this video, you’ll see that Glenn offer’s up zero proof what-so-ever regarding Free Press’ conspiracy against us. So, that’s Glenn.

Glenn Beck: Free Press vs Free Speech

Also, I recently came across an article on Slashdot.org which was of some interest. It read about a study that was being conducted that postulated that if Net Neutrality laws were to pass, certain sectors of our job market would suffer some pretty heavy losses. This is interesting, because I can see what the study is pointing out. However, certainly regulation of the Web is also a full-time job, if done correctly, and thus I would think we would see job growth in that sector as well. But either way, at the end of the day, I am no economist, and thus will leave this reasoning to you, the reader. Like I said, it was of interest.

The debate on Net Neutrality continues, and it seems like more and more information comes to light just about every day. So, if you hear something, or want to voice your thoughts, sound off in the comments and let us know!

–Update–
Even more developement. I just picked this up hot off the RSS feed from Ars Technica concerning Google’s thoughts and support of Net Neutrality.

-Matt G.