

Net Neutrality Gets Boost from Feds - ALee
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10278484-94.html

======
grandalf
How do HN readers feel about net neutrality?

I generally oppose it -- why prevent google from making a deal to offer me
free access in exchange for blocking bing ?

~~~
endtwist
While you have a legitimate opinion, I would like to make the counter-
argument:

Why allow an ISP to force one service or website to pay for "enhanced" access,
while another service gets a free pass?

If you run a website, you are already paying for your bandwidth to _your_ ISP
and the customer of the ISP on the other end is already paying for their
bandwidth. By throttling websites until they pay for "enhanced" access to
customers, the ISPs would be getting paid twice for the bandwidth.

The consumer ISPs could then charge exorbitant rates -- should they so choose
-- to companies (such as Google and Microsoft) if they want their website(s)
un-throttled. Meanwhile, the ISP could run their own "competing" service, pay
nothing, and make a run at unfairly overtaking another service (for their
group of customers) because the other service couldn't/wouldn't pay up.

Doesn't seem quite so fair to me.

Also: "Areas where less than 50 percent of households have no access to
broadband will be considered underserved and eligible for grants."

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems there is an extra "no" in there?

~~~
grandalf
Should ISPs be prohibited from making deals with companies like google to
colocate CDN servers?

Why shouldn't ISPs be required to make all CDNs open and allow any company to
host its assets there to create an even playing field for content? Why should
google's pages load faster on someone's computer than my startup's?

