I stumbled upon the following video which may be of interest to babblers.
The video addresses recent efforts by US legislators to promote "access tiering" or "the slow lane", in which internet providers restrict access to the internet. The remedy to this is "net neutrality" which is about choice - who chooses the content that the end-user sees - and is of critical importance for the future of the internet.
Here's some information on the legal status of Net Neutrality in Canada.
This video is 3 years old. There have been many positive developments in the Net Neutrality fight in the US.
As far as [url=http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/net-neutrality-announcement/]Amer... policy[/url] is concerned (from Sept. 21st of this year):
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski delivered Monday on President Obama's promise to back "net neutrality." But he went much further than merely seeking to expand rules that prohibit ISPs from filtering or blocking net traffic - he proposed that they cover all broadband connections, including data connections for smartphones.Genachowski, Obama's law school classmate, announced in a speech Monday at the Brookings Institution his intent to codify and [url=http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-293568A1.pdf]expand the four current broadband principles[/url] (.pdf) known as the Four Freedoms and extend them to all broadband connections. He said that an open internet is necessary for economic growth and democratic participation.
Problem is we are going backwords in highgear.
If the ISPs get their way we'll probably go backwards. But maybe [url=http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/10/15/harvard-fcc-broadband-stud... will shake things up a bit.
Canada has some of the poorest high-speed internet service in the developed world and is an example of what not to do from a policy perspective, according to a study by Harvard University....
Canada was 22nd overall out of 30 countries surveyed by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Canada ranked 16th on broadband adoption, 20th on speed and capacity, and 25th on price. Japan, Sweden and South Korea headed up Harvard's rankings, while the United States placed above Canada at 13th overall.
We're number 22!
The Internet is concentrating in the way other forms of media have, unfortunately.
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/lans/2009/101209lan2.html?ts
Arbor Networks measures network performance for its customers, but it has also used its vantage point to look at overall Internet trends. The company found that the bulk of Internet traffic no longer moves across Tier-1 international transit providers. Instead, the traffic is handled directly by large content providers, content delivery networks and consumer networks. That is, it moves directly from one of these edge networks to another, rather than going over a Tier-1 carrier's backbone.
You can probably guess what some of these rising providers are: Google, Microsoft, Facebook. Arbor says there are about 30 of these companies - which Arbor calls "hyper giants" - that generate and consume about 30% of all Internet traffic.
OTOH, in Finland, fast internet access is becoming a LEGAL RIGHT. Woo Hoo!
I think I've seen a few churches being refurbished along Hwy 17 in Northern Ontario. Harper really is serious about his Keynesian stimulus package. Praise the Lord!
As countries begin to fully understand the implications of universal broadband, a mind-shift is taking place in the minds of the people involved in the decision-making processes, and the split between infrastructure and content is becoming more apparent.
Futile regulations from the past are making this crystal clear. For example, in America, to make sure that the telcos couldn't dominate the Internet, regulations were passed that saw the Internet regulated as content and the rest of the telco business as 'common carriage'. This allowed the cable companies to also become involved in the Internet.
However, as a content service, the telcos started to argue that they could basically do what they wanted—hence the net neutrality issues. Suddenly VoIP became a content service and, as such, could be kept from the infrastructure; even certain political content could be denied by the telcos and cablecos—as common carriage rules didn't apply.
Imagine rural communities having access to high speed "using white space?" This is what government has do to provide universal access to information?
