Showing posts with label isp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label isp. Show all posts

Thursday, January 24, 2008

700MHz Auction Starts Today!


Say "goodbye" to TV over the air, and hopefully "hello" to a faster, more competitive, easier to use data environment.
It all depends on who wins this auction, and the FCC will be posting info on their site.
With the USA falling farther and farther behind every other industrialized country in terms of broadband reach AND speed of our network (coupled with the fact that with no true competition in the ISP arena thanks to a collusive market, we pay more for less), it's getting more and more depressing to think that we invented the damn thing (the internet that is ... I know I know CERN and all that other mess... but come on).
This auction could be a watershed moment in the history of telecommunications. It could radically change how we consume data, how we pay for it. It could help spread fast cheap access to even the most disadvantaged or rural.

Or it could get gobbled up by some mega-corp and we'll continue to pay more for less, subsidizing these industries with tax dollars, paying for horrible service, and languishing behind the rest of the world.

I'll push it even farther. This could seal our irrelevance to the rest of the world. There, I said it.

Anywho, check out the auction at the FCC site, and if you really want to learn more about the players involved, and what impact this could have on us Amuricans, Gizmodo had a great write up that you should check out.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

This is what happens without Net Neutrality! ISPs to BBC: We will throttle iPlayer unless you pay up

Yeah,
This is no longer academic.
This is no longer theoretical.
Without Net Neutrality the ISP's have been given carte blanche to pretty much black mail anyone they want over bandwidth consumption.
We're only just seeing the beginnings now:
"Network neutrality debates aren't theoretical in the UK, where ISPs have banded together to tell the BBC that its iPlayer TV "catch-up" service will destroy their networks. The choice: be throttled or pay up."

read more | digg story

It made me SO angry watching that Ted Stevens video (where he explains to us proles that the internet is a "series of tubes"), and then watching the FTC cave on Neutrality. A lot of businesses are going to be pissed when their bandwidth bills surge.

Do you like online shopping (at major marketplaces such as Amazon or Ebay)?
Those sites use a lot of Bandwidth.
Do you like streaming movies and music (Youtube, Netflix, iTunes)?
Those sites use TONS of Bandwidth.

All of these services and many more are going to become substantially more expensive unless Neutrality is protected.

Just for a little levity, here's the Ninja's explanation of Net Neutrality: