The Internet Should Be Neutral

There is a lot of discussion in the US on the request of Telco companies to discriminate the traffic that passed by their networks. The reasoning behind this request is that Telcos built and own the expensive infrastructure therefore should be allowed to give preference to traffic generated by their customers. In other words, they are planning to sell services like Voice Over IP or Video Streaming and give preference to this premium traffic.

For us that are not premium subscribers means that our VOIP connections will be worse quality and video streaming much slower. Or worse, they may decide to completely block traffic on VOIP or related network ports unless the subscriber pays a premium.

If you think this is not already affecting you, think twice. There is a trend in the US to make the consumer pay twice for the same service. It’s like calling a mobile phone from another mobile phone, both parties are paying for the call, unlike in Europe. If I send an SMS to my wife I end up paying twice for the same message, I am taxed as the sender and again on the receiving end. Never mind that both numbers are on the same family plan under my name.

If this trend continues it won’t be long until you’ll pay iTunes for the song about to download and your ISP for the right to download it. Never mind you are already paying $49.99 per month for your “unlimited” Internet connection. Or worse, we may soon pay for each email sent and received. Imagine sending an email to yourself, no more of those bandwidth guzzlers.

This is where the US government should intervene and set some rules to level the plain field like it did decades ago with the utilities. After all, much of this expensive Telco infrastructure was financed by US taxpayers, so again we’ll end up paying twice.

Technorati Tags: Internet, Net Neutrality