Computer concepts

Computer concepts

IT All STARTED in october 2007, when the FCC accused Comcast of slowing and in some cases blocking Internet traffic from BitTorrent. Comcast claimed that it was attempting to even the playing field for the average Internet user whose online speeds
were languishing due to file sharing traffic from a minority of its customers.
Comcast’s ability to adjust some users’ bandwidth for the benefit of other users might seem beneficial until you consider that ISPs could manipulate Internet speeds to give preferential
access to certain sites and
“preserve the Internet as an open platform enabling consumer choice, freedom of expression, end-user control, competition, and the freedom to innovate without permission.”
Shortly after the Open Internet Order, Comcast was back in court again to contest the FCC’s right to regulate the Internet. The court ruled in favor of Comcast, based on the fact that the FCC’s jurisdiction did not extend to the Internet.
Yet the FCC persisted. In 2014, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a compromise form of net neutrality that
services while slowing access
to others. That practice could essentially give ISPs the power to deny access to sites based
on business, political, or other
Today’s action at the
FCC could begin the dismantling of the open
would allow ISPs to offer “faster lane” options at a premium rate to content providers such as Netflix, Facebook, and Amazon. That proposal absolutely
confused the issue; the FCC’s provalues.
Internet as we know it…
What if your ISP institutes a Senator Edward J. Markey
system whereby you have to
pay extra for high-bandwidth
posed version of net neutrality was not neutral at all.
Opponents to this new non-neutral neutrality
pointed out that considering the
services, such as movie downloads? You might be
thinking, “There ought to be a law against that!” That is exactly the opinion of net neutrality supporters.
The term net neutrality was created by Columbia media law professor Tim Wu in 2003 in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. Although the term net neutrality is relatively new, its roots can be traced to pre-1860 telegram technology. Back then, standard telegrams were routed equally, without discrimination, and without regard to their contents, source, or recipient. Telegraphs were end-to-end neutral networks. Because telegraph and-later-telephone networks were considered to be public utilities, or common carriers, they were not allowed to give preferential treatment to one customer over another. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was formed to regulate common carriers and ensure equal access and fair prices.
As the Internet evolved into a massive communication network, the FCC began to regard it as a common carrier that should fall under the FCC’s umbrella of influence. The first step would be to ban ISPs from slowing or blocking traffic indiscriminately. In 2010, under the banner of net neutrality, the FCC issued the Open Internet Order, a set of regulations designed to
finite amount of bandwidth available on the Internet, users outside the proposed “faster lanes” would have their bandwidth squeezed while the added cost of fast lane services would be passed directly on to the consumers of such services.
Additionally, opponents of this idea feared that the operational costs for fast-lane services would skyrocket and those costs would pose barriers to startups that operate on small budgets-thus, stifling innovation and competition. The FCC’s “faster lanes” brand of net neutrality satisfied no one.
The net neutrality controversy boils down to simple ideology: Should the government regulate the Internet or not? On the one hand, regulation could prevent abusive business practices on the part of ISPs. On the other hand, if the Internet were to fall under the regulatory control of the FCC, where would the regulation end? The FCC currently regulates telephone and cellular service. It imposes a variety of taxes and fees that add to your monthly bill. Would similar taxes and fees be added to your monthly Internet service? And would FCC Internet monitoring add yet more points where the government can collect data on the activities of its citizens?
Before posting to the Unit 2 Discussion Forum, reread the section in Unit 3 on page 218 called “Issue: Who Will Control the Internet?” First, find an article (online or in print) that you believe relates to this section. Blog posts, Tweets, and Wikipedia entries are not acceptable! Provide a brief summary (a two (2) to four (4) sentence paragraph) of the article in your own words. Points will be deducted from your score if you simply copy and paste parts of the article into your discussion post! Second, tell us Why the article relates to the section from the text. This second part should again be a two to four sentence paragraph that specifically explains why the article relates to the section in the textbook. For print articles you need to provide a complete citation. For example, if you use Nicholas Carr’s article “IT Doesn’t Matter”, you would need to provide a complete citation as below: Carr, N. G. (2003). IT Doesn’t Matter. Harvard Business Review, 81(5), 41-49. For an online article, you need to provide the specific web address to allow someone to find the article. So, if you use the Bloomberg Businessweek article “Defending Against Hackers of the Future,” it’s not enough to give the address: www.businessweek.com However, the address below that would let me or someone find the article would be enough: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-28/for-quantum-hackings-threat-startups-offer-futureproofing#r=nav-f-story