Richard Branson hates you!

[Ultra Magnus]

Just found out about this, thought some of you might be interested.
If not, you should be.

http://stopvirgin.movielol.org

The new CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett, has openly stated in an interview that they think net neutrality is “a load of bollocks” and claimed they're already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others. They would then put websites and services that don't pay Virgin in the "slow lane", meaning those sites would load slowly and cause most users to give up using them, feeling forced to use whatever Virgin wants to push through their network.

This is not the first time an internet provider infringes upon net neutrality, but it is the first time that an ISP so brutally states that they simply plan to limit internet access to a television-like system in which the access provider completely regulates the content you have access to.

Virgin Media has over 3.5 million customers in the UK and the real danger is that when they start applying this system to their network, all major internet providers around the globe will soon follow the trend. Because this is exactly what major ISP's have been wanting to do for years.

It's in Revelations, people!

[Buckethead]

Wow they make it sound serious  :o Maybe it is...

But then. How is a company going to make sure everything goes slow? Virgin media is not the host of everthing on the web. How are they going to stop me if I pay for super speedy internet and host files?

[MrColossal]

If all ISPs start doing this then let's say... Some people want to try a new internet search engine, they have some good ideas and think they can make something useful. They start working on it, can't pay the fees to be put in the "fast lane" of internet speeds, no one uses their search engine because it's too slow and they go out of business.

Let's pretend that that company was Google.

Let's pretend 2 brothers wanted to start an internet cartoon and they couldn't pay to be put on the fast lane, there goes Homestar Runner.

I just can't imagine how internet start-ups would get by with this new business model.

[Darth Mandarb]

I hope they do it.

It will be a great way to teach them a lesson they clearly haven't learned.

I really don't get why corporations think they can get away with this kind of shit.

If they do this, people will simply find a new (perhaps better) way of getting online.  It's like the music labels fighting against mp3.  They will not win.  Take away one way of getting something, the people will find another way.  The internet will simply not be controlled in this fashion.  I'm surprised they're even considering it, but hey ... stupidity seems to be what humanity is [d]evolving to these days.

* shrugs *

[Ali]

I agree.

If all else fails, we'll just go back to the days of dial-up speeds... and go around clubbing one another and hunting mammoths, or whatever it was we did then.

[Nikolas]

I don't mind dial-up or close to that speeds. Are they nuts? Will I give up AGS because of that?

What a stupid bunch of morons...

[Darth Mandarb]

You know ... were I the owner of an ISP I would totally go along with Virgin (and all other idiots that think this is a good idea) and then when they put it in place I would not follow suit.  I would then make BILLIONS when all their customers leave them and come to me!

Guess it goes to show an ivy-league education doesn't necessarily equate to intelligence.  Dolts.

[Nacho]

I don' t get a word... 

[Akatosh]

I hope all ISPs do this at once. I mean, hey, the US will be all over it and we all know there's no such thing as "Europe", "Asia" or "Australia". It would be a perfect opportunity to start up a small corporation that offers a "Freedom Flatrate" for way-above-fucking-competition fees that ignores this system. Profit + looking like the good guy! 

/EDIT: Britain, America, the moon... it's all the same.

[RickJ]

Here is a site devoted to net neutrality.   There is an online petition you can sign, etc...

http://savetheinternet.com/=faq

[Nacho]

I still don' t get what is net neutrality, ISPs, etc...

What I think I understand is that "The THING is bad".

What I don't understand is Akatosh' post:

"I hope Virgin does it, so the rest of the world will be able to say "We don' t have that evil thing that the americans do have"

But... Ain' t Virgin British?

[Nikolas]

Nacho,

Your internet provider, can introduce various speeds, according to the webpages you want to view. So pages that have paid (youtube, yahoo, for example) will go extra fast, while other pages which have not paid, or don't have enough views, for example AGS, will go slowly.

Bottom line? You either pay the toll, as a website owner, to go fast and not lose your traffic, or you don't and die in the slow lane desert.

Virgin, as far as I know, is British, yes.

[Nacho]

Thanks Nik

[Pumaman]

I don't see the problem with this. It's not going to end up with free websites running at dial-up speeds, it'll simply mean that websites who pay a premium can guarantee that their users can see their content at full quality, all the time.

Suppose Youtube introduced an HD version that streamed at 10 Mbps -- at peak times most people wouldn't be able to watch videos without them stuttering due to bandwidth congestion. But if Youtube paid a fee for their traffic to be given priority, it would ensure that you could watch the videos properly at any time. It wouldn't affect normal websites like AGS -- customers wouldn't put up with an ISP that ran everything so slowly.

Really, it's the same argument as toll roads. For most of the day, you can just use a free road and get to your destination fine. But at peak times, the free roads are heavily congested and so if you want to can pay a toll to use the toll road instead and get there faster. Why should the net be any different?

[EldKatt]

Really, it's the same argument as toll roads. For most of the day, you can just use a free road and get to your destination fine. But at peak times, the free roads are heavily congested and so if you want to can pay a toll to use the toll road instead and get there faster. Why should the net be any different?

What? If they were charging people for accessing the most popular sites (to avoid congestion in the tubes or something) I could buy the comparison. Or if we're talking about the fact that ISPs want you to pay them so they can do their stuff, just like some roads are financed by tolls. But in this case, what's happening is that a company is paying an ISP in exchange for aiding the delivery of their product, giving them a market advantage. Toll roads do not work that way, in my humble experience.

Now, if I were an ISP I just wouldn't do this, because I think it's unethical and stupid. But I'm a bit skeptical (though I haven't reflected much on this and have no firm opinion) about legislated "net neutrality". Maybe I ought to move with the times, but to me an ISP is just a guy with a huge router, who lets people plug into it for a fee. Why shouldn't he get to do what he likes with it? If he does something stupid (which I think this is, along with morally wrong and so on), people will plug their stuff in somewhere else (I sure would), and others will complain about it (I sure would, if asked). That's the beauty of freedom and that stuff. When it works, that is. If it turns out that everybody starts doing this, and nobody cares, then we're entering dangerous territory (I mean it), but I don't think we're there yet.

[tube]

It wouldn't affect normal websites like AGS.

But it would! There would still be congestion and now these high bandwidth services would take priority, thus slowing down the rest. The only way this wouldn't affect the "normal websites" is if they beefed up the intertubes (pardon my overly technical jargon) to avoid the congestion altogether, but why would anyone pay for the faster lines in that case? Of course, this doesn't mean everything else goes at dial-up speeds, but I still find this quite disturbing.

I'm not the least bit surprised if some ISP does something like this by the way. It's business after all. Bad business in my opinion and of dubious morality, but I doubt they're interested in my views on the subject.

[Nikolas]

Problem with anything to do with legislation is that it should be based on the freedom to express opinion, choice, etc, which this thing won't affect.

I was discussing it with my wife and she said that it's illegal because it cencors stuff. But it doesn't! That's the whole point!

It actually makes sense for Virgin, I'm sorry to say...

I mean, the way out is this: Imagine Virgin decides to install a new network of some sort... Faster, better, etc. (they already have according to adds in the tube). Anyways. They make a "new road", a new "highway". That highway is reserved for people who pay the toll! Not the users, but the websites! adventuregamestudio.co.uk didn't pay? Oh that's too bad. It can't be on that lane! Yahoo did? YAY for yahoo!

Nobody's stoping anything, they're just making it immensly difficult. (<-While AGS won't be really affected, in my case where I exchange lots of MB daily (audio is heavily), it might just be a problem. I mean a 5 minute tune could be 5 MB. With my current connection it takes a few secs. In dial-up it takes close to 10 minutes I imagine. And the problem is that the people interested in my website, will be a bunch of different people... So they won't necessarily have paid "the toll". Plus the toll is to be paid by me, not my potential clients.

EDIT: business is business and has nothing to do with morality, or anything at all! sorry! (this is going to tube). Don't confuse different things...

[EldKatt]

I mean, the way out is this: Imagine Virgin decides to install a new network of some sort... Faster, better, etc. (they already have according to adds in the tube). Anyways. They make a "new road", a new "highway". That highway is reserved for people who pay the toll! Not the users, but the websites! adventuregamestudio.co.uk didn't pay? Oh that's too bad. It can't be on that lane! Yahoo did? YAY for yahoo!

It's completely new and unfamiliar to me (I was unaware of this issue until I stumbled upon this thread), but all the Big Guys seem to be using this rhetoric: that the websites are their customers. The common rhetoric seems (from what little I've learned in the past minutes) to be: "They are using our TUBES, and somebody has to be pay for these TUBES, so it's only fair that they pay us!" Well, they already are, in my old-fashioned view of the world: the customers of the ISP, the users, pay for their connection. But the understated premise here is that websites ought to pay the ISPs for their distribution services. The guys driving on the hypothetical toll road are Yahoo and Google, not you and I, and we're not driving on the Big Highway to see them: they're driving to see us. This model implies that the medium belongs, in some way, to the providers (with money), rather than the users. Is that bad for the world? It might be. Is it bad for the good old Internet? Probably.

[Pumaman]

But it would! There would still be congestion and now these high bandwidth services would take priority, thus slowing down the rest. The only way this wouldn't affect the "normal websites" is if they beefed up the intertubes (pardon my overly technical jargon) to avoid the congestion altogether, but why would anyone pay for the faster lines in that case?

If an ISP squeezed the non-premium traffic down to such a slow speed that it was annoying/unusable, then nobody would use that ISP and they'd go bust -- so they wouldn't do it.

The more likely thing that'd happen would be that the premium content would be allowed to eat into the bandwidth currently used by peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, which account for a large proportion of overall traffic and can be slowed down without causing much user impact.

But the understated premise here is that websites ought to pay the ISPs for their distribution services. The guys driving on the hypothetical toll road are Yahoo and Google, not you and I, and we're not driving on the Big Highway to see them: they're driving to see us.

I think the whole reason for this "premium content" thing being considered is that there are now more and more high-bandwidth applications such as video being used on the internet. If ISP's try to keep buying more and more bandwidth to enable it all to download at top speed, they'd have to put prices up to you and me.

Therefore, a way of keeping the prices down to the consumer is to charge the content provider instead. If they don't do this, then in a couple of years we'll end up in one of two situations:
(1) most high-bandwidth content like video streaming becomes unusable at peak times due to bandwidth congestion
(2) end-users like you and me start having to pay per GB for data downloaded, thus funding the network from the other side

Taking this into account, charging the providers sounds like the fairest way to do it.

[EldKatt]

I think the whole reason for this "premium content" thing being considered is that there are now more and more high-bandwidth applications such as video being used on the internet. If ISP's try to keep buying more and more bandwidth to enable it all to download at top speed, they'd have to put prices up to you and me.

Therefore, a way of keeping the prices down to the consumer is to charge the content provider instead. If they don't do this, then in a couple of years we'll end up in one of two situations:
(1) most high-bandwidth content like video streaming becomes unusable at peak times due to bandwidth congestion
(2) end-users like you and me start having to pay per GB for data downloaded, thus funding the network from the other side

Taking this into account, charging the providers sounds like the fairest way to do it.

That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that side of it, which is indeed a more legitimate excuse. However, we can still hope that the technology fairy brings us cheaper bandwidth as the demand rises... Indeed, that has been happening forever, hasn't it? It's not like bandwidth today costs just as much as it did in 1990, and ISPs have just been paying more and more for it...