Friday, December 8, 2006

Net Neutrality

If I understand net neutrality correctly, it means that all people and businesses get the same service if they pay the same price. Although this might be an oversimplification it seems that the best measure of service is bandwidth and uptime.

Since most broadband downtime is unpredictable, let's just focus on bandwidth. If I want, say 1.5 Mbps up and downstream, I can purchase either DSL for about $120/month or a T-1 for about $400—$500 per month. Both advertise the same bandwidth, but, obviously, the T-1 is going to give me better service. Seems laissez-faire to me - the more I pay the better the service. What's the problem?

A good metaphor for net neutrality would be USPS vs. UPS vs. FedEx. But, if you're telling me that two people can pay the same price for the same service and get different results, well, then, that's very different.

1 comment:

  1. Joe, I think you've got a decent grasp of the basics. I work with the Hands Off The Internet coalition--if you're interested in more on net neutrality, feel free to check out our side of the debate on our blog at http://handsoff.org.

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