Net Neutrality is the understanding that all packets will be passed along regardless of the sender or receiver. This prevents comcast from saying that you have to pay extra for google.com packets to fly.
You are complaining about service filtering. That is, the provider is filtering certain protocols that it doesn't want to support. This is perfectly acceptable. If you don't like them, switch. DSL might be slow, but there are always plenty of local providers that, for the right price, will not have any special QOS applied to your pipe.
Don't confuse the issues please. It makes people misinformed.
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No I'm not
I'm using a definition of Net Neutrality that is closer to the meaning of the words: A Net that is Neutral to the traffic it carries - aka a dumb pipe.
If you think that it is "perfectly acceptable" to filter protocols that "it doesn't want to support" that means that the end-to-end innovation of the Internet is now subject to ISP approval. That's at the heart of the Net Neutrality issue as far as I'm concerned. So that's the point I am making and it is without any confusion about the issues.
We can argue about whether "if you don't like them, switch" or "plenty of providers" corresponds to the reality of broadband in the US, but that's a whole other question. Probably good for another column, ending in the declaration "if they don't like it they can switch to an unregulated market without public easements and subsidies".
Go dark campaign launched by Copowi
We've also come to the same conclusion that the only way to deal with the abuses of the telcos and cable companies is to go dark. We've launched a new campaign called "Become Invisible for Net's sake!" offering a range of services that make it easy for people to go dark.
But the campaign is more than just about going dark, it is about realizing the only true solution to net neutrality and that is community-owned and operated last mile connections.
Further Explanation
Thank you for providing a cable company's point of view, however, allow me to explain to everyone how QOS works. There are different levels of importance such as: critical/time-sensitive, high, normal, and low. There are many ways of doing this, and any provider or internal network can decide what packets fit into what category.
Blocking, as opposed to assigning an importance factor, is completely different. Blocking any traffic negates the neutrality of any network whether it be a small LAN or a national broadband network. Now that Comcast has specifically begun blocking traffic as its discretion, the beginning of the end is near for a free and open Internet.
The statement "If you don't like them, switch." does not always apply. In most rural areas there is frequently only one provider (if that many). Should those areas be completely exempt for any and all blocking due to the lack of a competitor? If the bells and cable companies take the "switch" attitude, they should be allowed to block or "filter" any traffic only if there is at least one additional provider that is able to serve every customer and specifically does not filter the free speech that the offending company is.
Or, we can enforce neutrality on a national scale and ensure that free speech and innovation will remain constant.
You're confusing being a journalist for being a network engineer
What utter nonsense it is you spew with such headlines, and such statements as "Net Neutrality is the understanding that all packets will be passed along regardless of the sender or receiver."
Sorry I don't understand Net Neutrality that way and making such definitions takes away from the spirit of the counter arguements - which is basically that until very recently any protocol over IP would fly over the net, at maximum available bandwidth from any destination to any other destination - freely and without any degree of interference.
Limiting the argument to mere all or nothing source-destination firewall rules completely misses the point.
If today I have a 1Mbit pipe with my broadband provider and I can send & receive with another broadband customer in some other customer at the same speed, with any protocol over IP and just about any content... that is because neutrality (non-interference) exists from end to end.
The second you allow ISPs to start filtering certain protocols, or allow them to QoS rate-shape them down to less-than-desirable (from the end user's perspective) speeds... that is NOT a Neutral Internet! And that is NOT acceptable!
Suggesting that QoS has nothing to do with is all fine and dandy until one day your pipe to youtube.com is down to 1Kbit/sec and the ISP (by your definition) will not be at fault because all packets are being passed along between sender & receiver... even if they are being passed along so freggin' slow that the end destination might as well be blocked!
Side question: How come we (public) can't see which journalist published this rubbish of an article?
IAB statement on Net Neutrality
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has recently published a document entitled "Reflections on Internet Transparency" that talks about filtering, QoS and other topics relevant to Network Neutrality:
http://www.watersprings.org/pub/rfc/rfc4924.txt
Defnitions...
Neutral -
Neither moral nor immoral; neither good nor evil, right nor wrong
Impersonal: having no personal preference; "impersonal criticism"; "a neutral observer"
One who does not side with any party in a war or dispute.
Lacking distinguishing quality or characteristics; "a neutral personality that made no impression whatever"
Any involvement by ISP's to control, circumvent traffic, and even STOP it, is not being a NEUTRAL party and goes in essence against the idea of the Internet which is a a worldwide network of computers that ALLOWS the "sharing" or "networking" of information at remote sites from other academic institutions, research institutes, private companies, government agencies, and individuals.
One step closer too being no different than Asian Providers who limit what people can see and where they can go!
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