Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Network Neutrality

Ever notice that lag on your network that comes when your server shows no high connection activity? Often networks are bogged down by area congestion. Cable Internet in particular is notorious for bottlenecks created during peak usage hours. What are some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) doing to combat this? Offering to "fix" the problem by charging you more! Comcast is the biggest ISP throughout the country. Despite bad publicity associated with the move, they recently decided to offer faster service for a premium fee. Needless to say, businesses already feeling the squeeze are not happy.

Network neutrality is a principle that all ISPs and government agencies should treat data equally and not charge more based on content, area, device, platform or wallet size. If your neighbor runs a business with several employees out of his home, is it fair that you should be given a slower connection? Grant it there are some people that abuse bandwidth and ruin it for everyone. Monthly bandwidth caps could be put in place for the worst abusers to ensure people could still enjoy even streaming video within a reasonable amount. For such a cap to be justified, that bandwidth usage would have to be truly far in excess of the average user. This would also protect critical response systems particularly in health care. What is your opinion? How could we counterbalance the rights of consumers and still safeguard key technologies that protect us in emergencies without contradicting ourselves and the principal of network neutrality?

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