I ran across this article today:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/033015/what-you-should-know-about-net-neutrality.asp
and I liked the author’s description of the problem, it’s worth a quick read from that aspect alone. In short, who’s going to pay for the infrastructure upgrades required to support HD movie streaming? Short answer: you, the customer, but right now ISPs and network providers are in a pissing contest about who pays for what. Listen folks, this is called “contract negotiations”, the principal players will figure it out and pass along the costs to us internet users. That’s called business as usual.
Other Thoughts
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created 100 years ago to regulate and allocate the AM radio frequency spectrum. It has no business still existing, and there was absolutely no excuse for the FCC to be overseeing the internet. Talk about mission creep…
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has plenty of regulatory teeth if Comcast or Charter, or Cox et.al try to go all predatory pricing on us. So relax, nothing to see here…
- States, counties and local governments can and do regulate cable and internet companies, I’m sure they will figure something out that will placate the industry, and screw the end-user. No, wait…
- FYI, network traffic is already prioritized. Your voice phone data packets get a higher network priority than the data packets you’re sending to Amazon to buy Season 35 of Game of Thrones. You want it that way, because if traffic-shaping for VOIP wasn’t done your cell phone calls would suck even more than they already do. (“What? What?? I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up again!”)
- What we don’t want is NetFlix getting throttled so you’ll sign up with Hulu instead because of some shady back room deal made between unknown corporate entities. Won’t happen, sic ’em FTC!
Fearless Prediction: Two years from now, your HD movies will be streaming just fine, and you will have forgotten all about Net Neutrality. Cheers!