I've always struggled a bit with the concept of net neutrality. Leigislation should improve/secure freedom of choice. If it is about keeping providers from throttling traffic based on the traffic-source ( = prohibition of choices) I'm all for it.
But what about my freedom to choose a slower connection? Or one without video chat capacities? I propably would be ok with paying half the price if my traffic has not the highest priority.
When I had less income, an internet connection might have been more affordable if I wasn't forced to buy traffic capacities I didn't need. I have a couple of friends who still struggle to afford internet (sadly, the more time passes without internet access, the harder it'll get for them to ever improve on their income).
Does the "net neutrality" concept differentiate between "intent of usage" and "interest of usage"? The first to me seems more important to be kept neutral.
(What I mean by the latter might be better expalined with the 19th century rail-pricing systems where you had 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passengers. 3rd class was dirty, packed and propably pathoenic. But more importantly, the "3rd class" could afford the ride. )
My understanding, and what I mean by Net Neutrality is that ISPs should treat packets that I access equally. This does not prevent ISPs from providing tiered services or instituting network caps.
For example, if I get a plan that promises:
1) 5 mbs download
2) 1 mbs upload
3) 15 GB usage cap
The ISP is well within it's rights to provide me with such a slow connection, as long as the packets I access on that slower connection are treated equally.
Net Neutrality is not concerned with providing everyone the same internet speeds, but rather that packets are treated equally (ie throttle all packets equally, instead of discriminating against certain packets).
I'm still confused why/if an ISP shouldn't be able to go further with offering me a "Non-You-Tube/Grooveshark-Plan" if it would be cheaper. I guess one critical point is that my data packages should not be looked into for privacy issues. But considering your mentioned plan: You could be rewarded for not using the 5mbs bandwith constantly.
So instead of looking into the data packages, using the "length of a data stream" to penalize heavy-users shouldn't be at odds with net neutrality. Right?
That's right, penalizing heavy users is not against net neutrality, although depending on how a company goes about doing this it could yield some pretty bad PR (see: AT&T throttling of users that have Unlimited plans).
As to why an ISP should not be able to go further with offering you a "Non-You-Tube/Grooveshark-Plan", that is actually the main thing that Net Neutrality was created to stop. ISPs filtering traffic and access to websites based on content.
The greatest fear that proponents of Net Neutrality have is that ISPs will begin walling off the Internet and restricting access to sites in an effort to increase profits.
Currently, the internet is the closest thing that society has to pure competition and freedom of expression.
Imagine if when Facebook first started, MySpace had spent millions paying ISPs to slow down all traffic to Facebook.com, they would have effectively killed it.
Or imagine if a rich billionaire on the Right (or the Left) did not like what a certain website was saying about him and/or his ideology, he would be able to pay ISPs to slow down all traffic to those sites (thus providing a chilling effect on free speech and expression).
And anyway, if your aim is to reduce the cost of an internet connection, the best thing to do would be to increase competition among ISPs. Without competition, even if the costs of ISPs go down, they have no incentive to decrease prices (unless doing so could increase their bottom line), in fact, they may even increase prices if the choice to consumers is either pay more for internet or have NO internet at all.
A large problem with the high cost of the Internet is that many ISPs either through the government become the only company that can legally provide Internet service in an area (government supported monopoly), OR like it is where I live (Montreal, Canada) there is a small number of ISPs and they have carved out regions that they have decided NOT to compete.
But what about my freedom to choose a slower connection? Or one without video chat capacities? I propably would be ok with paying half the price if my traffic has not the highest priority.
When I had less income, an internet connection might have been more affordable if I wasn't forced to buy traffic capacities I didn't need. I have a couple of friends who still struggle to afford internet (sadly, the more time passes without internet access, the harder it'll get for them to ever improve on their income).
Does the "net neutrality" concept differentiate between "intent of usage" and "interest of usage"? The first to me seems more important to be kept neutral.
(What I mean by the latter might be better expalined with the 19th century rail-pricing systems where you had 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passengers. 3rd class was dirty, packed and propably pathoenic. But more importantly, the "3rd class" could afford the ride. )