Unlike my previous attempt at blogging, I really don’t intend for this to be a real tech centric effort… There’s lots of tech blogs out there, and honestly there’s nothing I can add to the tech discussion that they either haven’t or don’t already do…

But there is one tech related issue that I don’t want to ignore. It’s one that concerns me greatly, especially since I guess I’m now technically an ” internet content provider.”

Depending on who you listen to, it’s called either net neutrality or tiered internet services, and you can find out what it is and why I don’t like it by clicking below.

The way the internet works now, the content on this site is delivered to your computer just as quickly as the content from Google, Amazon or any other website. There are really only two factors that affect the delivery of content from this website, the speed of the connection from my host to the vast interweb cloud, and the speed of your connection from your computer through your ISP to their connection to the vast interweb cloud. This is great thing about the interweb, I can work with my interweb host to make sure that the content here on this site gets on to the interweb just as quickly as Fortune 500 companies, or the schmo up the street.

I pay my hosting company to both maintain the servers that house this site, but also to have a big fat data pipe from their hosting facility to the interweb. Big companies do the same thing, although they may maintain their own interweb servers and pay their phone company for the big fat data connections to the interweb. The bottom line though is that when it comes to delivering our content up to the internet my stuff gets there just as fast as stuff coming from CNN or Yahoo.

However, if several of the large telephone companies have their way that could change. According to them, content providers are getting a free ride from the telephone companies. They claim that we’re using their data pipes to send our information to their subscribers for free. According to the telco’s we’re taking advantage of their network infrastructure to deliver our content to you. Never mind the fact that A)YOU pay the telcos to get on to the interweb, B)WE pay the telcos (or in some cases hosting companies who then pay the telcos) to get our information on to the interweb.
The telcos are lobbying Congress for permission to create a “tiered internet” where those content providers who can and do pay the telcos will have their traffic prioritized so that it travels faster across the telco’s network and is delivered to the telcos subscribers faster than traffic coming from content providers who don’t pay to have their traffic prioritized…

Put another way, right now I pay Site5 to host this website and get it onto the internet. I pay AT&T just to access the internet as they’re my ISP, and they supply my broadband connection.
If the telcos get their way I would pay Site5 to host this website and get it onto the internet and I would still pay AT&T to get my own internet access… Then I would have to pay AT&T more to make sure that the traffic from this site could be delivered to you in a reasonable amount of time, plus I would have to pay Verizon, Qwest, BellSouth etc… fees to do the same thing.

It almost sounds like protection money… Pay us to accept your traffic in the first place, oh and now pay us more if you even want it to get to it’s destination…  Except instead of some muscle bound guy who’s middle name is “the” smashing boxes with a baseball bat if I don’t pay, I’d have to pay to keep some dork from messing with router settings…