The Blue Elephant Brigade

Exzavier

I think this year maybe the end of the internet as we know it today.

A couple reasons:

No Net Neutrality - I think we are very close to the day when ISPs will start charging to bring your content to their subscribers over their network. Especially with Netflix, Roku, Boxee, Amazon VOD. It could go either of two ways. ISPs charge netflix $1 Million/mo to deliver their content or ISPs charge the customers an extra $4.99/mo to gain access to netflix or itunes etc.

Caps - ATT just announced they would be placing 100gig caps on their U-Verse customers. Comcast has a 250gig cap. Will Verizon match these caps? Will Comcast lower their cap? Mobile 3G caps are only 2GIG in some cases.

Speed - Some people cannot even get internet still and have to choose slow satellite. Japan, S. Korea, Hong Kong all have 1GBPS networks. We need to get atleast 100MBPS connections to the home going here in the states.

Price - There are no rules stating what the ISPs have to charge. This falls into Caps. They can charge you whatever they want if you go over. Just like on 3G plans.

Anti-Community Broadband Networks - Large ISPs are fighting to prevent towns from building out their own internet and tv networks if they are fed up with the poor service or lack of service from the ISPs.
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Mongolio · Brigadier Elite Joined: 25 Mar 2005 Posts: 4976

I can't help but think of Chicken Little when I see your thread title, but I think you are nearly correct.
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Ryken · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:13 am Post subject:

I agree, Ex, and it's disheartening to think that more people don't see it.
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Izane Bricks · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:53 am Post subject:

Just a minor correction (as I am a U-Verse subscriber):

Akuma · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:07 am Post subject:

Caps aren't really a big deal, we've had them forever and it's never bothered me.
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Mishlai · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:56 am Post subject:

The lack of net neutrality and the opposition to community networks are the only things on that list that concern me. Net neutrality in particular.

Regarding the rest of it... ISP's are being asked to carry more and more traffic for roughly the same money, so it's only reasonable that at some point they will have to cap usage, or more likely charge based on usage. A smaller fraction of the people are using a large portion of the bandwidth, so most users aren't going to be impacted.
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Smitty · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:32 pm Post subject:

I think the government needs to keeps its grubby paws off the net and stick a shoe horn up the ass of the FCC. We don't need government interference. Let Capitalism do its thing. Competition between ISP's will keep the prices reasonable. The less the government touches the better.
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Trassin · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:14 pm Post subject:

I agree with Smitty. Government needs to stay the hell away from the internet, in every way. I do not want the information super highway turning into this century's version of the shitty highways I drive home on every day.

Oh look! We can all use it, and it's free (never mind my taxes), to bad it fucking sucks.
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midget · Brigadier Veteran Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 2263

Saying the internet doesn't need policing on some level is pretty irresponsible. Not sure that's what any of you were getting at though.

Also, Michigan had some of this a couple years ago and it got rolled back so all is not lost.
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Madhatte · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject:

WE DON'T NEED ROME TELLING US WHAT TO DO

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We are going to have to stick a pin in a map, set fire to something and carry on until the earth looks flat! -- RandyMac

I could teach you to how file a washer to make it worth a nickel but if you really want to make big bucks just take a penny and drill a hole in it and it becomes a washer and is worth a dime. -- Art Martin, Old-Time Logger

Trassin · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:18 pm Post subject:

Mongolio · Brigadier Elite Joined: 25 Mar 2005 Posts: 4976

That's the problem, I guess. If they make all sorts of laws regarding the internet, then a huge number of things are now explicitly illegal, thus the guh'ment is butting in where they don't belong.
_________________
Core meltdown (commonly known as a meltdown) is an accident scenario in nuclear reactors, and is one of the possible modes of failure for light water reactors, during which the reactor pile turns into a pile of reactor.
---RationalWiki

If Jesus had existed, his DNA would have been 99% similar to that of a chimpanzee. Or you. You're 99% Jesus.
-- RationalWiki

midget · Brigadier Veteran Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 2263

Trassin · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 3:19 am Post subject:

Mishlai · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:34 pm Post subject:

We've had this conversation before. I continue to believe that regulation is necessary to prevent abuse. The premise of capitalism - that greed will drive us towards the greatest common outcome - only works if that greed has to operate within parameters.
_________________
You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

"The stars died so that you could be here today" - Lawrence Krauss

"The universe is huge and old, and rare things happen all the time." - Lawrence Krauss

Mishlai · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:35 pm Post subject:

Oh, and while we're talking about the internet: I give it a fair amount of credit for the revolutions that are spreading like wildfire. The internet is "power to the people" like nothing else that human history has ever seen.
_________________
You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

"The stars died so that you could be here today" - Lawrence Krauss

"The universe is huge and old, and rare things happen all the time." - Lawrence Krauss

Trassin · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:40 pm Post subject:

Smitty · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:51 pm Post subject:

Madhatte · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:21 pm Post subject:

Meanwhile: my post above is still the best in this thread. Suck it, word-speakers.
_________________
We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots. -- Louis CK

We are going to have to stick a pin in a map, set fire to something and carry on until the earth looks flat! -- RandyMac

I could teach you to how file a washer to make it worth a nickel but if you really want to make big bucks just take a penny and drill a hole in it and it becomes a washer and is worth a dime. -- Art Martin, Old-Time Logger

Smitty · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:41 pm Post subject: