Amazon, Google, Microsoft & Spotify among companies pushing Day of Action for net neutrali...
A group of 40 technology companies on Wednesday launched a "Day of Action," designed to encourage feedback to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in support of net neutrality regulations -- which are opposed by Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, as well as internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.
A few of the companies participating in the Day of Action -- linked to the industry-based Internet Association -- include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Spotify, and Twitter. In some cases, such as with Reddit and Netflix, businesses are calling deliberate attention to the cause via banners and pop-ups on their websites.
July 12 is also being marked by other pro-neutrality organizations, such as Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Conspicuously absent is Apple, despite the growing importance of services like iCloud Drive and Apple Music. Tim Cook did discuss net neutrality with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015, but the CEO has remained largely quiet otherwise. He has often been vocal about other topics such as privacy, the environment, and LGBT rights.
Net neutrality insists that all traffic be treated equally by ISPs. If the FCC abandons the principle, ISPs could conceivably created tiered experiences in which some sites and services are faster than others -- such as their own, or ones from companies rich enough to pay. In extreme cases options could be throttled, blocked, or hidden behind paywalls.
Companies like T-Mobile have already been skirting the edges of regulations with "zero-rating" practices, in which favored services don't count against bandwidth caps.
On May 18, the FCC voted to advance a Pai proposal to reverse net neutrality protections. The official "Comment Date" on the matter is July 17.
A few of the companies participating in the Day of Action -- linked to the industry-based Internet Association -- include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Spotify, and Twitter. In some cases, such as with Reddit and Netflix, businesses are calling deliberate attention to the cause via banners and pop-ups on their websites.
July 12 is also being marked by other pro-neutrality organizations, such as Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Conspicuously absent is Apple, despite the growing importance of services like iCloud Drive and Apple Music. Tim Cook did discuss net neutrality with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015, but the CEO has remained largely quiet otherwise. He has often been vocal about other topics such as privacy, the environment, and LGBT rights.
Net neutrality insists that all traffic be treated equally by ISPs. If the FCC abandons the principle, ISPs could conceivably created tiered experiences in which some sites and services are faster than others -- such as their own, or ones from companies rich enough to pay. In extreme cases options could be throttled, blocked, or hidden behind paywalls.
Companies like T-Mobile have already been skirting the edges of regulations with "zero-rating" practices, in which favored services don't count against bandwidth caps.
On May 18, the FCC voted to advance a Pai proposal to reverse net neutrality protections. The official "Comment Date" on the matter is July 17.
Comments
As it appears to be a bit un-Apple-y on the surface I wonder if it's an indication of sorts that Apple may have some plans for an internet service provider that favors Apple devices over competing products. Net Neutrality would certainly have an effect on that. Otherwise as the article alludes to it does seem unusual for Mr Cook to avoid commenting on the subject or joining its tech-brethren in the Day of Action.
I can understand why companies like Amazon and Netflix would stand for so called Net Neutrality as they consume inordinate amounts of bandwidth and don't have to worry about building or maintaining the networks that delivery their services to their customers. I used to think net neutrality was a good idea, but the more I think about it, I am not as convinced. The ISP's are being forced to spend millions (maybe billions?) of dollars every year to continue to upgrade their capacity. While my service continues to get more and more expensive every year and it seems to get slower at the same time. So why shouldn't the people who are building and maintaining these networks be able to work out better agreements with the content providers? Network management is a very difficult thing and we are all spoiled with the idea that it's just there. It's not magic and it's not free.
Now, it may well be that Apple knows this and is working with the carriers to ensure that their services are given a most favored content status in the future. This could be good for Apple users in the long run.
And if you think's it's bad now, just wait until VR and the MetaVerse take hold of society.
Also, if I am paying for bandwidth, why should I be subsidizing the advertisers out there with the bandwidth that I am paying for? That hardly seems fair.
Perhaps Apple is starting to realize that getting involved in divisive politics can actually be detrimental to it's business. Or, perhaps they are already working to ensure that their services are given preferential access. I seem to remember an article years ago that alluded to this sort of arrangement but it was scuttled when the so called Net Neutrality rules where passed by the FCC.
VoIP traffic, for example, needs lower latency and time deterministic behavior while an FTP file transfer does not allowing data packets to arrive in any order for final assembly. If your network is maxed out, doing smart prioritization has the potential to keep the QoS of EVERYONE reasonably high VS bad for most. Why should this be illegal?
But there is potential for abuse. Blocking traffic from competitors or slowing it down as to be unusable are the simple ones. Defining these borders and boundaries needs to be done instead of the blanket "All data is equal" mantra. It isn't.
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/
For the pro-neutrality side
https://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/19/these-are-the-arguments-against-net-neutrality-and-why-theyre-wrong/
and against Net Neutrality:
https://notesonliberty.com/2017/05/29/an-argument-against-net-neutrality/
And then there's this one that falls somewhere in the middle
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/net_neutrality_missing/
Seriously tho, NN makes sense. Dumb pipes, that’s all these bozos should be. No different than energy companies -- they should have no say in how the bits are used, their only job is delivering them.
- why should content providers owe ISPs anything? Do air conditioning companies make agreements (payments you mean) to the power companies since ACs use a lot of customers’ power? No, that’s absurd
- travel the rest of the world and see their cheaper, faster internet – then tell me we’re spoiled here.
These are private companies trying to do business. You talk about them as if they owe you something and you're entitled to broadband internet access. I don't know about you, but I manage to use the internet every day at high speed. That isn't going to change. Unless of Net Neutering is increased and these companies are forced into a situation where it is even harder to do reasonable business.
I have Gigabit FIOS. Trust me, I'm not missing out on anything.
https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-connection-speed-by-country.php
ISPs should be providing the infrastructure and charging a competitive price for it. They already have more than enough capacity and are promoting ever higher speeds and capacities. Mobile data will see major change with 5G. Content providers should be optimizing services and content to reduce the strain on certain areas at certain times but the idea of net neutrality is something that should be sacred. Some content providers are in fact collaborating with content delivers already. Facebook/Movistar have just started laying the first 6,000KM stretch of fibre under the ocean.
The solution was for companies to share backbone distribution infrastructure and compensate each other for load.
Something similar happened with fiber. One company in different zones and then there are agreements on leasing out to different providers. The agreements are supervised by government.
In a way it is similar to how international calls used to be handled. Often traffic was lopsided and the companies compensated the imbalances.
Likewise, Comcast, TW and other ISP are trying to maximize their profits and stop declining revenue from cable Viewership by pushing and prioritizing their content over the competition. It is a very complicated issue with lots of different views and there is no simple answer like saying: "ISP should be dumb pipes" or "Net neutrality is absolutely essential from a delivery standpoint."
So when Qualcomm charges both Apple and Apple's suppliers, it's wrong.
But when ISPs charge both content providers and the folk who consume their content, it's okay.
We can't have it both ways, people.