What will the end of net-neutrality mean for Ubuntu/Linux?

[tommcd]

As most of you probably know, at least here in the USA, we are headed for a tiered internet where the ISPs will charge more to web sites for priority service. Thus, the Googles, Yahoos, and Microsofts will be able to afford priority service to reach their customers, but smaller independent and innovative sites (like this one for example) will be relegated to the slow lanes to reach people who want their content.
What will this mean for Linux and open source software? Will downloading Ubuntu ISOs take longer, or be more likely to be corrupted? Will it be more difficult to get software and updates via synaptic and apt-get, or at souceforge? Would this forum have to pay more for bandwidth to reach us in a timely manner?
What do you people think???

[Kvark]

It won't mean anything because it won't happen. Nobody would pay for fast broadband only to specific sites that sponsor the ISP. Specially since the majority of the broadband traffic is pirated content and p2p networks won't pay the ISPs. It would be like buying a 40" TV that shows only channels that sponsor Sony in 40" and all other channels in 20". People will buy broadband from ISPs that don't try to choose which sites their customers visit.

[woedend]

What do you people think???

I think that the search feature of this forum is an oft overlooked tool.
ok ok smart alleckness aside, I don't think it will do much of anything if even enacted. And I agree with Kvark.
But they own the lines, it's their choice. If they mess up, something will spring anew.

[tommcd]

Ah, well, I see this has been discussed before.
I think you underestimate the the ramifications of this though. It's not like we have much of a choice of ISPs. Most people are lucky if they have more than broadband provider in their area. Furthermore, the potential for ISPs to block or slow down web sites that compete with their preferred providers is a real possibility. It's not like this hasn't been done before. AOL for example, attempts to keep it's customers on sites affiliated with AOL-Time Warner. But there are lots of dial-up providers. This is not the case with broadband, as the telcos have government sanctioned monopoplies in most areas.

[mozetti]

It will mean the same for Ubuntu/Linux and any other OS out there. Any changes in this realm won't be platform-dependent.

And, I'm not quite sure you fully understand the likely implementation of a tiered system, if it even happens (as you can tell, I'm skeptical about it coming to fruition). In all liklihood, they wouldn't be tiering it in a way that everyone needs to pay to have access/quick access. The tiering that would probably be put in place would be for:

-streaming video & audio
-VOIP
-P2P traffic
-large file transfers (server to client connections, not P2P).
-prioritizing ISP-provided content to the customer

So, the possibility that these forums will have to pay a "ransom" in order to get to us isn't very likely. One way it might affect it is d/l the ISOs - but, the nature of P2P provides a good mechanism to negate these effects.

I agree that the preservation of net neutrality is important, but IMO there is alot of exaggeration coming from both sides. Fortunately, someone in the U.S. Senate has recognized the importance of the debate, even if he might not fully understand it, and delayed passage of the bill until it can be looked at thoroughly.

[Kvark]

This is not the case with broadband, as the telcos have government sanctioned monopoplies in most areas.
Where I live we have a free market. You can choose any provider you want for cellphone, normal wired phone and broadband via the phone wire. I kinda assumed it was the same in the US since they say US is supposed to be the land of the free. But if the ISPs have a monopoly in an area each over there then I guess they can go ahead and screw over their trapped customers as much as they want to. :(

Do you americans at least get to choose which power company to buy electricity from?

[.t.]

Where I live we have a free market. You can choose any provider you want for cellphone, normal wired phone and broadband via the phone wire. I kinda assumed it was the same in the US since they say US is supposed to be the land of the free. But if the ISPs have a monopoly in an area each over there then I guess they can go ahead and screw over their trapped customers as much as they want to. :(

Do you americans at least get to choose which power company to buy electricity from?
I like in England, and we here have a free market, although I think our government is taking more and more power every day. But that's another story. I can choose my mobile phone provider, my internet provider, my telephone provider, my TV provider. I can't choose the water company, as it's area-dependent.

[.t.]

Double post.

[rcarring]

I think if Comcast or AT&T started picking and choosing which sites to load faster and which sites to load slower, their customer base would pummel them with support calls asking why their connection has suddenly slowed down. If you create enough fuss, they send out an engineer and tweak the local node to make it faster.

[BWF89]

More people should join the EFF to fight for their electronic freedoms.

http://www.eff.org/about/

me, I plan to join when I'm 18 or I have a job.

[H.E. Pennypacker]

I know some people want to play down net neutrality's potential impact, but I am afraid. I don't want to see a change in how I use the Internet.


Where I live we have a free market. You can choose any provider you want for cellphone, normal wired phone and broadband via the phone wire. I kinda assumed it was the same in the US since they say US is supposed to be the land of the free. But if the ISPs have a monopoly in an area each over there then I guess they can go ahead and screw over their trapped customers as much as they want to. :(

Do you americans at least get to choose which power company to buy electricity from?

In the United States, we don't have that kind of a freedom. If there is one cable company near you, you either go with that cable company, or you go with a satellite company. So, you have only two choices when it comes to TV: Cable or Satellite.

The same is true for Internet. You either go with dial-up (any company you like), Cable (only the cable company in your area), or Internet via Satellite. Yes, there are a lot of companies that will provide dial-up, and that is because they can share all the cables and everything, but the same is not true for Broadband Cable Internet. That is because only your Cable company owns the cables that are running throughout the city. This stuff is not shared.

As for phone, well, you can pick any cell phone provider, but not the land-line phone. You have to go with the phone service provider in your area, unless you want to with alternatives (VOIP, Digital Phone, etc.).

Whatever the case: if there is no sharing of commercial property, you're stuck with the company that bought the property first.

[.t.]

What happened to ADSL? That shares cables - down the phone line. Or is it only found here in Europe?

[G Morgan]

I like in England, and we here have a free market, although I think our government is taking more and more power every day. But that's another story. I can choose my mobile phone provider, my internet provider, my telephone provider, my TV provider. I can't choose the water company, as it's area-dependent.

What did you expect with this Socialist come Neo-Con lot. The British political system is completely messed up. The very fact that NL got 13,000 votes per commons seat and the LD's got 108,000 votes per seat at the last GE says it all.

I like our system wrt to communications. The problem with the US I believe is theres no state intervention in this area so it leads to defacto monopolies. In the UK BT own all the cables but they have rules in what they have to do, any broadband supplier can rent access for a competitive price. In the US I imagine its a first come first serve scenario where one company comes in then declares itself defacto owner of all society.

The problem with a free market is you need a situation of perfect information or the whole system collapses into corperate dominance a la the USA. With perfect information the population would realise that their cable is way overpriced and pool together to get their own system at a lower price and gain the eventual business that it generates. Unless you have a state granted monopoly without restriction in which case you may as well give up.

[raptros-v76]

Where I live we have a free market. You can choose any provider you want for cellphone, normal wired phone and broadband via the phone wire. I kinda assumed it was the same in the US since they say US is supposed to be the land of the free. But if the ISPs have a monopoly in an area each over there then I guess they can go ahead and screw over their trapped customers as much as they want to. :(

Do you americans at least get to choose which power company to buy electricity from?

No. we do NOT get to choose our power company. my grandparents have a house in an area where the power company has a total monopoly. the only thing we have protecting us from overcharging is laws that limit prices on electicity

[Blondie]

I don't think that it would make any difference either way the vote fell. The market is a matter of demand as well as supply. Is there a demand for net "unneutrality" for suppliers to satisfy?

[vayu]

I don't think that it would make any difference either way the vote fell. The market is a matter of demand as well as supply. Is there a demand for net "unneutrality" for suppliers to satisfy?

The demand is created, just like all things in the corporate monoculture. The corporations push everyone wherever there is money to be made. The masses are led to believe they are making their own choices while the corporations make huge profits. It's the American way, only these corporations are multinational. The Europeans generally have a little better of a clue, (for example they held off GE food for a pretty long time, they've tried to slap M$ hand, etc...) But they eventually lose ground to the large corporate machine. So far they have not been totally mowed over like the Americans, but I see many unacceptable concessions, and they keep coming.

I have no doubt that someday the people will wake up, but it better be soon, there aren't that many resources and we're heading to 10 billion very soon.

[tommcd]

Well, my reason for starting this thread was to ask what this would mean for Linux. Will the next distro startup be placed at a disadvantage if ISPs partner with Microsoft and/or Apple, or Google, as they likely will; while relegating open source providers to the slow lanes because (as they will likely say) hardly anybody uses that stuff anyway.
Verizon (my ISP) doesn't 'support' Linux. How do you think they will prioritize traffic from Ubuntu sources?
Do you use BitTorrent? VOIP? Perhaps you should read this:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060622.html

[NeoChaosX]

What happened to ADSL? That shares cables - down the phone line. Or is it only found here in Europe?
Oh, we Yanks get ADSL. But it's usually only from the local phone company. If you're lucky, you might have another company offering DSL, but in most areas, it's only the local telco that offers DSL.

[.t.]

Well, here in England, we get a line provided by BT, on top of which we can get another company to provide the actual phone service (I'm not quite sure how it works). We can then get a broadband provider to give us ADSL over the BT line. In some cases, the phone exchanges are unbundled, which means that other companies have put their equipment in. This gives rise to very cheap broadband and phone services, as long as we buy our line from a certain company. Where I live, the exchange isn't unbundled, so the service is more expensive, as we have to have a BT line as a base.

[RavenOfOdin]

It won't happen.

[Blondie]

The demand is created, just like all things in the corporate monoculture. The corporations push everyone wherever there is money to be made. The masses are led to believe they are making their own choices while the corporations make huge profits. It's the American way, only these corporations are multinational. The Europeans generally have a little better of a clue, (for example they held off GE food for a pretty long time, they've tried to slap M$ hand, etc...) But they eventually lose ground to the large corporate machine. So far they have not been totally mowed over like the Americans, but I see many unacceptable concessions, and they keep coming.

I have no doubt that someday the people will wake up, but it better be soon, there aren't that many resources and we're heading to 10 billion very soon.

Giving it more thought, the "problem" I think is whether "net unneutrality" will lower the cost of broadband to the user and so most people would end up using it. Think of it like when you buy a new PC with an OS installed with lots of free demos and subscription options cluttering up your menus and browser bookmarks. All of that reduces the cost of the OS for Dell, HP etc. and indirectly for you as well. This would be the issue.

I think that the main effect of "net unneutrality" would be for the internet providers to extract premiums from the large content providers like Google and Microsoft and the idea that companies will make blogs with political opinions they don't like load more slowly is scaremongering. How would that attract customers and increase shareholders' returns for the providers? There is also the issue of whether net neutrality produces a less efficient internet and is biased against voice and video applications. In what sense is the net really neutral in the first place? Also how would net non-neutrality work anyway when data travels across the networks of many providers including those in foreign jurisdictions?

This is a complicated issue and not just about corporations vs little guys. After all Bill Gates is on the side of net neutrality. If he's for it we can be sure that he is concerned for his profits and his present level of control of the internet being eroded.