Net Neutrality in the U.S.A to be Repealed?

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Galahad
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Net Neutrality in the U.S.A to be Repealed?

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Post by Galahad »

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... n-internet

Firstly, what is net neutrality? It is the rule that forces ISPs to treat all data equally, irrespective of source, content and destination; so an ISP cannot, for example, slow down traffic to a certain site that it may not like (for example, its competitor's homepage), nor can it make certain sites accessible only by paying a fee.

Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the top U.S regulator of telecommunications, voted 3-2 in favour of scrapping net neutrality.

That means net neutrality in the U.S is one step closer to being scrapped.
(It is not yet scrapped; the motion first has to pass through the congress and, finally, the supreme court. But the first step has now been taken.)

What do you think? If the motion to scrap it succeeds, do you think other countries, such as SA, might follow?
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Re: Net Neutrality in the U.S.A Repealed

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Post by Eylof »

Well i hope fking not, our internet is already shit , cant make it even shittier
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Rakuen Growlithe
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Re: Net Neutrality in the U.S.A to be Repealed?

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Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

Net neutrality is not universal already. In South Africa there are providers that discriminate between content. For example, MTN was making access to Wikipedia and some maths study thing free of all data charges (https://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-10-cel ... -wikipedia). Now while that is very good in terms of education initiatives it is not net neutrality and it biases people to use Wikipedia at the expense of other sources of information.
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Re: Net Neutrality in the U.S.A to be Repealed?

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Post by Trace »

Actually, net neutrality has been repealed.
As of the ruling yesterday, companies are free to discriminate between content.
Importantly, this can be fought, and while this was a major blow to proponents of net neutrality, it is not over yet.
Hopefully the decision can be overturned soon, because if nothing changes telecommunication companies have free reign.
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Re: Net Neutrality in the U.S.A to be Repealed?

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Post by ArtyLoop »

What is meant by "net neutrality" as debated by myself and Prof Laurie Butgereit

Net neutrality is a proposed mechanism to ensure that internet traffic, regardless of its origin or content, receives the same, and equal priority as other traffic. This basicially means the ISP is now not allowed to do the following:
  • Throttle your p2p connection
  • Throttle or prevent you from using VoIP services
  • Tamper or alter your communications to prioritize other services over yours.
We in South Africa have never known what Net Neutrality means because of the nature of the network operators and ISPs in this country that are profit and greed driven.
I also think that the introduction of such a law (if it ever materialises in SA) will lead to strong reactions from Vodacom, MTN and Telkom
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