Internet Neutrality and the Digital Divide by Stuart Davis Issues in Internet Access network neutrality discrimination economic innovation democratic participation and free speech ISPs Network neutrality also called net neutrality It is based on the political principle or philosophy that the Internet is an open and free medium This means two things 1 the internet is open That means that no one can be discriminated against what they post on the internet It is against discrimination of websites based on types of data The internet is free to whatever people want to put on it 2 Much more debated Any ISP internet service provider has equal access to the bandwidth ISP is basically responsible for maintaining the connection between your computer and the larger network Time Warner would be ISP They are responsible that everything has the same ability to move through computers through the internet to computer to computer The problem is they want to charger more they want to create a meter For example Netflix When you are streaming it takes away a lot more bandwidth than when checking your e mail which slows down traffic That also downloading and uploading would take up a lot of traffic that would block out other web functions So ISPs want to be able to charge more to those websites that take up more bandwidth The idea is that if it is all free in equal space and there is no regulation to how you use the bandwidth it is free and open therefore people are getting blocked out This is still a problem Net neutrality is hurting ISPs because they are not able to tax based on usage The idea is that the more Netflix uses their bandwidth the more Netflix should have to pay The idea is that the ISPs do not have the ability to discriminate how much bandwidth they give out who uses their bandwidth The problem ISPs claim is that if they don t have the ability to tax then their bandwidth gets clogged up because it takes more bandwidth to function they clog up the channels They want to be able to charge more fore those who use more bandwidth Under net neutrality there is no discrimination between the two
View Full Document
Unlocking...