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Originally Posted by August
Imagine having our access to Subsim deliberately slowed down or even limited to a particular geographic area because Neil doesn't pay his IP an extra fee. Imagine a big company with deep pockets paying an IP to squeeze the connection to their small competitors.
This is what Net Neutrality was trying to avoid.
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We don't often agree, but we do on this issue.
The scary part of this is that as it currently stands, the outcomes are very bad for consumers. The ideologues will try to paint this as the big bad gubmint trying to control things on the internet, but they misunderstand the argument.
As it stands now:
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A broadband company could, for instance, ink a deal with Microsoft to transfer all attempts to reach Google.com to Bing.com. The only recourse a user would have, under the ruling, would be to switch to a different provider — assuming, of course, they had an alternative to switch to.
Companies can also now prohibit you from using a wireless router you bought at the store, forcing you to use one they rent out — just as they do with cable boxes. They could also decide to charge you a fee every time you upgrade your computer, or even block you from using certain models, just as the nation’s mobile phone carriers do today.
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But the last laugh may be on the ISPs. The FCC could potentially reclassify them as telecoms, bringing them under the FCC's purview. And that comes with a lot of regulation that the ISPs probably wouldn't like.
Read more here:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/