Could ISPs regulate what sites you can visit and their speed?

[hood]

The telecoms are currently lobbying the senate to not pass a net netruality bill that would prevent ISP's from offering favorable bandwidth to the highest paying sites, while limiting bandwidth or even blocking access to lower or non-paying sites. This is really stupid and should be a concern of everyone who uses the internet. There are numerous sites on the web about this, an article in this months Popular Science brought my attention to this (the article isn't online). Here is one of the better sites I've found: Save The Internet.com

[monsoon]

Of course I don't understand why people would get DSL over cable anyway. When you consider the cost of the required phone line they make you get to have DSL, its very expensive compared to cable.

I say vote with your feet. Don't do business with the telecoms. I dumped my BellSouth line a couple of years ago and went to cable and packet8.net for VoIP. I couldn't be happier.

[damus]

Of course I don't understand why people would get DSL over cable anyway. When you consider the cost of the required phone line they make you get to have DSL, its very expensive compared to cable.

Well, Satellite saves me money over cable tv and I get HBO, Skinemax, and Showtime, which I didn't have before. The cheap land line is good for what it is, and the cheap DSL (14.95/month) is half the price of the best sale price I've ever seen on cable internet around here. Even if you pay $20 for a phone line, you're saving on cable Internet most of the time. I get slower download speeds than cable, but I don't play games or do anything else that absolutely requires faster downloads. Ever since the local company SNET was bought out by SBC the quality of the DSL went down along with the price. I say it's a fair enough tradeoff...

[monsoon]

I actually only use cable for Internet. I have dish network for TV.

I am not sure what it is like where you live, but the phone connection here is close to $27/month just to get a dial tone once you add in all the taxes, fees, etc. And then you have to pay extra for everything else and then there is long distance. With VoIP it is one flat rate, $19.99 and I can talk as much as I want anywhere in the US & Canada. It is much less expensive than comparable phone service.

[damus]

I actually only use cable for Internet. I have dish network for TV.

I am not sure what it is like where you live, but the phone connection here is close to $27/month just to get a dial tone once you add in all the taxes, fees, etc. And then you have to pay extra for everything else and then there is long distance. With VoIP it is one flat rate, $19.99 and I can talk as much as I want anywhere in the US & Canada. It is much less expensive than comparable phone service.

Heh .. i remember when i was in providence Cox Cable's digital phone lines were something like 7.99 or something like that, and we wound up getting the phone for free after getting cable and internet.

Here, after all the fees we pay a little over 20 for a land line. The cable company where I live, Adelphia, is terrible. You don't get everything you would think you'd get for channels with basic, which is around $50 as of october of last year. You have to pay I think $15 for "digital basic" to get the rest of the should-be basic channels, then you pay money for each box and each remote. It goes on and on. I find, from my experience with my local cable company and cox communications, that cable companies don't like to make it easy for you to find their prices online. It seems like they're out to rip you off.

[dimebag1980]

Of course I don't understand why people would get DSL over cable anyway. When you consider the cost of the required phone line they make you get to have DSL, its very expensive compared to cable.

I say vote with your feet. Don't do business with the telecoms. I dumped my BellSouth line a couple of years ago and went to cable and packet8.net for VoIP. I couldn't be happier.

I wanted DSL because I remembered loving it before. But back then, my wife's boss paid to have it installed in our old apartment so she could work from home. While trying to get high-speed internet for my new computer a couple weeks back, I first tried DSL since I was familiar with it, only to find that there are only a certain amount of users this small town of 2,000 people can support. I didn't want to be put on a waiting list so I told them, "okay then, I'm going cable!" I then called my cable company and there were no problems. And I am SO happy with this, as it's at least 2-3x faster than the DSL connection I have at work, which is pretty fast in itself. I couldn't be happier than I am with my cable internet.

[hood]

By sometime next year a company called Arialink is probably going to have a WiMax system running in my area, it will only be 18.95 a month for 3 mb service, and they offer Voip for around $10/month. Until then, I'm stuck with Comcast's rip-off internet.

[Spartan]

The idea to create a two tiered internet is a horrible one. They should not allow it to happen. What's next, 3, 5, 10 tiers?

[DwntwnGeo]

I actually only use cable for Internet. I have dish network for TV.

I am not sure what it is like where you live, but the phone connection here is close to $27/month just to get a dial tone once you add in all the taxes, fees, etc. And then you have to pay extra for everything else and then there is long distance. With VoIP it is one flat rate, $19.99 and I can talk as much as I want anywhere in the US & Canada. It is much less expensive than comparable phone service.

Different parts of the country have different services, so your comment "I am not sure what it is like where you live" is pretty much right on. Where I live currently, the cable rates are way more expensive and change all the time. Though my telcom calls it "DSL" I can the same speed as my neighbor does on Comcast's "High speed internet". Not to mention in the evenings and weekends when all the kiddies are home downloading whatever they get these days, my neighbor's speed goes way down because of the excessive use while my speed stays constant on my dedicated "DSL" or "High Speed Internet" line.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

Bringing regulation to the Internet is a poor idea. Regulation always stifles innovation, and the hysteria over certain sites being blocked, and slower than they are now, is unfounded and has not really been suggested by the telecoms. High bandwidth sites (Video sites) would be among the few sites that would have any issues (and rightfully so as they use so much bandwidth) as they would probably be better suited for delivery over advanced networks, current speeds would probably stay around the same speed.

'Net neutrality' doesn't exist as of now anyways...

[hood]

High bandwidth sites can be limited (and are by Comcast) by simply limiting the bandwidth that a particular customer can use per month, its a really high limit but that is a responsible limitation. There is absolutely no excuse for regulating any internet and I have no interest in hearing any arguements defending the idea, if they do that theres no way I would pay for their service. I hope all the telecoms and cable companies fall on hard times, the way things are moving towards VOIP, cell phones and satellite a few of them may very well go under, I sure hope so.

[Snowguy716]

We have Charter cable television and internet, and it's great because for like $70/month, we have digital cable on one TV, and basic cable (with 75 channels) on the rest plus 512k/second cable. And because there's a router box at the end of our driveway with only two possible houses on our line, our bandwith is amazing. It's much better than the 30-40k/second my friends have gotten with DSL.

[monsoon]

Not to mention in the evenings and weekends when all the kiddies are home downloading whatever they get these days, my neighbor's speed goes way down because of the excessive use while my speed stays constant on my dedicated "DSL" or "High Speed Internet" line.

That was FUD put forth by the telephone companies which independent testing has not proven out. A TV cable has a couple of magnitudes higher bandwidth available over the twisted pair cable used to supply telephone service to your house. So while cable customers are connected together via a loop, then fed to a trunk vs a star arrangement for DSL to a trunk line, there is no practical difference since the cable customers do not get access to all the bandwidth on the cable. DSL also suffers from a lot of other variables in the installation of the twisted pair including how far away they are fromt he termination point.

My current speed on cable from the speed test at broadbandreports.com is 6.5M down and 856K up. When I was on BellSouth extreme, the best I ever got was about 1.5M/198k.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

High bandwidth sites can be limited (and are by Comcast) by simply limiting the bandwidth that a particular customer can use per month, its a really high limit but that is a responsible limitation. There is absolutely no excuse for regulating any internet and I have no interest in hearing any arguements defending the idea, if they do that theres no way I would pay for their service.

Yeah I know. My bandwidth limit is 2,000 GB a month for each of my 5 dedicated servers at The Planet. I only use like 300 GB a month total though.

As for regulation, that's what this network neutrality is all about - regulation by government, of the Internet. Companies should be able to make NEW networks and charge for permission to utilize the new networks, the telecoms are not going to start charging for the current networks for sites that use modest bandwidth.

[hood]

As for regulation, that's what this network neutrality is all about - regulation by government, of the Internet. Companies should be able to make NEW networks and charge for permission to utilize the new networks, the telecoms are not going to start charging for the current networks for sites that use modest bandwidth.

From everything I'm seeing it't the intention of the big ISP's to charge websites to allow their sites to be accessed at a higher bandwidth, and charge their customers to access those sites at the higher speed, so they make money coming and going. So from what I've heard all sites would be charged based on the speed they want to be accessed at, that would even include this website. So I don't know who is telling the truth, the ISP's or these organizations and things like PopSci, but given the Telecoms and Cable companies histories of screwing their customers I put no trust in what they say they are going to do.

[DwntwnGeo]

My current speed on cable from the speed test at broadbandreports.com is 6.5M down and 856K up. When I was on BellSouth extreme, the best I ever got was about 1.5M/198k.

Metro, I am glad to hear you have great service with your cable company. It isn't so with ours where I live. When I was in college I had a cable modem and could really tell the difference when there was a lot of members online and not. I am happy with what my telcom is offering and the price is great for what I use it for.

[dimebag1980]

My current speed on cable from the speed test at broadbandreports.com is 6.5M down and 856K up. When I was on BellSouth extreme, the best I ever got was about 1.5M/198k.

Mine came in at 697k / 502k... wtf? It takes only a fraction of a second to load UP and most other sites... I thought it was faster than that! Geez. But hey, anything's better than my old dialup connection on a crappy old computer! It would take minutes to load some pages.

UPDATE:

I downloaded DownThemAll, a Firefox extension, and my download speed increased to 963k. So now my test came in at 963k / 502k. Naturally my upload speed didn't change, but my download speed certainly did. Wow.