It’s been quite a day. I’m up pretty late tonight for no great reason, and am still tapping out this post — on my phone, no less.
What struck me at such an hour that I needed to write about it right away; that I couldn’t wait until my computer restarted, much less until morning?
I preface this piece with the warning that my political rants are usually uninformed screeds of little value, but I hope that you at least find enough value in what I’ve written here to become interested enough to search out and find more information on your own.
What is Net Neutrality?
I use Vonage for phone service at home, even though Verizon provides my broadband internet connection.
Verizon obviously could provide my phone service, but I choose to use Vonage, which provides very good phone service using my existing internet connection at a cheaper rate than what Verizon would.
Network Neutrality is what prevents Verizon from restricting my access to Vonage’s service based on the kind of data that we exchange.
Without net neutrality, Verizon could dial back the amount of bandwidth that Vonage’s service usually uses to complete my calls, making my calls garbled and unintelligible. Technically, they wouldn’t place a restriction on my use of Vonage, they would simply reserve their best service for their own phone service, relegating services like Vonage to use what’s left over.
This is just the beginning of bad things that could happen as a result of letting service providers select who gets the best bandwidth. An example of a more globally-affecting change might be helpful…
This optical illusion colorizes a black and white photo of a castle using an after-image effect. Check it out!
Must refrain. From Buying. This Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard. For use with my Treo 650.