If Chairman Martin has it his way, this would mean that TV, Radio, & Newspaper ownership would be in the hands of fewer people. With fewer people owning our media there are then fewer voices out there.

And if these same owners have all this power what’s to stop them from doing the same with the Internet? Ever heard of Net Neutrality?

First, the TELCOs, cable, wireless providers and other Internet infrastructure operators are attempting to convert the Internet into a tariffed system where each class of traffic (text, search, VoIP Phone Services, Video and commerical email) is surcharged according to their bandwidth usage and commercial value.

Second, opposing this move are the large search engine and content providers who believe that they are already paying their fair share to their Internet Service Providers for their connection and bandwidth and the users are already paying their fair share to their Internet Service Providers and the majority of the Internet Backbone infratructure is being built out using government funds from the taxpayers.

And third, the government has a horse in this race in the form of enabling all common carriers and Internet Service Providers to engage in “deep packet mining.” Which, not so coincidently, is the very same technology that allows the providers to determine what type of traffic is being processed over the carrier’s gateways as well as the technology that provides the government’s access and “wiretapping” under CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act).

There is also the question of who is going to pay for this. The government would like to avoid raising taxes, but shift those costs to the carriers who simply add another line to your phone bill or raise their rates slightly. For the government, far better a fee that is easily collectible monthly than an increase in taxes.

Therefore, the entire issue for “netizens” revolves around the concept of “net neutrality” where all traffic is carried for the same basic charge and the costs are spread among all users.

The media which is composed mainly of “content providers” wants to spin this as an egregious affront to Internet users. The TELCOs and others want there surcharge system to be implemented quietly like the other random and spurious fees on your bill — especially those asterisked with the legend “this fee is to provide for potential government mandated legislative efforts” which means you are picking up the cost of their lobbying against the consumer’s interests.

There it is in a nutshell: There it is in a nutshell: power and money accrues to those who act as the gatekeepers and toll-bridge operators. Enjoy. — Steve

Slander me if you want. It matters not. It never will.

When you’re talkin’ ’bout The Man and his legions of butt-smooching wonkotrons it’s always and forever only about several thangs…

Power, control, and $$$.

They do not care if you live or die. Don’t believe me?

Fine. Don’t.

Thanks to the truly endangered DC species… ah, um… brains, this has the same probability of success as landing a human on Mars. Of course that includes the human surviving.

On the other hand, they did manage to save our morals at the last minute with banning online gambling here in the US. Thank God. Those awful people trying to make some money. Well we sure showed them. Now they have to continue kissing ass to work MORE overtime.

Each and every campaign launched by The Man includes identifying a common enemy. Don’t believe that? First… fine. Don’t. But try doing some reading, no silly… not surfing, not skimming. But reading. Not really hard to figure out.

So, yes. Identifying a common enemy and what the threat is. Don’t be surprised to hear late-breaking news about airplanes spotted circling around Google server hubs around the world.

“They” would love nothing more than to tax your email, censor your online communiques, and generally make sure you’re towing the line and happily surfing on a short leash.

It absolutely KILLS them that they cannot ‘properly’ monetize the internetsss. Thank God it grew faster than they could ever hope to think, plan, bamboozle, and get through congress.

Internets. Kinda makes me wanna run out and shop at walmarts.

Anyway…

Take heart. GB and his band of stupids will be gone soon. Yes, yes. More stupids are sure to follow. But it’ll take them a while to wrap their heads around bandwidth, uploading, transfer time, and the evil cloaking commies.

Sure. Big telecom will cry, piss, and moan that their fiber optics are becoming soft and pliant under the strain of it all. Their sleep won’t suffer one wit over screwing you so they can charge you more.

The flip side of all this is opportunity.

Yes, I know. It’s an evil word. Forgive me.

But the time is ripe for some brash sharpie to start a brand new telecom. Get funding for laying new fiber optic networks. And then, oh my god… competing with the established graybeards for your money.

But that’s impossible, you say, because it costs SO MUCH money!

Go to bed without your dinner.

All in all, John…

I’m not worried. The Man will have to start screwing their big corp brethren along with the little guys and girls. Big corps’ content speeds right along with 1000 page scraped sites on those networks.

Awful, isn’t it? I think it’s kinda funny.

But they’ll try, maybe. It’s a technological and international logistical… wow, lots of syllables!… nightmare Steven King would never have thunk. The Man cannot adequately manage routine trips to the bathroom. They can’t agree on the simplest of subterfuges.

I think we’re safe…

As far as our national embarrassment in DC is concerned, it might as well be in the domain of divine intervention, or something.

They stated that this hefty dollar figure was more than double what had originally been planned to be spent by the telecom industry to improve the infrastructure of our beleaguered Internets.

What do I think? Well, most people will jump on the “there’s too much crap online” bandwagon because that’s all they care to fathom about potential threats to the web. Chinese user proliferation… Eastern European hackers… definitely more of a concern to web stability than mindless junk.

But these angles take on an international flair that most Americans don’t care to raise a fuss over. They are more apt to point their finger at the neighborhood kids saturating the web with videos and music.

I agree there needs to be money pumped into handling the increased load. But there’s something sinister going on behind the scenes when they single out content as the culprit. Either sinister… or just ignorant (both sound plausible when it comes to thinking of those currently in charge).