Perhaps it was only in the interest of journalistic simplicity, but The New York Times seems to have confused the web with the internet. In the NYTimes editorial, entitled Democracy and the Web, the Times seems to think that net neutrality is all about making sure that all websites load just as fast in your browser – in the interests of democratic access.
There is no mention of different applications being treated with different priority (such as voice or tele-medicine competing with file downloading). All bits are the same in the eyes of the Times, because in its simplified view of the world, the internet apparently equals web-browsing. And we can’t allow those greedy ISPs to put their selfish financial interests ahead of democratic access to MLB.com, apple pie recipes, and the American Way.
Mark Evans has a provocatively titled post, “The Web As We Know It is Dying.” The article questions the CRTC examining new media content in an upcoming proceeding:
I can’t wait to see government regulation of the Internet if, in fact, it is possible to regulate it.
On the other hand, his article seems to endorse CAIP’s request that the regulator does intervene and impose some regulations on internet access. Which is it?
He also suggests that those evil ISPs will distort the former free-wheeling internet because of their selfish money grabbing ways.
You notice that broadband carriers and cablecos don’t break out the profitability of their high-speed units? Probably because they’re very, very profitable.
Is the business really so embarrassingly profitable?
Net Neutrality will be the subject of a special panel on Wednesday morning, June 18 at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. Register soon. Prices go up June 1.
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net neutrality, Mark Evans, NY Times