US Broadband Legislation Concerns

[GhostShip]

The big guns are out in force folks 

http://news.com.com/New+broadband+bill+draws+fire/2100-1028_3-6055108.html?tag=nefd.top

Internet companies including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are protesting new federal legislation that would not strictly regulate how broadband operators can organize their network.

In a letter to Congress on Tuesday, the companies told Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, that his bill to revamp telecommunications laws "would fail to protect the Internet." Barton is the chairman of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee.

Instead of bowing to requests from Internet businesses, Barton sided with one of Washington's most potent lobbying forces: telecommunications companies, including DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable providers, that spread around far more money in political circles.

A CNET News.com report published this week shows that the Internet industry is being outspent in Washington by more than a 3-to-1 margin.

AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon Communications spent $230.9 million on politicians from 1998 until the present, while the three Internet companies plus Amazon.com and eBay spent only a combined $71.2 million. (Those figures include lobbying expenditures, individual contributions, political action committees and soft money.)

Outspent !! Hmm, something stinks here and it seems no one is ashamed of it either.
Its no suprise they are opposing this bill as Verison is planning to shift something like 80% of its existing infrastructure over to providing video feeds at the expense of its other customers, this sort of activity by many of the big ISPs would kill the internet as we know it.

[Lysander]

This will only become a problem if your'e living in an area where every ISP you can get access to does this. Otherwise, you can excersise your right under a free market and take your business to an ISP that respects your rights to get what you pay for as a consumer.

[Zepposircarressith]

wow intreasting i hope my verizon dont go high i pay almost 60$ ish i forget lol for 5megs up 5megs down i hope nothing changed lmao :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

[innerpeace]

Its no suprise they are opposing this bill as Verison is planning to shift something like 80% of its existing infrastructure over to providing video feeds at the expense of its other customers, this sort of activity by many of the big ISPs would kill the internet as we know it.

I was thinking seriously about Verizon dsl because of no caps/throttling.  My cable company has me frustrated and I am just researching Verizon right now.  What could this mean to me or where can I find more info?  I hate to sign a one year contract and find out that my speeds are slow.  I would be switching specifically to use WinMX  .  I have not been able to use WinMx since the beginning of the year and I'm going nuts!  I still check your forum everyday though!

[Lysander]

What you need to make sure of (I was originally directing this at the third poster, but this is important for the fourth one too) is that you're actually getting what you pay for. Every ISP offers 5 mbPS line speeds, and none of them actually give you 5 mbPS line speeds. The question is how close do the rated line speed do you get? You can test that on the internet at quite a few places. IIf it's somethinkg like 4.8 or 4.5 or something like that then it's fine, but if it gets much lower than that you're getting ripped off.