Net Neutrality

The argument about Net Neutrality has been going on for a while now. I was first introduced to the topic when working at my last job, where our business success was tied to ensuring that our filter product didn't get in the way of anyone's fast internet connection, which they were paying good money for.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the 100 million streaming videos that are watched daily account for as much bandwidth as was used in an entire year in 2000. With the advent of sites like YouTube, and with TV networks posting full episodes of their shows, the pipeline into our home is again getting constrained, much like in the days of dial-up access, and will soon slow to a crawl again if Internet content and usage remains on the trajectory that it is on.

So, the providers of those pipes want to start charging on a "use more, pay more" model. And, congress wants to stop it by passing a law that the Internet must remain free (or at least that our flat-rate model needs to remain intact). Thus, the net-neutrality debate.

CIO magazine has posted this commentary, which I found quite interesting, on the topic. It is about 5 minutes, and certainly provides some food for thought on this topic.