Business Change: US Government Mandates How Bandwidth Providers Work

And so it Begins. Or Ends. Or Begins to End . . .

Does the company from which you get your internet access have the right to decide what you get or how fast certain things get to you? Maybe. In the USA, though, that right may be about to come to an end.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, an FCC proposal limiting the way that your favorite bit purveyor moves your information gets outlined. Business Change, indeed! Now, the way your stuff gets to you might become set in stone.

Let’s back up: the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world have been threatening to control our web browsing habits for a few years now. Their rationale is that certain things take up more bandwidth, thereby changing both the economies of scale for their businesses and the overall experience that their customers have. So besides charging more for higher-bandwidth customers (an idea I can get behind as long as there are clear and flexible options), your provider wants to be able to exert some control over what you do/say/see/etc. on-line.

Umm . . . NO!

I could pull out a freedom of speech argument here, but I’ll go even lower than that: I don’t want Time Warner, Cablevision, or anyone else telling me what they think is “right”, even if they have a business case. And that doesn’t even touch the real issue: if telecommunications companies control the prioritization of traffic, they will become the ultimate advertising gatekeepers.

Tell your Congressman, Senator, and any other government figure you can reach that this is not OK. Tell them that stopping this business change is what you want. Tell them today.