US Net Neutrality Bill
A NetworkWorld Article on a proposed Internet neutrality bill is currently being pushed in the US congress.
After failing last week to add a provision to a telecommunications reform bill, four Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday introduced a free-standing bill aimed at preventing broadband carriers from discriminating against competing Web content or services.
This simply prohibits network operators from putting restrictions on its content provider customers. The Slashdot commentary for this article definitely shows American’s disdain for any piece of legislation. I tend to agree that less legislation is always preferrable. However, in the short term, there are big network operators that are already putting restrictions such as charging for network access. Therefore, something like this maybe necessary.
June 10th, 2006 at 12:04 am
[…] After a period of deliberation, the US House of Representatives have decided to deep six the Net Neutrality provision in the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act). I covered the introduction of this provision in a previous blog entry. This latest story covered by the BBC, reports that congress has defeat the controvertial provision that aims to force network operators to charge equal rates to all types of customers. Everybody gets the same speed whether preferred partners (who pay extra) or not. During the debate House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, said that “without the amendment telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway”. “This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet,” she added. Critics of the amendment said it would bring in unnecessary government regulation. […]