PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS!!!!! PLEASE SHARE WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS. This is an important issue that you need to know about the Internet and it you want to keep it! There are other important issues too and dont get me started on those :) Capitol Hill and big business are at it again. And the target remains the same the Internet and how you access it. In a nutshell, people are cutting the cords left and right. People are using cell phones, VoIP and cutting the phone line at their homes. Who needs a cable company, when they have NetFlix or Hulu? So the cable companies are seeing their largest competitor is not the other cable companies, rather it is the Internet. And they have every intention of slowing things down, to a point where sites that cannot afford to pay premium prices for premium bandwidth will end up going down the plughole. Even if it means they need to crawl in bed with each other (Comcast / Time Warner merger), they intend to take away your choice, as well as the freedom for all companies to access the Internet, equally. This is very real and scary. If you do not understand the concept of Net Neutrality, it is time for you to learn - Net Neutrality is the Internet’s guiding principle: It preserves our right to communicate freely online. Net Neutrality means that the cable/telecom companies must provide us with open networks — and should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that ride over those networks. Just as your phone company cannot decide who you could call and what you say on that call, your ISP should not be concerned with what content you view or post online. Net Neutrality is what enables the Internet to be such a hotbed for innovation. If you bring a new service online, the cable/telecom companies should deliver it just like they’d deliver content from a corporate behemoth like Google or NBC. Net Neutrality is what gives every startup the same chance to reach customers and users as any existing company. Simply, without Net Neutrality, startups and small business will be subject to discrimination based on a pay-to-play Internet, and the open Internet and the economic growth it has represented will be at risk. Just let me say if you think companies like Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T are not positioning themselves to strip away Net Neutrality, then you are drinking far too much of the Kool-Aid. Lets be honest enough to see and admit that for Internet Service Providers to discriminate between different kinds of content will first mean they will be getting a lot more invasive with their monitoring of what you are doing online. And make no mistake about it - the complete, absolute, and utter disappointment sitting in our Oval Office is doing everything he can to make sure you lose more of your freedoms. Today is the Great Internet Slowdown and a lot of video streaming sites will be internally throttling their own streams, so everyone will get a glimpse of what things will be like, if the cable companies get their way. We, the people. are the only thing standing in the way of the cable companies violating Net Neutrality, so it is up to us. When you start comparing U.S. online access with offerings from other countries, we typically have the slowest and most-expensive connections going. Users in Japan enjoy 61 mbps speeds, and only pay 27¢ per mbps per month. Here in the USA we average 4.8 mbps, at an average cost of $3.33 per mbps per month. Can you imagine a connection that is 15 times faster, yet is still on 1/10th of the cost? Yeah. Me neither. Below is a link to the website to where you sign the letter to lawmakers! Please take the time to sign it!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:33:00 +0000