Sunday, July 17, 2011

US: Not all Democrats Support Net-Neutrality (and Caching Kills it anyway)

  
The White House recently said that "The FCC has carefully crafted rules to promote competition while balancing the technical needs of Internet providers" (here) but it seems that not all democrats think the same.

In a recent article at the Huffington Post Tech section, Everett Ehrlich (pictured), former Undersecretary to Ron Brown, Mickey Kantor, and Bill Daley in the Clinton Administration, "can't for the life of me understand why my fellow-travelers want to impose this burden on the burgeoning broadband Internet" and claims that Net Neutrality is not needed, and the big content providers can override it anyway.

"Would you subscribe to an ISP that gave you Fox News but not Olbermann, or gave iTunes an exclusive on music, or only allowed Warner Brothers movies on their system? It's a ridiculous proposition (and one that could be addressed with anti-trust law if I'm entirely wrong, which I'm not) ... And, second, the Internet isn't "neutral" right now! Big websites cache their content in server farms around the world, like squirrels burying nuts for the winter. That way, they reach you faster than the "little guy," even though the net is allegedly "neutral."

See "Why Liberals Should Think Twice About Net Neutrality" - here.

For the 2nd point - see also the debate in the UK on BT's caching service - "BT's Wholesale Content Connect Service and Net Neutrality" - here and "BT CTO: "Caching does not Breach Net Neutrality" - here.

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