Cable Industry Taking Control of the Net

Tompaine.com has a piece warning of measures that cable internet providers are taking to control their users' experiences online. We've touched on this before, but this issue needs a lot of attention and it has gotten very little from the mainstream press.

I'm sorry Dave..

[stephenisu]

I am sorry Dave, I can not allow you to visit this non-TimeWarnerAOL site... The Media was not endorsed by the RIAA or MPAA

Re:I'm sorry Dave..

[stephenisu]

Oh and Dave.. I am charging you a $0.35 surcharge for looking at free porn on the bandwidth you already paid for..

Re:Must develop p2p over airwaves

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Yes, someone must develop 802.11 wireless networking immediately! This is a call to arms!

Oh, wait...

Re:This is nothing new.

[JasonUCF]

Well, er, right, sorry, I was referring to the ISPs as the last mile to the user. Realizing that Qwest, Worldcom, Sprint, et al, *actually do* control the internet.. grin.. I was referring to service providers as the individual consumer level where they are redirecting the pipe to your house.

If UUNet suddenly died, ahem.. uh, let's try another example, if all the QWest lines suddenly died -- yes, I could see some potential networking issues!

Thank you for clarifying.

Re:This is nothing new.

[almightyjustin]

I feel compelled to point out that 555.12.12.12 is not a valid IP address.

The Fuss Will Be About Content

[reallocate]

No, but the fuss is really going to be about control of content. The cable and media companies want people to pay for entertainment delivered down the network connection that they're already paying for. The industry will find a way to prevent copying and redistribution of the content they sell, which will trigger great and incessant rants about rights being trampled. Given the quality of the content likely to be on offer, this will be a bit like ranting about your "right" to reproduce and redistribute your neighbor's trash. Or, worse yet, a typical night's programming on the WB.

What?!?!

[sharkey]

Does this mean we'll have to pay both Comcast AND the White House [whitehouse.com] to view the content?

It's Canada

[Sebby]

Didn't you read the article? We're always ending up as guinea pigs for the US experiments :)

Re:This article is a load of FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

This had nothing to do with your service. What little intelligence exists in the net knows enough to filter Buffy.

Re:improve service for mainstream users

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What do you think would happen if a guy walked into an all-you-can-eat restaurant and proceeded to take the entire buffet to his table? Don't you think somebody would have a word with that customer? Does it make sense to criticize the restaurant owners for "overselling" the buffet?

In bus-like networks like the coaxial network owned by the cable company, bandwidth is very much a shared and limited resource. The use of that resource has to be managed. If you don't like it, don't sign up for the service.

Re:The reason is obvious

[0111 1110]

It's lucky there are only a few of those ad servers. I'd hate to be spending all of my internet time just adding in the IP addresses. It's lucky that there aren't an almost unlimited number of addresses to block. That would be truly awful.

Re:Tired of getting screwed by...monopolies.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

And where exactly do we get the majority of our oil from?

The USA. Next question, please.

Re:Considering who owns many media outlets..

[AntiNorm]

Most of the cable news networks and the three major broadcast stations here in the US get their stories from the New York Times

Do they have to log in first?