Network Neutrality Is Law In Chile 180
An anonymous reader writes "Chile is the first country of the world to guarantee by law the principle of network neutrality, according to the Teleccomunications Market Comission's Blog from Spain. The official newspaper of the Chilean Republic published yesterday a Law that guarantees that any Internet user will be able to use, send, receive or offer any content, applications or legal services over the Internet, without arbitrary or discriminatory blocking."
Re:A Law That Guarantees (Score:5, Informative)
In Chile. If the servers are not in Chile then this law doesn't apply.
That was worded poorly. If the traffic doesn't originate in Chile then it is subject to arbitrary and/or discriminatory blocking or throttling before it gets to Chile.
Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it? (Score:5, Informative)
Greed and monopoly. If competitors were permitted in cities, I bet you'd see a return to unrestricted access. Where I have my hosting, I get transfer for under $0.01/GB. A TB of transfer is less than $10. Bandwidth is no longer a major cost of doing the ISP business. So why can't I get that at home? Lack of competition. Cities get fat checks for restricting competition, and we all pay for it.
Re:A Law That Guarantees (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern (Score:5, Informative)
All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?
REALLY?
You seem to forgotten that there was a lot of complaining and a lot of people finding no competition to turn to and then the FCC smacked Comcast for throttling torrents.
In other words, exactly the opposite of what you said.
Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed (Score:4, Informative)
He explained that suppliers must provide a service "which makes no distinction arbitrary content, applications or services based on the source of their origin or ownership."
In other words - no VOIP traffic prioritizing or in fact traffic shaping of any kind. Sorry Skype users, you'll have to stick with the big business telcos!
There's a set of bits in IP meant to adjust QoS, which is a non-arbitrary way of handling things. Thus, Bittorrent can claim itself to a minimal QoS, which is announcing to nearby routers that they're the first ones to go if there's a problem. Likewise, an RSS feed may declare it to be a low QoS, and defer to a normal QoS (such as from an HTTP browser), or a high QoS (such as real-time video conferencing or telephony.)
In this case, it's the applications themselves that volunteer to be dropped as issues arise from QoS, rather than being arbitrary.
Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern (Score:1, Informative)
I read it as meaning that if the operation of spam clients/servers in Chile were considered illegal then an ISP would be within its rights to downgrade the internet connectivity of those hosts without breaching their contract.
And so on.
For your question about torrent sites on a blacklist to have meaning, Chile would first need such a thing.
In this instance, the government isn't deciding what's permissible on *your* network. You don't own the network beyond your "modem".
This law is sensible, problem is too many of us aren't used to sensible laws!
Re:key word: "blocking" (Score:2, Informative)
you "sound" bitter just beacuse Chile passed a law that restricts the -evil- actions of the ISPs before the US
PS: the law also includes "delaying", so your post is pointless
Re:A Law That Guarantees (Score:1, Informative)
AMERICA is a continent, USA is a country located in the continent AMERICA. Seems USA schools teach poor geography...
Well, if they taught you, then yes, because there is no continent called America. There is a continent called North America, and one called South America, which are collectively known as the Americas.
But none of them are AMERICA. That's a popular term for the United States of America.
Sad you didn't know that till now.
Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed (Score:2, Informative)
He explained that suppliers must provide a service "which makes no distinction arbitrary content, applications or services based on the source of their origin or ownership."
In other words - no VOIP traffic prioritizing or in fact traffic shaping of any kind. Sorry Skype users, you'll have to stick with the big business telcos!
What is the matter with you? Read the text you quoted yourself. VOIP is a traffic type. It is not a "source of origin or ownership". So yes, they can prioritize VOIP. They just can't prioritize Company A's VOIP while not prioritizing Company B's VOIP.
Reading comprehension is important. Not important to you, apparently, but it is important. Really man, the text you quoted yourself answered the question you are asking. You deserve to be called out on that.
Re:The argument for net neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Chile doesn't have states like the US. The main divisions are regions. They have their own governmental entities but they're all controlled by the central ones in Santiago, the capital. So regions don't get to do whatever they want either, meaning that if the government creates a law, all the rest of the regions have to follow, and individual regions can't make their own laws.
I hope that helped somewhat to understand a bit how Chile works. Of course, the real question is if the SUBTEL is going to care enough to reinforce the law in all its extent. That's a completely different deal.
Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed (Score:2, Informative)
derp.
QoS isn't "I want to go faster" or "I want to go slower". It's "I care about bandwidth" and "I care about latency".
Re:A Law That Guarantees (Score:1, Informative)
You missed the "Prohibits activities that restrict users' freedom to use the content or services unless the specific request of users".
I'd imagine that they would have clauses to allow QoS at the request of the user. Honestly though, you would really need to read (and understand) the native version to actually say that QoS was forbidden.
Bad translation (Score:5, Informative)
The diario oficial [anfitrion.cl] is not "the official newspaper". It is in fact the public journal [wikipedia.org] of the country, where laws are published.