Ok, let me find something else that covers it. And you know, this may be why I'm having problems finding The Daily Show segments on YouTube....Viacom could be shutting them all down.
Here,
this video here is part of Senator Ted Steven's speach given to Senate. For those who cannot decipher 'Rambling Old Man' talk, here's what's going on.
Net Neutrality means that you can use the Internet. They don't care what you use the Internet for, go ahead and use it. You get billed the same whether you are downloading animal documentaries, porn, playing FFXI or WoW, playing WC3, doing your homework, or whatever. The only way people can really charge more is if you want a better connection. More speed, higher cost per month, right?
Some bozo's in Washington say that's not right. Ted Stevens is refering to Netflix I think. They, instead of mailing you your movie, want to send it to you over the internet. It's cheaper for them then to pay shipping charges, and that means you save money too. Mr Stevens however thinks that "The Internet is not a giant truck you can just dump something on. It's a series of tubes. And these tubes can be filled."
So they wish to charge companies who will use the internet for commercial use -more- for no reason other then they are using it for commercial use. Now, if you think that's fine and dandy with you, think about this. Phone companies charge you for where you call, and how long. (Sometimes depending on your plan, maybe not even both of those figure in.) They do not bill you based on -what you're talking about-. Because that's silly. >.>;
I mean, the Phonelines are a series of wires, right? If all these big commercial companies just start using the phone lines for their business instead of just driving to the person's house...holy crap, our phonelines will be clogged! Quick, charge more for people doing commercial transactions! ....silly, ain't it.
To quote John Stewart on the clip I originally tried to post, "It appears that Ted Steven's tubes are clogged and he needs some fiber....opitic cabels..."
Quite simply, the Internet is vast enough, and technology far enough, that movies -can- be streamed over the net causing no problems to the average user. You know, besides the person recieving said movie. His bandwidth will be boned unless it's high.
(Also,
this is pretty funny too.)