Net Neutrality

[Fairlight]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 08:45:44PM -0500, Richard Kreiss thus spoke:
> My question is, can you compute system be programmed to generate the
> reports required?

The reports of what?  I've heard the allegations that there needs to be
all this expensive gear to handle it, but we don't know what 'it' is.  I'm
still waiting for an explanation, or a source citation.

> I keep getting mailings about getting their cable service but am not
> interested. I don't stream video to my devices. Also, Verizon offers a
> similar service which I don't use even though I have an unlimited data
> plan

Spectrum (formerly Time Warner, nee Insight) keeps mailing me about their
cable offerings.  Frankly, I have Netflix and Amazon Prime for a reason,
and there's nothing I want on cable badly enough to justify the cost vs
free time.  They keep offering me phone service as well, but I've had
only mobile with T-Mobile since the Galaxy S (no number, just the original
S model), and I'm happy with it.

> All I am concerned about is that neither provider reduce my connection
> speeds below what I am paying for.

This.  Exactly this.  Actually, Spectrum just emailed on Thursday pushing
their new bundle, and the wording was screwy.  It was basically, "You can
-keep- your existing 300mbit speed for another $40/mo."  You don't want to
know how fast I had them on the phone.  Turns out that's if you switch to
Spectrum's bundle, but apparently my rate won't change for the foreseeable
future.  I watch these guys like hawks, though.

They are specifically advertising no data caps of any kind, however, which
is encouraging.  That was Insight's policy, as was it Time Warner's.  This
much pleases me.

> That said, it is only us "old Folk" who care. Most of the young people
> don't care. They readily give up "private " information easily. They even
> post it on line and feel good about it. Only too late to they find out it
> was not a good idea.

I find that to be a broad over-generalisation, and a false one, at that.
Many of the older folks aren't conversant with encryption, while the
younger folks are.  For that matter, how many "old folks" do you know who
use Tor?  How many "old folks" are concerned with near-instant deletion of
mobile photos and other transient data?  How many "old folks" got hit by
the data breach at Ashley Madison, and had to raise a ruckus?  How many
older folks are clamoring for two-factor authentication for their social
media and gaming accounts?  Questionable legalities and/or ethics of some
of the underlying activities aside, the younger generations are actually
far more keenly aware of encryption and data privacy than older folks are,
if you disallow sysadmins and IT professionals.  That's been my experience
and observation, in any event.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.