Comments on: Why should you be concerned about the new net neutrality ruling

By: Michele Marius

Michele Marius — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 19:35:20 +0000

In reply to RD. Too true, RD, espcially when countries and their citizens want to continue to capitalise on the broad range of opportunities that the Internet offers, and have been lobbying for faster Internet speeds and more affordable prices.

By: Michele Marius

Michele Marius — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 19:20:58 +0000

In reply to John Thompson.

Agreed.
Should net neutrality be removed, change is inevitable. Further, I am concerned that the Caribbean, other developing countries and Small Island Developing Stastes (SIDS) might not have adequate bargaining power to counterbalance or lessen those changes…

By: Michele Marius

Michele Marius — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 19:17:50 +0000

In reply to John Thompson. John, Insightful thoughts as per usual. However, I am concerned that if the FCC forbears on this issue, they might have even more of a fight on their hands should they want to introduce more controls in the future.

By: RD

RD — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:46:52 +0000

In reply to John Thompson. We have to be very careful, as a Caribbean. My opinion is that whatever happens to internet governance and or architecture, routing will become a very important aspect of network interaction and delivery in the not too distant future. Generally we pay little or no attention to this aspect of the network, but it has the potential to be a political hot potato.

By: John Thompson

John Thompson — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:49:10 +0000

This will bring back the significance of routing factors to traffic transmission i don’t see how the tiered system would work without specific routing now being allocated to different tiers of internet traffic. So you’l probably see emerging, levels of carrier grade transmission sympathetic to the type of account your Caribbean ISP holds for internet-ing your applications or content via the US super carriers. Removing net neutrality sort of de-commoditizes the super carrier pipes and transforms them to value-added products. This is what they’ve been hoping for all along as a response to the network shifting into the hands of applications and content programmers and away from infrastructure owner market power. Lets brace ourselves to see what it pans out to be in terms of costs and pricing.

By: John Thompson

John Thompson — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 20:20:26 +0000

As I said before elsewhere this is a repeat of the Benchmark Order 1997 where the US courts allowed US carriers to dictate pricing on international voice termination to stop the disparate variance in outpayments leaving the US each year (approx 12bn).

Now net neutrality is granted to allow superior service to come from US ISPs re web hosting and online services, over that of foreign ISPs. The tiering now allowed by removing net neutrality is a competitive advantage one will now be able to acquire from US ISPs, thereby attracting more of these businesses to US markets..
FCC will likely forbear on this to see how the markets adjust and whether US supremacy does not distort the markets too much, before they react by reverting to net neutrality – through the door the court has left open for and accessible to them.(i.e reclassifying ISPs as common carriers). Verizon, hey! we caught you smiling, again

By: Alesia

Alesia — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:52:02 +0000

Interesting article and I agree that the Caribbean should have its say so that we can prepare for changes that might come it is true that the decisions in the US will have an impact on us.