Net Neutrality
[tag]Net neutrality[/tag] is under attack in [tag]Canada[/tag] and its loss is almost a forgone conclusion with this [tag]Conservative government[/tag]. I ran across this site and found one of the better metaphors for the effects of the loss of net neutrality for non-techies .
Consider a polling place, where the affluent were allowed to vote in priority, while the rest of the public was made to wait. The government ensures that employers provide at least three hours to vote. After this time period expires, voters must return to work, whether they have voted or not. If they do not return to work they risk losing their employment. Provided enough affluent voters turn out, the lines for the rest would move so slowly that the 3 hour period would expire and many would be forced to leave having not voted.
Just as in the voting example, if a VoIP packet is not delivered within a number of milliseconds it is useless. With QoS prioritization, companies are granted the ability to racketeer their subscribers into paying a premium fee to utilize third party VoIP providers. Since nearly all broadband providers also provide telephone service, there is a clear conflict of interest here.
This, like the voting example, simply isn’t democratic, and it’s certainly not a free market with consumer choice. However, if like with voting, all packets were given the same priority, then the lines can be properly managed and wait times for all packets would remain equal and acceptable.
