By Jo Rhett – Technical Consultant
Net Neutrality is the biggest threat to your business that you’ve seen in years. Today is the very last day you can comment on the proposed legislation. This should be a high priority for you today – let me explain why.
If the proposed legislation passed, it explicitly authorizes Internet access companies to charge you more to access sites that haven’t paid them as well. Yes, that’s right, the Internet access company would get paid by both sides for the same bytes. However, the most important part of the legislation is that it allows them to block and slow down sites that haven’t paid them.
Let’s discuss what this means to your business:
- You would face slowdowns to access sites critical to your business.
- You would have to pay more for an unrestricted access plan if one were offered.
- You would have to negotiate with and pay each and every Internet provider on the planet to serve your content to their customers.
- Your websites and services could be blocked if you are competing with a service provided by an Internet access company.
- Services that are critical to your business could be blocked or slowed significantly if they compete with a service offered by an Internet access company.
Today you pay your Internet access based on bytes transferred, or bytes which could be transferred. Consider how difficult running your business will be if you are forced to negotiate with hundreds of different Internet access providers in order to access or provide services on the Internet?
There is absolutely nothing in the legislation that requires the Internet providers to be reasonable or to provide a base level of service to sites. If this legislation passes, it would be in the economic interest of every Internet provider to make exclusive, high-value deals with providers of services to ensure all their competitors are blocked.
Unless you can answer Yes to all of the following questions, the loss of Net Neutrality will cost your business:
* Are you prepared to bribe every provider to ensure customers can reach your services?
* Does your business have the money to outbid every one of your competitors?
* Does every service you depend upon have the money to outbid their competitors?
Today is the very last day to comment. This link might work, but sometimes fails:http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/begin?procName=14-28&filedFrom=X
If it doesn’t work, follow these steps to comment:
- Visit http://FCC.gov/comments
- Find the title “14–28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.”
- Click the number “14–28”
- Express how this will affect your business.