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Week 5 Homework

Network Neutrality

Network neutrality is the idea that everybody should have equal access to the internet. Companies like Time Warner and AT&T would not be allowed to block sites or divert traffic to other sites that they have a financial interest in. Basically network service providers would have no say in which data would be privileged and given higher quality service. So for example if Time Warner had a vested financial interest in Google search engine they could give Google high priority and block or slow traffic to other search engines like Yahoo.
Net neutrality has been around for a long time but in 2005 it was put in jeopardy by a decision made by the FCC. Legislation to put net neutrality into law is now being blocked by the large cable and phone company lobbyists that stand to benefit from being able to police what we have access to.
This issue does affect everyone personally. I was reading another students post and I agree that it affects us if we cannot get access to information that we may want to see on a site that is being restricted by our ISP and it also affects all small companies that wish to compete with larger companies on the internet if they cannot pay the high tolls to guarantee their sites will be given high quality access.
I found a really good site called Save The Internet.com with a lot of information on how people can get involved in getting net neutrality legislation passed as well as current news on what is happening with net neutrality. I found the FAQ section especially informative as a basic overview of what Net neutrality means and how it affects the general public.