Two Slashes

At this point, the phrase ‘net neutrality’ is like an outdated fashion statement:  everyone knows about it and nobody really cares anymore.  And while it certainly plays an important role in the evolution of the twenty-first century, it’s been sent to the back of the bus to sit with the dot-com blowouts.

Why?  As far as anyone can speculate, the new idea for making sure ISPs can overstuff their networks is to limit how much the customer can use them, rather than get funding to expand them from the corporations who are most likely to be transmitting across it.

The concept of enforcing bandwidth quotas can be rather laughable, especially when there are (seemingly absurd) $5+/GB overage charges.  Considering that ISPs will swear up and down that their heaviest customers are heavy downloaders, they repeatedly argue that these fees will only apply to this clique.  From a pirate’s perspective, think about it:

• The average MP3 folder (via torrent, newsgroups, whatever) for a single album ranges between 60 and 130 MB.  Assuming an average 100 MB per album downloaded, that’s 10 albums for $5 (or whatever the overage charge is).  I dare anyone to beat that with music acquired from the store as far as quantity goes.  (Though this does raise a question in cases such the newer NIN albums.)
• Usually, rips of feature films run between 700-1300 MB depending on a few factors.  That’s between $5 and $10 for a movie; if the downloader is willing to suffer the (potentially) lower quality, $5 is perhaps not unreasonable.  For hour-long TV shows, it tends to be 350-700 MB per episode, so the cost incurred in getting that full season on DVD can instead be split between your download overages and the new hard drive you get to store all of your ‘acquisitions.’
• Some of the most popular/expensive software suites also happen to be some of the smallest downloads.  The more software crammed in per GB, the better that $5 looks.

Sure, it angers the people who think unlimited means unlimited (I would like to believe this, but it’s never going to happen.) to know that suddenly they’re being reigned into reality, but the reality is that the gray areas are still the more-approachable, cost-friendly bretheren of walking the thin white line.

During school, when I’m only doing my schoolwork and light browsing, I tend to use approximately 150 MB per day (out of the 2 GB per 24 hours allotted per residence hall resident).  So, taking my 150 MB and multiplying it by 7 for a full week, I’ve already covered 1050 MB.  So, for my example, take that as the usage of the heaviest user in the house.  Let’s add in a little more for the rest of the typical family, and the Time Warner-suggested 5GB-per-month quota is going to be gone within two or three weeks.  And they’re the light end of the spectrum.  (I’m a little stupid for taking my usage and using it in a fictional example, but let’s not go there for now; the point is that these people claim that such limited requirements will satisfy most people, but any connection with more than one or two people using it is going to have major quota collisions.)

Even more pathetic is the practice of combining the higher-cost, higher-level quotas with higher speeds; I see this not so much as extending the timespan over which that quota is used as shortening it – people with more bandwidth tend to either use it in the course of their work, or feel it is going to waste and put it to use doing something – and in the process rendering the extra quota cushioning useless.

Of course, this all comes in the middle of the transition from print and televised media to Internet-based streaming media, and at a time where (at least, I see no reason why this isn’t true) telecommuting is starting to become a real substitute for the people looking to save their $4+/gallon gas.  (I can already see the argument boiling in peoples’ heads over whether it’s more cost- and time-effective to drive to the office or telecommute and get their work done from home.)  Isn’t it great that everything’s closing in all at once?

Side note:  If you really want a kick in the pants, I suggest you try searching for “at one point, google was“.  You’ll get a kick out of some of the results you get (and yes, it’s safe for work).