Every Time You Vote against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tony Greenberg and Alex Veytsel[Edit][Delete]: Every Time You Vote against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf, RampRate [Edit][Delete] November 21, 2006
The premise of this article is that if net neutralist is lost then a major casualty will be online gaming, because online gaming requires minimal latency (that is, the smallest possible amount of time between an action and a response). "The battle over net neutrality is really a battle for latency (and jitter). It is unlikely that an ISP will make the mistake of repeating Canadian ISP Telus' attempt at outright censorship. Rather, the ISP's gentle nudge towards the preferred offering or provider is likely to come in the form of slow and inconsistent network performance for services that refuse to pay what amounts to 'protection money' to an ISP." This is probably correct. Online communication is likely to be the other victim. It is interesting - I have already noticed 'Skype sponsored' wireless internet access in places - Skype will work, but nothing else will unless you pay for access. More...