bhelms85

December 20, 2010 at 5:57pm

I see where everyone wants to make a dollar.... but on the other side of the house. . . you could cheat the system in several ways.  How would they be able to monitor if you went through a VPN?  You can find them online for 20 bux a month.  I would assume they would be monitoring ports to charge you... so if you ran through SSH or change ports in the services file (windows).... It would start out as a pain in the ass, but like everything... an automated script would come out and people would change that way.  

 

I just dont see how companies would be able to monitor that... its not quite as cut and dry as local/long distant calling/texting.   

Vladislav_Draculva

December 20, 2010 at 3:26pm

For the rest of the world to just fuckin boycot cellphone companies...the whole reason that this is happening is because the cell phone companies know that people are just gunna complain about it and continue paying their monthly bill...I use a LANDLINE Phone...don't get me wrong...I have a cell phone...Straighttalk...that is right I use the walmart cell phone...why you ask, because for 30 dollars a month it makes all the phone calls I need to make...and I laugh at all my friends that are still using ATT or verizon or whatever it is that they use...if we show these big companies that we just arent gunna pay their prices then maybe this problem will end itself...

 

Don't sit around and wish for a solution people...BECOME THE SOLUTION...

 

Fuck Verizon, Fuck ATT, Fuck Cingular, Fuck Sprint...I got a landline and you can't track my net usage...I DO WHAT I WANT...NOT WHAT YOU TELL ME TOO!!!

jgrimoldy

December 20, 2010 at 12:48pm

Still waiting for a free-market supporter to proselytize about how this is a *good* thing....

 

someuid

December 20, 2010 at 7:56am

"Each subscriber has a particular service plan that they sign up for, and they're as generic or as personalized as the operator wants."

Basically, what they are saying here is if they decide they want to make an extra $20/month or $40/month, they will simply custom tailer your plan, based on your usage, to ensure you are charged that extra amount.  You can bet your life that they will have legal small print in every contract stating they can adjust, on-the-fly, without notice, the service plans and costs, under the guise of protecting the availability of the network and service levels promised to other customers.

We would end up in the dark ages in a matter of weeks.

Hopefully internet companies turn out in droves to fight this off, or a new company rises up to replace these phone/data behemoths and send them to their grave.

scclockdr

December 20, 2010 at 4:58am

Cloud Computing that is.

 

Any huge red flags going up over the Cloud concept yet?

 

My fear is the Cloud host/s having complet control over the OS, content, & storage of our data in their world and the user being a potential extortion victim begging to free their data from being held hostage.

 

I fear the Cloud of the future especially if net neutrality becomes law.

 

R

George

suniahk

December 19, 2010 at 11:16pm

"...which means that even applications that are encrypted or use other methods to evade detection will be correctly identified and classified..."

So, they're admitting that they're going to inspect every single packet, encrypted or not, so they can charge for it.  While they're not coming out and saying it, they could very well be doing this RIGHT NOW.  Right this instant.  You know that credit card transaction you just made?  Yeah, by the way, if your ISP didn't already have your credit card information, they do now.  I hate to be a doomsayer, but if US ISP's go through with this, it could very well start the end of the internet as we know it.  Major businesses that rely on encryption for the security of it's customers will have to find companies that don't rely on this kind of blatent disregard for security.  As more and more ISP's roll over, there will be fewer and fewer companies willing to do business online.  Or offline for that matter, as debit and credit transactions would also be viewable by ISP's.  Now, I'm not saying that ISP's would abuse this power.  Or, for that matter, that they save specifics of each packet.  However, all it takes is one employee with enough power within the ISP to take what they want.

On a personal level, I think the internet has grown far too large.  It's an amazing utility, to be sure.  However, in the form it is now, it demands and certain level of responsiblity that end-users don't have.  Somehow, the internet needs to be changed.  I don't pretend to know how, though.  Nor do I pretend that I don't enjoy the rediculous amount of freedom it affords.  I just think that it needs to be changed.  This assinine move by ISP's is NOT a change for the better.

It's also amusing to consider that the concept of "Net Neutrality" only seems to apply to the web.  Many ideals held within those two words would work wonders for the outside world as well.  With all the bickering going on between politicians, though, and the level of responsibility something like that would require... That's not like to happen.  Ever.

Ah, well.  Just another End-of-the-world conspirist.  Nothing to see here, move along.

Nickompoop

December 19, 2010 at 9:27pm

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

COMMANDER_COOK

December 19, 2010 at 8:36pm

Maybe they could charge more for sending spam?

ascendant

December 19, 2010 at 8:35pm

I would think this would have to be against some kind of privacy laws. Especially if they're able to inspect encrypted data. That would suddenly mean that all those secure sites that we use are available to inspection. Passwords to sites like banking sites and investment portfolios and the like are suddenly no longer secure. Same could go for encrypted and potentially confidential files people are transferring online. To me this is balancing on a VERY fine line and is something the FCC and possibly other gonernmental agencies probably should look into before anything might possibly come from it.

I don't like the sound of it at all.

flo21

December 19, 2010 at 8:21pm

so long internets, it was fun while it lasted

DOOMHAMMA

December 19, 2010 at 7:16pm

This would be a real hindrance to digital distribution for Movies/Games.

Netflix/Amazon Video on Demand/Youtube/Steam/D2D/GoG/Impulse

I hope every company behind those services fights this crap.

Ghok

December 19, 2010 at 7:02pm

The sad thing is that the companies that benefit from this are the ones that fund our leaders.

I have faith in people, though. Telecom's outrageous gouges only happen when people are ignorant. Most people don't really know how bad cellphone plans are in North America compared to the rest of the world, but we've always had them so we accept it. People are realizing more and more that they're getting ripped off. I've met a surprising amount of people lately who have opted for itouches over iphones, because they just saw what a terrible deal the dataplan is. It'd be NICE to have a phone on it, and then be down having to carry one device, but it's not worth the extra cost.

I think one of the reasons cable is falling apart is because people don't like the format anymore. No one wants the cable box, the fee for the basic channels, then the free for the speciality channels, the various different packages of channels, and the high cost at the end when all you get is 400 channels with nothing on them worth watching. Especially when you can probably find what you want to watch online anyway, with little hassle. I'd hate the same thing to happen to mobile internet.

I Jedi

December 19, 2010 at 6:30pm

 "Mobile Carriers Plan for a Future Where Net Neutrality No Longer Exists"

Hm, imagine that...

In other news, CEOs of major companies continue to squabble for the nickels and dimes they can horde from customer's ever thinning wallets.

I pray to god that someday Google fiber will hook up in my area.

wintercoder

December 19, 2010 at 6:12pm

In the small little town that I live in, I am on the edge of DSL availability in the countryside.  Sure, Centurylink has a fiber termination point going just 1 block from my house, but even at that, I can only get 1.5 Mbps access, for $70/Month.  Why? Because they are the only game in town, so we get stabbed with ungodly prices. 

I have an apartment in a large town, where I am employed and reside M-Th.  There, I can get 20Mbps for about $50/Month.

CenturyTel's excuse?  "There is no competitiion at your home address, sir, so we have no incentive to lower your price, or extend our service level offering to you."  She was brutally honest.

I can't even fathom how our prices will be jacked up if policies discussed in this article are implemented.