PHP Freaks

You will probably be seeing a call to action on phpfreaks in the near future, asking you to lend a hand in the ongoing battle to preserve net neutrality -- July 12th to be exact.

In a 2017 poll backed by people that OPPOSE net neutrality (Big telecoms and cable companies) a resounding 61% of those polled FAVORED net neutrality law and regulations be left in place. That's a substantial majority, but it's even more resounding when you factor in that 21% of those polled didn't have a clue what net neutrality even is!

The internet infrastructure in the US, and the money that many people pay for internet access is already pretty bad, with limited options for many people. According to Akamai's latest 2017 state of the internet report, the US ranks 10th in the world in average bandwidth speed, which certainly reflects progress, but shows how other countries have built better infrastructures and provide more bandwidth for less. In terms of price, the US has never delivered on the promise of competition, and we end up paying more for less for reasons covered in this 2015 article published on The Verge. [https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8321437/maps-show-why-internet-is-more-expensive-us-europe-competition]

The same companies that seem to conspire on price and avoid competition in much of the country, now want to profiteer by slowing traffic deliberately in order to squeeze more money from both content providers and customers. Imagine these scenarios, which will become a reality if we lose Net Neutrality.

"Hey you want your Netflix to actually work for you? Then you need the $10/month Netflix access addon sir!"

Your ISP also wants to go to providers and charge them individually for quality access to their customers, essentially double dipping, since those companies already have to pay for their bandwidth to connect their sites and services to the internet.

This is not going to be good for US consumers, businesses or US innovation.

Imagine you have come up with a great new Internet service like Snapchat -- only to find your business starved and your user based limited because you can't afford to pay extra fees to all the telecoms so that your data makes it reliably and equally to people wanting to access it! This is what the telecoms want. They want to control, limit and gouge you as a customer or internet connected business owner, and in much of the US you will only have one option, as is currently the case.

I urge you to take a minute and lend your support to organizations that are busy lobbying and fighting to keep Net neutrality in place.

If you are interested in getting out ahead of this issue you can read more about it at https://www.battleforthenet.com/ [https://www.battleforthenet.com/]