The following paragraph is an excerpt from Wikipedia from a search I did for the history of the Internet:
The Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) was developed by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf in the 1970s and became the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET, incorporating concepts from the French CYCLADES project directed by Louis Pouzin. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access to the supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations. Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the very late 1980s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. Limited private connections to parts of the Internet by officially commercial entities emerged in several American cities by late 1989 and 1990,[5] and the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.
The internet was a collaborative invention of researchers at several research based universities and federally funded programs in the United States along with several researchers and agencies in Europe. The internet was devised to be an instrument to facilitate communications. I doubt that the creators of the internet truly envisioned at the time they were working on developing it what the internet would become or how it would so exponentially expanded communications. In the United States, before the internet, there was the pony express, telegraph, the mail, radio, telephone, and television. Those were the modes of communication before the internet. The internet has brought with it instant messaging, texting, live streaming, instantaneous global communication, skyping, conference calls, and mobile phones, apple and android, with all of the apps available for those platforms.
Robert Taylor, one of the early internet pioneers envisioned the internet as:
His awards include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the Draper Prize.[3] Taylor was known for his high-level vision: “The Internet is not about technology; it’s about communication. The Internet connects people who have shared interests, ideas and needs, regardless of geography.”[3]
Mr. Taylor also believed about the internet that:
“Will it be freely available to everyone? If not, it will be a big disappointment.”
So, at least one of the original pioneers had as part of his mission, the creation of an instrument of mass communication that should remain freely available to all. That sentiment was probably shared by other of his fellow creators of the internet.
What the internet has become is not just a mammoth tool for instant communication for all people with access to it all around the world, but it has also become a central component of social networking and business and industry. There are now practically no businesses that do not use the internet to carry out their business. The world of commerce has become absolutely dependent on it. We are now also experiencing some of the problematic things that can be done with the internet with the prime example of Russian hacking of other country’s political campaigns, that is, in France and the United States. This use of the internet is and abuse of the system. As the internet continues to evolve, the global community will have to find ways of dealing with these kinds of activities and find a way to prevent them from happening.
So, for individuals, what is the internet? We log onto our computers and email each other. We go to our favorite websites and blogs. Many of us blog ourselves. We watch videos and live streams of many events. We get news and information and gossip and pop culture. We do business over the internet. We instant message each other. We communicate using the internet. We get our internet through Internet Service Providers.
Again, coming from Wikipedia, this time the search being for Internet Service Provider:
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services accessing and using the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
Most Americans get their internet service through one of the few giant corporations that own and monopolize most of the telecommunications industry: Comcast/Xfinity, Verizon, ATT, Sprint, etc. Americans don’t really have many choices as to where they get their internet. Nor is it the internet that is “freely available to everyone” as was envisioned by some of its creators. It is an expense that most Americans have come to expect as an expense, another bill to pay. And for many, it is not an inexpensive bill.
The telecommunication industry giant corporations Comcast/Xfninty and Verizon have been lobbying and pushing for changes in net neutrality so that they can increase their profits by charging more for higher bandwidth speeds to those who can afford it. This is exactly the opposite of an internet that is “freely available to everyone.” The FCC is the federal agency that oversees the telecommunications industry and makes rules and regulations for it. Ajit Pai, Trump’s newly appointed director of the FCC, is a recent and long time employee of Verizon, wants to allow for these companies to charge for their service on a tiered system, which would effectively price many out of being able to afford normal (fast internet speeds) if they cannot afford the new, higher costs of this service. There isn’t any reason except for a profit motive, for these companies to not supply the normal fast internet speeds to all of their customers. Currently we have net neutrality in place which means that everyone at this time gets the same internet service and the same speed but that could change with a change in the rules at the FCC. And that is the direction that Ajit Pai wants to take for the telecommunications in the United States. If this happens, the cost of the use of the internet to consumers will increase by however much the internet service provider companies decide they want to charge. It could drive a lot of smaller businesses out of business and be cost prohibitive for many Americans who may no longer be able to afford to pay for their use of the internet. That is unless Americans object to it, reject it, and do not allow it to happen.
A good bit of news in all of this is that there is an alternative which would keep the internet fair and keep the costs down allowing for all to use it without going bankrupt in the process. The alternative is a community based internet service provider which is owned of, for and by the people of any given community. Yes, it involves the community paying for the cost of setting up its own fiberoptic system. But the advantages are that after the initial investment in setting up the infrastructure, the internet at that local level would not be subject to the profit motives of the large corporations that currently control most of the internet in the United States today. An example of how a community can have its own ISP follows. It’s Chattanooga, Tennessee. You’ll have check out this article to see what they did:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/index.html
The point I want to make is that we do have options. We do not have to accept any change to net neutrality in the first place. We can prevent it from changing. And we could have a better, more local, much more cost effective ISP in our own community if that is something that we want to build for ourselves. I think it’s pretty clear how much we all need, use, and depend on the internet at this point. These options, singly or together might be worth considering doing if having an internet is really something that we want to make work better for us as individuals and as a country.
thoughtprivacyandliberty.com 