Hiawatha Bray: Like Y2K, the net neutrality "crisis" is way overhyped

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 1:32 PM
Subject: Hiawatha Bray: Like Y2K, the net neutrality "crisis" is way
overhyped
To: dave () farber net <dave () farber net>


Dave, and everyone:

Veteran Boston Globe tech reporter Hiawatha Bray reassures Internet users
alarmed by corporate lobbyists' scare stories that there is no reason to
panic; the repeal of the FCC's "open Internet" order will, Bray believes,
be a yawner, not an "apocalypse."

Like Y2K, the net neutrality "crisis" is way overhyped

By Hiawatha Bray <https://www.bostonglobe.com/staff/bray> Globe Staff
November 28, 2017

As the Federal Communications Commission
<http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf>
nears a fateful decision on network neutrality, it’s beginning to feel a
lot like Y2K all over again.

You may remember Dec. 31, 1999. That’s the last time the Internet was
expected to die, because millions of computers were going to crash when
their internal clocks failed to turn over to the year 2000. I sat in the
Globe’s newsroom, waiting for the end. Nothing happened. It was quite a
letdown.

Now here comes another “apocalypse.” On Dec 14, the FCC is expected to
abandon the Obama administration’s policy on so-called Net neutrality, in
which the government forces Internet providers to treat all data equally.
Activists say it’s the end of the Internet as we know it, with giant
Internet providers like Comcast and AT&T free to block or slow down access
to key online services unless they’re paid extra to let the data flow.

But I’m betting hardly anything will change. Not the day after Dec. 14, the
month after, or the year after.
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I’m as subject to panic as the next guy, but I can’t see much reason to
freak out over the supposed death of Net neutrality.

More at

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/11/28/like-net-neutrality-crisis-way-overhyped/ChcyXjEsM5QyMIfYa09vWO/story.html



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