Internet Inequalities
Usually, any Internet controversies are reserved for the interest of ISP presidents, software programmers, and other computer savvy individuals. Lately though, some Internet news has been making headlines with everyone. It pertains to Internet neutrality, which is the act of keeping all things regulated and equal on the Internet. ISPs have lately come out of the woodwork and into the limelight about their practices of regulating Internet speeds. They take some applications and websites which require lots of bandwidth and are usually quite slow to load, and they speed them up. By doing this though, they decrease the speed at which all other sites go. There is only so much bandwidth to go around, and when they allot more to one thing, another has to give.
This makes the public a bit uneasy. For one, the Internet is supposed to be a free place, void of many tyrants who might wish to control it or pull the strings behind the scenes. Second, with decreased browsing speed, their favorite sites and games could take much longer to load. Sure, there are other things that will be expedited, but there are other programs that will be slowed to a crawl.
Some people think this is no big deal, and while it might not be a matter of life and death, slowing certain things down indiscriminately could prove to have detrimental consequences. Imagine services like AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Skype. The premise of all of these is simple; instant communication. When in any AIM conversation, people get antsy if the reply doesn’t come within thirty seconds. Imagine if this service was the one cut back, and responses were carried slower than ever, and sometimes lost completely. It would defeat the purpose of the word “Instant”. Skype is a video chatting program where business people often go to arrange deals and speak with their clientele face to face without having to be with them. Imagine the loss of impact a salesman would have if every word he spoke to his potential customer was delayed or distorted! A person will not buy if they think the businessman is not competent, but many other things factor in. For example, if throughout the delivery of the speech, the businessman was slurring his speech, the delivery might not have the same impact. However, this is not his fault! He was perfectly audible and coherent; the reduced bandwidth simply cut the information out that he was trying to say.
While this all paints the ISPs as the bad guys, they have a side as well. They say that people complain of long downloading times, and that they have to meet these demands. They are in a tough position; their consumer base is divided. The half that downloads and streams videos and music all day loves the idea of getting more bandwidth, while the casual Internet civilian is adamantly against this practice because it will slow them to a crawl. You can see their predicament!
There are also security concerns with these changes as well. Perhaps with decreased speed will come decreased security for surfers on those affected sites. Anything is possible, just be prepared. Using a change IP proxy can keep you safe and anonymous if hackers have infiltrated and entrenched themselves in these damaged sites. They will try and locate people or get into their hard drive by using their IP addresses. By using an IP changer, you can effectively re-route your IP throw off any potential criminals in this new unbalanced Internet.
