While there are concerns that the FCC even is involved (could this lead to future regulation and restrictions. This is yet to be seen.) this is a good step for those of us desiring a free and open Internet.

Wired Magazine | Silicon Alley Insider coverage of the ruling.

Some notable quotes:

From the FCC Statement:
Comcast’s practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects.  The commission found that Comcast monitors its customers’ connections using deep packet inspection and then determines how it will route some connections based not on their destinations but on their contents. In essence, Comcast opens its customers’ mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained therein.

Comcast may have interfered with up to three-quarters of all peer-to-peer connections in certain communities. The commission concluded that the end result of Comcast’s conduct was the blocking of internet traffic, which had the effect of substantially impeding consumers’ ability to access the content and to use the applications of their choice.

From Comcast after the Ruling:
Comcast spokesman Sena Fitzmaurice said the company was “gratified that the commission did not find any conduct by Comcast that justified a fine.” He said the company did not throttle traffic.

Reading the Statement from FCC above is very scary, that an ISP is reading everything coming to your account. Could they be storing this information, such as credit card information or sensitive company documents.

Unfortunately there was not a fine involved, it would have sent a louder message to all the ISPs out there. For the time being Net Neutrality is still standing here in the USA

*Sigh of Relief*

At least one lawmaker is already crying foul over Friday’s expected Federal Communications Commission’s censure of Comcast for faking internet traffic to limit its customers’ peer-to-peer file sharing.

Republican minority leader Rep. John Boehner said the FCC would be “essentially regulating the internet.”

Read more via Wired Magazine

Will get more as the ruling comes out.

I bring this up today because the FCC is in the process of defending Net Neutrality against Comcast this Friday. We’ll post the results of their ruling them.

Currently every bit of information sent over the Internet is treated the exact same, no priority is given to anything. The email the US President goes just the same as one I send. Some congressmen/women in D.C. believe in-correctly that the volume of traffic currently experiencing is causing massive delays in the deliver of some of these information bits.

To be far, there is more traffic on the Internet than ever (thanks to video sharing sites like you-tube). Yet everything is still clipping along just fine.

So why the problem here?

Major tel-com companies stand to make millions, if not billions, if net neutrality falls apart. It would allow them to set a priority level for ever bit of data that goes across the Internet. This priority will come at a premium price beyond the reach of the Church (save maybe the holy sea).

This will create a two-tiered Internet where the tel-com companies are able to charge on both sides of the service. Companies that host websites would potentially be able to pay for premium service, as well as someone browsing the Internet.

So, how does this affect the church?

One of my biggest passions right now is to see the church take the Internet and become a driving force of net-culture. While this is a huge hard to measure goal, if net neutrality falls apart (as Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska wants) this will become out of reach of not-for-profit organizations like the church.

Imagine if now in addition to creating dynamic content for a web-outreach or documentary to be posted online you need to raise more money to allow people to view it. This doesn’t help anyone but the companies with deep enough pockets to do whatever they want anyway.

What do we do?

As of now there isn’t much to do aside from be informed and join the coalition over at SaveTheInterenet.com.