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TechnoratiVirgin CEO Calls Net Neutrality 'Bollocks'; Boycotts Threatened
Virgin Media is facing a possible boycott after its chief executive Neil Berkett described net neutrality as "a load of bollocks" and appeared to suggest that companies could pay for a stronger internet presence.
Berkett said in an interview in Television magazine that the company is already in talks with websites to provide privileged data transmission. The news prompted leading figures on the internet to call for a boycott.
"As a Virgin customer, I am not paying to see those services that bribe Virgin to reach me. I am paying to reach the entire web, whichever bits I think are useful, as quickly as Virgin can deliver them," said Cory Doctorow, internet activist and journalist.
"Theoretically, I am locked into a Virgin plan for another six months, but as far as I am concerned, they have just announced that they are violating the agreement by announcing that the services I can reach will be systematically slowed down unless they pay Virgin extra.
"That means that we are now null and void. I will be calling to cancel today. Who is with me?"
Net neutrality is the principle that all data is treated equal during transmission and has been a founding principle of the internet, making it possible for websites to compete on a level playing field.
Companies like Google are pushing for laws that would actually enshrine the concept in law.
Charles Stross, the UK's leading science fiction author, has added his voice to calls for a boycott, claiming in a blog entry that not only is Virgin intent on scrapping net neutrality but is already throttling bandwidth.
"Virgin Media have adopted the toxic and ultimately suicidal view that they own their customers, a captive audience who can be exploited in any way they deem reasonable," he wrote.
"Throttle their bandwidth, demand payments for access, charge for support calls, decide what equipment they may or may not connect to the network, because Virgin are the national cableco monopoly.
"Richard Branson ought to sue the f***ers for damaging his trademark. As for me, all I'm looking for is a suitable replacement TV service and I'm outta here. "
Virgin Media has denied assertions that it is planning to allow companies to pay for priority traffic.
Asam Ahmad, head of media relations at Virgin Media's consumer business, told vnunet.com that Berkett's comments had been taken out of context.
"We welcome an informed debate but we are not charging for content provision, " he said.
"It may be that in the future content providers will want to provide that. There is an ongoing conversation. You cannot rule anything out on the internet. It keeps changing."
Ahmad added that some companies are already getting faster access, not because of preferential treatment but because they had invested in infrastructure that made web pages more available.
Virgin Media intends to reassure customers that net neutrality has not been broken, according to Ahmad.
© 2008 Infomatics.com
17 Comments so far
Show AllFrank1569 said: " Net neutrality is already Resting In Peace. We just haven't accepted it yet…"
You're wrong. Net neutrality is NOT about how "big of a pipe" the subscriber buys from the service provider, which is what you're talking about in your post. Net Neutrality is all about how CONTENT is treated by the provider. Currently, I can go buy myself a sever and plug it into the net and ANYBODY can go to it and download it's content. Now say it's a website that slams AT&T... well without Net Neutrality, it would be perfectly OK for AT&T to block that site from their customers... or any client requesting that IP address that travels through an AT&T router, customer or not. IF we do away with Net Neutrality, Internet access will become like Cable TV where the providers dictate which "channels" their subscribers can access. You'd end up buying the "google package, with CNN & facebook" for $29.95 a month, compared to the "Yahoo package, with MSNBC and myspace" for $29.95.
The internet as an information sharing tool will go the way of the dodo.
A government of the people by the corporations, for the corporations....
--"We welcome an informed debate but we are not charging for content provision, " he said
-------
As long as they are the ones controlling the information and who's informed about what.
reduced directv to the bare minimum, signed up for the cheapest internet access, have the minimum in landline phone from verizon's small competitor, and time by the minute cellphone service.
Information is free from the right sources, like this one, and for the rest, starve them into submission, for as long as it takes.
As long as people are dumb enough to pay what they demand, the Corporations will win.
SO DON'T play.
Since when is outright greed and fear of the ability to compete fairly news?
Muscleboy: A strong Democracy is needed to maintain the vibrant and productive free market. Not one where the few monopolistic companies colluding with the government control everything.
Exactly the discussion capitalists DO NOT want to have. Here's the progressive model for markets: Producers are kept in their cage to take order and compete with each other to deliver on demands. Producers are forbidden to pursue power or market share, or influence anyone or anything, including market demands. They are not to collude. They are not even allowed to control resource allocation. They are not allowed to grow past a certain size, spanning markets, or within markets.
Consumers have to be given information and responsiblity to demand what is in the society's better interests, including handling resource allocations. For the most part, people will do this voluntarily, understanding the benefits. The government has to reign in the producers, and give the consumers the information and responsibility. A few mechanisms such as full costs in retail prices, and closed production cycles (producers to recycle) are implemented by the government to aid consumers in extracting greatest value from the markets, and least harm to the biosphere. Not a model for free markets, but for functional markets.
Did you know that in Japan this would not be an issue? We seem to have lost the edge!
We used to be the best but now, the plan is to make the "best profits" not the best size, speed, etc. We seem to be aging too rapidly.
One of the things that goes away with age is the ability to think about and deal with The Future.
Too many of us seem to be from Missouri, isn't that the "show me" state?
We are willing to wait for the quagmire, in the Internet or Iraq, instead of planning for the future.
Perhaps private companies can show ARPA how to build the Internet of the future, using satellites instead of expensive ground lines,
using WiiMAX and the airwaves to reach EVERYONE anywhere, in the US and, later, in the world.
But, no, we will wait and see "what sells", even if we have to wait for other countries to do it, not us, not here. Do I saound like an old man about to call it "quits"?
Virgin is 100% correct.
What - the Brits never heard of Time Warner? I get TW BASIC cable for one price; if I want more "content," I upgrade to PREMIUM, for more $$; VOD? More $$; and, of course, if I wanna watch the UFC - pay more to view.
If I hate TW and want to switch cable providers? Oh, what's that? Only TW Cable is available in my area? Damn.
Or - ATT. Land-line, cheap. Add internet dial-up, more $$. Faster dial-up? More $$; broadband? More $$; faster broadband? More $$. I started at $11/month. Now? $89 with the add-ons.
Net neutrality is already Resting In Peace. We just haven't accepted it yet...
Corporation by their very nature are evil... Always looking for another way to exploit something for profit.
AIR, WATER, FOOD, INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUAL COMMONS---- THE MORE CORPORATE CANCER INVADES THESE, THE WORSE ARE OUR CHANCES OF SURVIVING THE VAST CHALLENGES FACING HUMANITY. CLIMATE CHANGE, FASCISM, POPULATION AND POLLUTION. CORPORATE PERSONHOOD IS TOXIC TO PEOPLE AND PLANET.
I had a Virgin cell phone and that was a load of bollocks too, I went over to Orange.
Simple solution to this, if a list of the companies paying for the service is made public, is to use your kiddy censoring preferences to block the paying companies sites. The companies would not get what they paid for and then end the privileged site serving accounts Virgin Media is selling them.
The problem with the above scenario is that more than half of the online public is about as internet literate as television viewers are educated about media consumption (Yes, I'm talking about all you past and current AOL subscribers). The lemmings will inevitably become the ones to patronize and unknowingly finance the privileged services. Typical AOL Lemming: "WOW! I like this site, it loads so much faster for some reason..."
We can only hope that a new protocol will be developed (kind of like TOR- an anonymous onion router) that will create another tier within the net for more savvy media consumers and continue the unabated sharing of information as the current internet provides.
"chief executive Neil Berkett described net neutrality as "a load of bollocks""
How could that possibly be taken out of context? The fact is we are constantly faced with big business and big government trying to control technology for their exclusive benefit. We should be running at 1.5 terabytes per second to each household. It was proven it could be done with existing infrastructure. We should as a product of true competition and strong laws that enforce freedom. But we end up with criminal businesses like Virgin trying to act as if they have the right to commit such a crime, trying to act as if it is or should be legal. The beauty of the internet is that it provides such a level playing field and interconnects us all. It is not uncommon now to have friends from all over the world.
This fascism end of capitalism foretold by Marx and Lenin is proven by the acts of companies like Virgin Media, it is something that must be stopped. A strong Democracy is needed to maintain the vibrant and productive free market. Not one where the few monopolistic companies colluding with the government control everything. I think competition in the market place is so vital, to prevent this kind of fascist perversion, that we should have clear cut laws requiring zero negative impact on competition. You would never have these insane greedy power hungry freaks like Virgin Media daring to cause such grave harm to the freedom of the Internet. They would be working night and day to get the very fastest performance of their network possible for everyone. Instead we have these low-life scum advocating throttling the Internet and becoming the gatekeeper thus destroying freedom itself.
What makes capitalism such a great system is that it thrives on vibrant competition and pumping money into the hands of many to pursue their dreams. But this requires a vibrant free press and and active and free people fighting for freedom. Virgin is advocating becoming the ministry of information under a totalistic fascist system. What they propose is destructive of the overall interest of the US and UK and other countries at getting the most connectivity the most freedom and the fastest growth in technology. Virgin and companies like them are the enemy of us all, really.
"It may be that in the future content providers will want to provide that. There is an ongoing conversation. You cannot rule anything out on the internet. It keeps changing."
One thing that should NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES change is net neutrality.
For some reason, I was under the impression Virgin wasn't with the facist program that is global economy. Funny, their ads had worked on me. I was sold, and thought they had good ideas. Until now. What a shame. Typical.
Yeah, free-flowing information worldwide, widely distributed network, virtually unbreakable for all it's connectivity. Access for all for cheap. No. Can't have that.
Um, I'm quite offended by throttling, been throttled a couple of times myself. Why do we have these goofy one-fee for all-you-can-surf plans? Shouldn't I pay for bandwidth as I use it, with a premium in peak periods, the way we used to with long distance calling? Can't we, as customers, just get and pay for good service, as we want it? Will they claim they don't have the IT structure to do that? This is some kind of stupid bread-line-with-quotas approach to internet connectivity. Just sell the darned bandwidth to the customers, couldn't they?
It would appear as if the attitude of corporate entitlement in regards to net neutrality vis a vis the Internet has spread from the United States (i.e., Verizon, AT&T, etc.) and has begun to infect Europe. Not a good development!