The future of the Net

Through the decisions they are making right now, people like Neil Berkett of UK ISP Virgin Broadband are ensuring the death of the Internet as we know it.

Their names will go down in history. Not in a good way, either.

The children of tomorrow will look up at their mothers and fathers, and ask, "What was the Internet like when you were little?"

Their parents will answer.

"We had YouTube. And blogs. It was a time when domains flowed through the registrars like water and services were free. People like you and me could write what they wanted and publish what they had written to the entire world. For a while, it looked as if the World War may not have happened, as well.

You see, politicians — the people who run the world — took to a global audience and had to change the way they ran the world. They had to be more tolerant of different cultures, races and beliefs.

I remember I met your mother on a website called Facebook! Without the Internet, you may never have been born! It was a little annoying, sometimes, though. You know email?"

"You mean the channel?"

"Kind of, but more, er, personal. If you wanted to tell someone something, you could write it on your computer and send it in an email to them."

"Was email free, too?"

"Back then, yes, which meant that there was lots of it because people didn't have to pay. Sometimes we complained about how many emails we were getting from websites like Facebook."

"Was that spam?"

"Kind of. Although with Facebook and other sites like it, you would tell the site that you wanted to receive emails, even though sometimes you'd get lots of emails that told you the same thing."

"That sounds like a waste."

"I suppose it was. But wouldn't you rather read an email to find out if it was interesting, rather than not be told about it?"

"Is that what happens now?"

"I think so, yes. Companies who control all the Internet's hardware, you know the cables that connect all the houses?"

"Yes."

"Well, the companies who own those cables didn't like people using them to look at certain websites. They wanted to charge everybody for certain websites. I suppose you could say they started caring for themselves more than the people who paid them."

"That's not a good business model! That's a, er, what d'you call it, a dictatorship."

"Ha ha! Well, kind of. I wish you could have told them that!"

"Can I call Meli?"

"Yes. But be careful. Don't mention what we've just been talking about online. Okay?"

"Okay, dad!"

It seems in the future, we'll have to be even more careful online than we do now but for very different reasons. I hope this is not the shape of things to come. It's not too late to do something about it. Give your business to Net-Neutral ISPs.

Dear ISP,

When you say 'unlimited', what exactly do you mean?

Do you mean that I can download as much as I want? As quickly as I want? Over my 8 mbit connection? Which doesn't run at 8 mbits anyway, but that's a another letter...

Or do you mean that I can download as much as I want until I've downloaded too much? Isn't that just another way of saying that my service is not 'unlimited' after all, despite having a contract to that effect?

Fair use is something that you could argue about in court, I guess, so does this mean that if I'm disconnected while watching BBC iPlayer for instance, I can take you to court for breach of the same contract?

Oh, you want BBC to pay for that bandwidth? Well, hang on, doesn't that take you out of the loop, then? Shouldn't I just pay BBC directly? What, exactly, am I then paying you for?

I'll tell you what, exactly, I'm paying you for.

I am paying you for providing Internet to my house.

I am NOT paying you for providing content to my house. I don't care how you do it, but if you are to remain an Internet Service Provider, you maintain my connection to the Internet and all that that implies, otherwise you get out of the way and let someone else do the job.

If you want to stay in the game, let the consumer decide. If you're not about the consumer, you're obviously in it for yourselves and have only yourselves to blame for the problems you are now facing.

How about letting consumers know exactly what they're paying for and how much of it they're paying for?

If I want to download 5 gigabytes of iPlayer content in a day, charge me for it. Don't get above yourselves and pretend that you're concerned about the content. Give me a wire or cable with Internet coming out of it and shut the hell up.

Yours angrily,

Mr Internet Consumer.