I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Google and Verizon are conducting secret talks and are close to an agreement that might ultimately lead to consumers paying more to receive content over the Internet, the New York Times is reporting.
The agreement, if it happens, might represent the first step on the path to overthrowing “net neutrality,” according to the paper.
Net neutrality refers to the idea that in order to be most useful, the Internet shouldn’t discriminate among users. It’s a concept at the center of a big battle in the nation’s capital over how to regulate the Internet.
If you think of the Internet as a highway, right now all users right now can choose to use the slow lane or the fast lane — if they have access to a high-speed Internet connection. Some Internet service providers want to be able to decide who gets access to faster lane based on what they are willing to pay and who has to use the slow lane. Critics, many of them consumer advocates, say that isn’t fair.
The issue of speeding up delivery of content to a company willing to pay for it seems to be at the center of the Google-Verizon talks, according to the Times.
The two companies are nearing a deal whereby Verizon, an Internet service provider, “could speed some online content to Internet users more quickly” if the content’s creators, for example, YouTube, are willing to pay for speedier delivery. Or as the Times writer puts it, “to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers.”
It’s a couple of steps from the kind of arrangement Google and Verizon have conceived to consumers having to pay fees to get speedier delivery of content on the Internet in “a new, tiered system, which, like cable television, imposes higher costs for premium levels of service,” according to the paper.
