Carter, D. (2009) FCC Moves Closer to Net Neutrality eSchool News, October 23

This article raises a critical question for the future of online learning. Should telecommunications companies be allowed to ‘manage’ who gets priority over the Internet?

This article discusses steps by USA’s Federal Communications Commission to ensure a ‘net-neutral’ system, which would prevent telecommunications companies for charging differential rates, depending on the size of the customer. This would really affect the ability of public service organizations, such as schools and small colleges, to pay for service.

For a Canadian perspective, see the National Union of Public Employee’s site, which provides a comment by Canada’s leading Internet policy commentator, Michael Geiss, on the CRTC’s recent ruling on net neutrality.

It seems that Canada has taken a weaker position on this than the USA – so watch this space. This is not an issue that’s going to go away.

3 COMMENTS

    • Thanks, James – the post was written in haste while working in Jeddah, Saudi – I’ve corrected it – thanks for drawing my attention to this.

  1. I just spoke with a representative from a PBS Online (a group that does online continuing education for teachers) representative about this very issue and asked how she thought it might impact PBS’s ability to deliver distance-learning to teachers. She said they are monitoring it closely, but thinks that if they deliver quality content, people will still pay.

    “If you build it, they will come.”

    Well, we’ll see.

Leave a Reply to Tony Hollowell Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here