I was able to sweet talk my aunt into allowing me to talk to some of her Google Executive friends. Since it is the Thanksgiving Day Week, they told me to call them after the holidays. I want to ask them about the Google-Verizon Net Neutrality deal. Just want to see their insight.

After conducting my phone survey I decided to go to a Verizon phone store and see if they know anything about Net Neutrality and Google-Verizon pact. Upon arrival I was kindly greeted and asked if I needed any help. I told them I was interested in learning about the Google-Verizon pact and Net Neutrality. He said he would help me as best he could because he didn't have first hand knowledge of the situation. I loved the honesty and he knew more than the average person I surveyed on the phone. Talking to all these people is really enlightening.

Heading into the survey I thought about asking 100 people there opinion. After the first couple of calls I decided to reduce that number to 50 because of the hostility I received. It wasn't like I was impolite or anything. The questions I asked were very simple and didn't take anymore than a minute of their time. But I guess some people are just hostile.

My survey consisted of only three questions because I wanted to get a barometer of what people knew about Net Neutrality. I didn't ask heart to heart questions, they were just simple yes or no answers.

The questions are as follows.

1. Do you use the internet?

2. Do you pay for your own internet?

3. Do you know or have heard about Net Neutrality?

The results that I compiled from my 50 participants were very, very surprising. The answer to the first question was as expected with 50 YES. Hearing a NO probably would have made me ask why not. But anyways moving on. The answer to the second question was roughly 50-50, with 32 YES and 18 NO. Most of the NO's is understandable because those people didn't pay for rent so I am sure I called some teens or kids. Plus, the NO's said they use the library for their internet access. The most shocking result was the answer to my last question. Overwhelmingly the answer was NO with 46 NO and only 4 YES.

After looking at my results it kind of makes me sad that something so important is not getting to anybody in the public aka common people. This feels like a battle of the major corporations and the FCC and we are just bystanders waiting for the dust to settle.

So, today I decided to perform my survey about this topic. Instead of relying on my peers or just students from school, I want a wide range of data. Since this topic affects everybody I decided to just flip through the yellow pages and survey the people listed personally. I have unlimited weekend minutes and this was a slow weekend so why not put this time to good use. Once I am done I will let you know the results.

Wireless vs Wired

The cnet interview I posted earlier was conducted back in August of this year. A subject matter that has surfaced today that was discussed in that interview was the debate over Wireless vs Wired Internet managing. Google and Verizon agree that the Wired lines needed to be controlled or enforce but they feel like the Wireless portion needs to be excluded from any discussion. An example of that would be the now ending of unlimited data usage by the cell phone companies. Most people will only be using 2G and not 3G like so advertised. Once you go over you will be charge per amount for doing so. This is the oldest trick in the book and it makes sense now why a corporation such as Google and Verizon would ask to be regulated. It's the slight of hands trick. You concentrate on what I am doing with one hand while I do something else with my other hand.

They want Congress to put into laws for the Wired part but leave the Wireless part in the open so they can do with it as they so pleases. Kind of smart if you really think about. Sort of like a compromise of sorts. You get something and I get something out of the deal.

cnet Reporter's Roundtable continue

Oh I left something out that caught my eye on this particular subject. One of the interviewee was asked how the Internet would look if Net Neutrality is no longer there. His answer was straight to the point and made a lot of sense and did not include any hard to understand principles. Basically the Internet would look like your television system with the Cable or Satellite companies. So you would get a package that allows you to watch certain programs. If you want to watch something like HBO and didn't have that service than you would need to pay more to get that particular program. Sports fans pay extra for extra sports programming, while the normal Family man might pay more for his children to have extra cartoon programs. When you look at it this way having Net Neutrality is better than disbanding it. Can you imagine working on something and being limited to only certain things on the Internet that you can search and verify your sources? This seems like the whole gasoline problem in America. No matter how much they charge people are still willing to pay because it is a necessity for them. Remember the old classic movie slogan from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come"? In this case it is, "If you charge for it, we will pay."

cnet Reporter's Roundtable

Back in August, cnet did a live interview with two writers who know a lot about Net Neutrality. This interview was conducted after the Google-Verizon proposal went public. Among the topics covered during the interview included Net Neutrality, Google-Verizon proposal explained, Comcast case, and a prediction of the future of the Internet.

Several details in this interview caught my attention. For starters Google and Verizon does not believe that the FCC is not the answer. They want Congress to step in and make their proposal law which helps alleviate the problem when talking about wired Internet access. The second was that the FCC and the Google-Verizon proposal are near similar with a few modifications here and there. The last thing was that we, the US, are the only country in discussion about this problem. I found in weird that everyone is waiting for us to make a decision and then they will move on from there.