Cory Doctorow (PCF board member) has canceled his internet account with Virgin in response to comments by their CEO that net neutrality is “a load of bollocks” and that they will be slowing down traffic from sources that don’t pay extra. These companies need to hear from the public and this is the language they understand.
Cory writes: “Theoretically, I’m locked into a Virgin plan for another six months, but as far as I’m concerned, they’ve just announced that they’re 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’re now null and void. I’ll be calling to cancel today. Who’s with me?”
Got Virgin for internet? Cancel it and tell them why.
At our Worcester office, we have a Charter cable internet connection. We’ve been noticing that they appear to be restricting BitTorrent traffic and we’re canceling our service this month. Miro, of course, supports evasionary encryption to get around such blocking, but a technology arms race is no substitute for real public protections.
Update: Folks have been asking what Cory is going to switch to. He tells me:”I’ve got two lines at home, BT and Virgin, so when I manage to kill Virgin, I’ll keep BT for the rest of the year, then have a look around… I’m not fond of BT (they’re participants in Phorm), but I’m locked into them, too.”
At the PCF office, we have both Charter and Verizon. We’ll be using our Verizon account for now, as they seem to be more neutrality positive so far.
