Google has defended its pact with Verizon and claims that it is not selling out the principal of net neutrality. It says it maintains the idea that ISP’s should not be allowed to pick and choose what speed to give traffic depending on its contents.

Google said “No other company is working as tirelessly [as Google] for an open Internet” in a company statement.

The problem remains that it’s unclear whether the Google-Verizon proposal really would protect users. Wireless networks are omitted from the pact so they would be entirely unregulated.This would also create hierarchical internet with a neutral slower public internet, and a private non-neutral internet that charges a premium. It is unclear whether or not the public, non financed, internet would survive the shift.

Google believes the proposal forces companies to publicly report wireless traffic and would ensure providers played fair and that wireless networks are competive enough that it doesn’t require any type of regulation. Google also protests that wireless network management is different since internet traffic sent over airwaves is less hardy than wired broadband.

Google claims that the internet is not going anywhere. The Google-Verizon pact puts several safeguards in place to protect the current internet. How will these be enforced to ensure fair play? Where would this proposal draw the line?

Today is Friday the 13th and as I’m sure some of you already know it supposedly orginates from the Knights of the Templar. The story goes that the Knights Templar, the legendary order of “warrior monks” formed during the Christian Crusades to fight Islam, by the 1300s the order had grown so mighty and powerful that the King and Pope saw them as a threat. So they came up with a plan to bring them down. 

On October 13, 1307, officers of King Philip IV of France arrested several thousand Templars. They were charged with all sorts of bad stuff - heresy, blasphemy, homosexual practices amongst other various obscenities. None of these would ever be proven and they had been found innocent in other places but in the years that followed the Templars were subjected to excruciating tortue and over a hundred died from either this or being burnt at the stake.

Did You Know? 90% of US skyscrapers do away with floor number 13, according to reports by the Otis Elevator Company, the world’s largest elevator manufacturers.

Did You Know? In 1881, a group of 13 people came together to form The Thirteen Club. Their main objective was to dissipate some of the ominous associations of number 13. The number of members eventually rose to 400 which included 5 US presidents namely, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Chester Arthur. Theodore Roosevelt placed the cornerstone for a new county courthouse in New York on Friday, 13th July in the year 1900.

Did You Know? The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, never travelled on a 13th and refused to have a meal with 13 people at the table.

SOURCE

Despite that things have been going quite well for us in the office this week, with our director away camping this week things have been running surprisingly smoothly (touch wood) so let’s hope Friday the 13th doesn’t ruin it for us!

What does it actually mean?

Net Neutrality is the principle that the internet should be democratic, that all traffic used by the internet should be treated equally by their networks.

The internet, as it stands at the moment, is fairly equal. We pay to access the internet, companies pay hosting sites to make their content available and ISP’s pay for the connection.

However, some people want the right for companies to pay a higher fee to have their content delivered faster or to establish another layer of faster internet to serve paying, premium services.

This could be detrimental for sites that cannot afford the premium especially non-commercial sites who would be left with the slower ‘dregs’ of the internet. This would make the internet more a business and completely loose its democratic notion.

Against

Some of the larger companies are against net neutrality, the big telecoms networks in the US - Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others - because they want to introduce tiered, prioritised services, most obviously because they would benefit the most. 

A Google-Verizon pact?

Google has always supported net neutrality, whereas Verizon wants to be allowed to charge for different services. But the two have agreed a proposal - more like an idea that a set in stone deal, which listed a few key principles:

1. ISPs cannot discriminate against any service in an anti-competitive way.
2.  ISPs cannot block consumers from any legal service. 
3.  ISPs have the right to manage and prioritise web traffic.
4.  ISPs must be transparent about how they are managing services.
5.  The FCC would enforce on a case-by-case basis, and have its regulatory powers over broadband services restored.
6.  A fixed part of all phone fees would be dedicated to investment in broadband networks.
7.  ISPs can introduce new and different internet services, such as 3D.
8.  Wireless services are exempt from all these proposals, apart from the condition of transparency.

However this pact is far from flawless. Wireless, mobile networks are the future. So the internet of the future will operate on a largely wireless network and under the Google-Verizon proposal, wireless services would be exempt from all these requirements, which means ISPs would be able to discriminate against competitors and would be able to block access to a service even if it was legal. 

Not everyone is happy that Google and Verizon are trying to dictate how the future internet should run. Campaigners say Google are being hypocrites, despite its ‘commitment’ to net neutrality, Google has agreed a proposal where ISPs can build and charge as they please. However most can agree that it at least moves us forward.

We have decided to partition the Hosting from the web development. The development will stay under the Decode Studios name and Decode Grid will be the name that the hosting comes under. 

When we set up Decode Studios we struggled to find a reliable, affordable and efficient hosting site, so we decided to set up our own. Because of this our team knows the importance of reliable hosting and this is why we can give excellent customer service and support. 

Decode Grid offers four packages to attempt to offer the best solution for everyone.

Web Hosting – This package is ideal if you are a small company or an individual who only needs to use a small amount of space.  With a shared hosting account, your site will usually be on a server with hundreds of other web sites. That may sound like a lot, but it usually works out extremely well because most sites don’t generate enough traffic or use enough resources for it to become a problem.  This package means that you get to share your server with other users, this is the most affordable and cost effective way of using managed hosting.  E-mail capabilities are also included 

Premium Hosting – We have 3 packages available so that our customers have more choice and flexibility.  We have a maximum of 30 domains per server for large websites that require more server time.  This package offers a quicker speed than the web package, and can offer 24/7 technical and maintenance support. Entire backups are kept for 1,3 or 7 days depending on what type of package is taken. All packages come with hosting, domain registration and high bandwidths with added e-mail and phone support.

VPS (Virtual Private Service) – Is for clients who need the stability and flexibility of a dedicated server, where we offer a secure and private service which cannot be interrupted or accessed  by other users, where you have the possibility to host several websites at the same time.  A VPS server is a dedicated server divided up into several smaller servers that runs its own operating system and software, each server is called a Virtual Private Server as it is independent of actual hardware and is private as other VPS servers are not able to interact with its processes and file system.

Dedicated Hosting – Offers our clients their own dedicated server for both Linux and Windows a definitive solution for their hosting needs.  Dedicated servers are mostly used by those users who need to have a large amount of diskspace.  Having your own server gives you the flexibility to be able to use the space as you require. It offers a fast, reliable service while remaining affordable.  Our dedicated servers are secure and where we can offer a 24/7 technical support and maintenance cover. 

I’m pretty sure I posted this on Friday like it was supposed to be but somehow Tumblr deemed it unworthy to post - so here it is a round up of the week - on a Monday.

The internet has some offerings for us this week.

If you got up this morning and felt the need to change someone’s life, then KIVA is a site you should look at. It sets you up with people in the third world who have ideas for new small businesses.

Did You Know? The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal. SOURCE

A warning has been issued after fake apple iPads have been selling on eBay for £50. Read more here.

Did You Know? If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side. SOURCE

Did You Know? Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left. SOURCE

In the office we’ve been working on getting new clients and putting some finishing touches to a couple of wesbites that should be online soon. We’re also working hard on getting Decode Grid - our hosting site, off the ground.

Hope you had a good weekend!

clientsfromhell:

Client: “What’s my username?”

Me: “It’s your first name, a space and then your last name.”

Client: ”How am I supposed to remember that?”

The new  Samsung Galaxy S GT-19000, equipped with Android 2.1 is making is making it a hot competitor in the ‘must- have’ phone race.

It’s glossy enough to be compared to an iPhone but that’s where the similarity ends, the Galaxy is both lighter and thinner than it’s Apple conterpart and it works, giving it a much sleeker appearance.

The Galaxy S learns from the mistakes of its predeccesor. Where the Wave was sloppy and awkward within the operating system, the Galaxy S is flowing and altogether easy. The majority of this may be down to the decision to change the operating system to Android.

Its 1GHz processor and memory choices of either 8GB or 16GB, with capacity for an additional 32GB MicroSD card, makes it quick. It also has a 5 Mega Pixel camera which integrates well into MMS, emails and social networking. Though it can be slow to load it does allow you to flick between applications and phone functions without too much stress.

The price is also a lot less stressful, at around £400 it is much more affordable than the iPhone 4 and puts it right up there in the smartphone league.