This is Matt Bebich’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

The FCC wants to give “free Internet” to everyone, so you can connect from anywhere. It would be transmitted just like cell phone companies transmit their Internet service. The download speeds would go up to 700kbs, which is considered high-speed Internet. There will be no porn or illegal torrents and software like Limewire. Cell phone companies do not want this to happen because they would rather have people pay for their way over priced slow Internet. Places like Starbucks will also suffer from this, you see all the people at Starbucks using their Internet, which is overpriced [opinion].

Internet should be a free service – a lot of good comes from the Internet. People wouldn’t have to go all the way to the local bookstore to get a book. A lot of people don’t have Internet service. If they want Internet, they get dial-up (which no one could do anything with dial-up). You can’t even load a webpage with dial-up without waiting 50 minutes. Don’t even try to watch a video – you will have to pause it and wait ’til it finishes 20 minutes later… then watch it. That’s why I think the majority of people don’t have Internet, and why it should be free. Why should a hand full of companies control the Internet the companies don’t make the Internet the Internet – we do. We deserve to have a option for free Internet. I would really like to see this happen with two conditions:

1. They need to have good security for it. They need to encrypt the data. If they don’t have really good encryption for it, I would be very scared to use it.
2. I don’t want the government seeing everything we are looking at on the Internet. Not saying I’m doing anything illegal, I just don’t think it would be right for them to intrude on my privacy.

It might happen, but major companies will hate this. They want to overcharge for their Internet service – and they don’t even give what they promise. They say you have unlimited service, then right when your downloading something: “Oh, Dang – throttled!” Even if the free Internet isn’t as fast, at least you can connect to it from anywhere – we all want that. At least it will be better then dial-up and a lot other paid services that just rip you off.

This plan would get Internet to rural areas, so everybody could be on the Internet. It would benefit schools that can’t get wireless Internet access. People wouldn’t have to pay for the cell phone companies’ Internet service (that gets “okay” service and okay speeds). For the price that we pay for it, we should get great speeds and great service. Free Internet is the way of the future and it is going to happen sooner then later. It’s just the matter of time and money.

• What is Net Neutrality?
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http://live.pirillo.com/ – The idea of Network Neutrality is very good… in theory. Some companies, however, don’t want Net Neutrality

Network Neutrality refers to a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. When you hear the word neutral, you tend to think of equal opportunities for everyone, right? Not so in the case of many companies. They WANT to favor certain customers, and be able to allocate more bandwidth to them.

Net Neutrality is anti-consumer. It promotes the best interest of sellers by lowering their cost of distribution. Broadband service providers would be the ones to gain the most from ending Net Neutrality because they could collect fees from content providers.

Google has gone to the FCC in favor of Net Neutrality. “The Federal Communications Commission must be given power to prevent broadband providers from doing things like charging content providers extra for the privilege of faster delivery or other preferential treatment.”, according to a CNET article on the Senate decision to veto this bill.

Other than this, consumers have really no special interest groups fighting for Net Neutrality. I do… in my own boisterous, opinionated way. I firmly believe that each and every person should have equal opportunities when surfing the Internet. Why should it always come down to large companies, and those with deep pockets?

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New rules could rock wireless world, literally:

Coming soon could be a wireless broadband world in which consumers get to pick any smartphone or other device and load any software on it – not have to take what the wireless carrier wants to sell.

Dude. DUDE?! This can’t be true. I simply can’t believe that this is actually (possibly) happening. Of course, I’d imagine that Apple’s lobby won’t let it fly – but if they really, truly cared about users – as they claim – they won’t have a problem in opening up a little bit more and playing along with the rest of the consumer electronics world. The carriers and phone manufacturers must become more interoperable.

Under Martin’s proposal, to be circulated in the agency as early as Tuesday, mobile services in these airwaves would have to allow consumer choice.

They’re not going to like it. Then again, we’ve never liked them… so turnabout is fair play.

Some handset makers actually strip out Wi-Fi features at the request of U.S.-based carriers loath to allow any feature that could let users sidestep their fee-based services and applications. “I am concerned that we are seeing some innovations being rolled out more slowly here than we are in other parts of the world,” Martin said.

What?! They actually harm consumers, while at the same time claiming to help them?! Are you serious!? They would rather gouge us with needless services and taxes than provide us with stellar service and support?! They would rather lock us into contracts than let us flow freely throughout the galaxy?! You’re serious!? Where the hell is my interrobang key!?

• What is The FCC’s Free Internet Plan?
• What is Net Neutrality?