The Case Against Net Neutrality

jeek writes "While I certainly don't agree with it, this article tries to make the case that Net Neutrality may actually be bad for America. From the article: 'If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?'"

Comments

Re:Choices

[gandhi_2]

we should have trademarked "Internet".

Then, make it a condition of selling "Internet" be that it is neutral.

People can make dirty net deals all they want, but have to sell it as "AOL" or "Compuserve".

Re:Choices

[thule]

There are always choices. It doesn't mean the choices cost the same or have the same feature set, but it is a choice. I don't know if there is such a place in the US where there are copper phone lines, but no T1 service. Yeah, it costs, but having T1 service means you have plenty of ISPs to choose from. There is also satellite and cell towers. Unless you live out in the middle of nowhere, your friendly cable company will sell you Internet service.

Re:Switch to another one...?

[Ichijo]

If I'm willing to spend a couple thousand dollars a month, they'll run a commercial connection over.

Being a commercial connection, you could hook it up to a wireless router and share the bandwidth, and the bill, with your neighbors.

Re:Choices

[P0ltergeist333]

What!? Widespread consolidation of ownership of everything that happened during the Bush years wasn't good for consumer choices? And the supposedly omnipotent free market actually does nothing in this situation because no start up can compete against established monopolies and cartels? (sarcasm)

I live in a rural area. I have one realistic choice for high speed (a WISP that bought up all the surrounding WISPS in the last 5 years.) This company already prioritizes it's voip solution's traffic, to the detriment of my connection's bandwidth and latency. Under current law it will only get worse. What incentive do they have in ensuring my voip solution's traffic has even baseline QOS? NONE. What recourse do I have? NONE. The article is blatant astroturf meant to capitalize on current tea-bagger idiocy.