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Democrats Pan Google-Verizon Net Neutrality Proposal
GovTechGuy writes "Four House Democrats wrote to the Federal Communications Commission, urging them to write strict net neutrality rules and reject the framework put forward by Google and Verizon. The lawmakers, including Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents the district containing Google HQ, said the Google-Verizon proposal increases the pressure on the FCC to come up with actual net neutrality rules, and characterize the deal as harmful to consumers and beneficial for the corporations. In particular, the letter took issue with two pieces of the Verizon-Google proposal: exemptions for managed services and wireless services from strict net-neutrality rules."
Managed services are a good idea, if they are run on top of a neutral network. As long as that physical network is developed by an unbiased entity and resold fairly with no oversubscription, ISPs should be free to carve out as much bandwidth as they can pay for. As demand increases, regardless of content, investment in additional capacity will follow.
The problem with the existing situation is that as long as the ISPs own the underlying physical network, the "manages services" aren't running on top of the Internet, but rather the Internet is transformed into a "managed service". There is no incentive whatsoever for the ISPs to invest in additional capacity beyond what they require for their own services, so investment in the Internet is dead, and its value for future innovation is lost.