This has been months in the making and is the handi-work of the Communications Workers of America (primarily) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

We wrote on this in August:

ANOTHER UNION BAILOUT? THE CWA WANTS HIGH SPEED INTERNET TO BE AN AMERICAN RIGHT

The Communications Workers of America, of which we’re all too familiar, is looking for a bailout of sorts. That is, the CWA (that old dinosaur union from the ancient Ma Bell days) wants to convince America that high-speed internet is an American birthright (something akin to Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness and, of late, Nationalized Health Care).

More here: http://laborunionreport.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-union-bailout-cwa-wants-high.html

and that means that the more people connected to it, the more bandwidth is drawn down. I’ll be paying the same for less if other ISP providers can use the same lines, at least I think so anyway.

It is a lie, period. I pay for internet service, which means I am paying to access anything and everything I want. I am not paying Comcast so they can dictate what content and services I use. The entire freeloader argument is a load of crap shoveled by Comcast and AT&T so they can push competing services at higher prices.

jdkchem, Yes you pay your ISP for internet service. Since I don’t have one of the problems you cite (Comcast determining what you can and can’t have in content), I really can’t respond to anyone whose ISP currently does that.

Obviously all ISPs can determine what services you have available for your use, if they don’t have the service – they can’t offer it for your use.

Apparently you believe government should solve these problems you have. I guess you have no other options where you live. To be honest I find that odd, since I live in a rural area where there is no cable (TV or otherwise), yet I have available to me dial up access to several ISPs (slow, cheap and there is toll free long distance available for a fairly reasonable monthly fee from the local telco for any not local), DSL access from the telephone company, and Wireless G access from two cell phone companies (Sprint and ATT) plus an independent Wi-Fi company and the exorbitant Hughes satellite service.

You also seem to think that any provider of service should be able to use the facilities of any other provider of service. I wouldn’t have great heartburn over that – assuming the current owner of the physical facilities is able to charge a user fee adequate to reimburse them for the seizure of their property, plus on-going maintenance, plus a profit from this use of their facilities. I would, honestly, be more comfortable with the elimination of any local monopoly over service. allowing any company which wishes to compete to install and run their own facilities, rather than the government effectively seizing the property of another company.

Just my $0.02.

with dial-up. I couldn’t agree more with stopping local monopolies on service providers. We have Verizon, period. They do not offer DSL in my somewhat rural area. Just a few miles down the road, in the next county, they have a variety of DSL providers, and, the tower is right there also. We have only one grocery store in the area also. That’s the way it has been for years, and, it won’t change anytime soon, even with voting out 3 of the deadwood City Council members. They were replaced with 3 more of the same. The only guy with visions of competition in the area, and making it more business friendly got the least amount of votes.

they are much cheaper, both for installation and monthly charges. They very recently have announced new openings in my area, as they added another satellite. They had not been taking new customers so that the customers they had didn’t suffer with an overloaded or slower system.

they are much cheaper, both for installation and monthly charges. They very recently have announced new openings in my area, as they added another satellite. They had not been taking new customers so that the customers they had didn’t suffer with an overloaded or slower system.

[Spam redacted - NS]

Come on Neil, let us discuss this rationally. We already live in a Net Neutral world. Now I think we can both agree that Free choice in a Market place is if anything, at least the most Optimal setup; the trouble is that a large portion of people in the United States are stuck with 1 broadband carrier. It would be fine if different ISPs wanted to try bandwidth shaping techniques, and people had options to choose which carrier they might prefer. We do not live in that world. Until we do, it is by far in the best interest of the Marketplace to maintain a Neutral structure.

Never mind the fact that Internet speeds are getting faster and more efficient transfers (Cooper’s Law), processors are getting smaller and faster (Moore’s Law), and storage is getting larger and cheaper (Kryder’s Law); every single year. By 2020, you’ll be able to fit hundreds of years of HD video on a 2.5” laptop hard drive, and transfer it across networks in minutes. Plus all sorts of advancements that are waiting to come down the pike.

The main argument that I have heard from the Corporate boards (Who were never involved in actually developing the internet, only commercializing it once it had already reached maturity) is that they need to make more money, I understand that. But modifying the essential genetic structure of the engineering design is I think going too far. If Comcast wants to make more money maybe they should get involved in the content creation business, and start monetizing IP media that way. (By the way they are already in talks with G.E. to buy out NBC for around 5 billion).

From reading the argument of the Songwriters Guild it appears to me (and I have been involved in the Technology industry for 20 years) they do not quite understand what exactly Net Neutrality is, and the implications of a non-neutral network policy. It appears they are under the impression that this will stop people from downloading MP3s, this is absolutely not the case. There are a myriad of methods to get around any filtering techniques any ISP may try (and has tried) to implement. It is practically futile. Protocols change, encoding technology gets better, it is simply a cat and mouse game. I would suggest they look at business models such as Last.FM and Hulu and work with them to secure intellectual property rights while still getting paid justly for their work.

Plus I would suggest that we refrain from grouping everyone who is for Net Neutrality in with what I think is illfully perceived as a Grand Progressive Conspiracy to implement some sort of liberal fascist agenda. I think that is looking into the issue too such a degree that I think it takes away from what should be the crucial focus: which is providing a fair and balanced infrastructure for all participants to choose their respective sources for information, news, entertainment, and yet to be conceived-of media.

We need a respectful discussion on this issue, because the Internet is an important technology, and is it not something we should rush to change at the drop of a hat, especially when it has practically created a vast new industrialized economic center of trade for the United States, and countries throughout the world.