They're insane if they try to go through with this.  This needs to be a campaign issue--sooo many people use the internet--campaigns should remind people who favors a free intenet, and who favors these insane restrictions

Here's a chance for Howard Dean (maybe even the deadbeats at the DLC) to stand up and make some noise about this, and make a free Internet a prominent item on the Democratic platform.

I think it is worth remembering that Harris Miller defended net neutrality in his interview with  MyDD.

I can't find one anywhere.

Why hasn't the bill been introduced, as per usual? Since there is a draft bill, the text of which has clearly been handed out to journos, surely the Great Unwashed can (or should be allowed to) see it?

Given the reflex kow-tow that Dems usually manifest with such bills - I recall a recent tradmark atrocity (S 683) which passed the Senate on a UCA, for crying out loud! - I'm wondered what sort of Dem resistance we can expect to the Barton bill.

This is an incredibly important issue.  I remember the days of the bulletin boards.  I used CompuServe because that's where the technical forums were, but AOL had its features that attracted people, as well.

With the growth of the Internet, the vendors all moved technical assistance to their own websites.  No one needed the special content on AOL or CompuServe any more, but the combined company has been trying ever since to get back to those glory days.  And Bill Gates isn't far behind them.

There's no question that they want to control content and have you pay extra for the content THEY CHOOSE to let you see.

I do believe that someday all of our communication and entertainment will be over one or more networks that we may continue to call "Internet".  Entertainment will be on demand, which will put huge demands on the pipe, which will in turn require advancements (and therefore investments) in hardware and software.

But I also believe that no one should be able to control what goes through the pipe or how much we pay for it.  We have to keep it unrestricted.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Wait a minute.  What's wrong with the people who built the infrastructure making a profit.  It wouldn't exist without their input of capital.  I'm a life long democrat, but I don't think we need be anti-captitalism to be dems, do we?

Public money (thank you, President Gore) went into making the Internet and some people found a way (good for them) to make a profit from the opportunity.  The corporatists are now seeking to keep that goose from becoming public domain as I feel it rightly should be.  

Personally, I think the 'communications companies' defaulted on any special considerations when they blocked the allotment of frequencies needed for emergency communications.

The essence of the conservative on-your-own-ership society.

Matt,

I wonder if big Internet vendors like Amazon and Ebay and Google would be allies for us in this fight?  It would seem that they prosper when there are millions of people out there surfing freely on the Internet.   And, they have tons of cash to contribute to the cause...

It is this simple-

WE ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR BANDWIDTH, so why again, should I have to pay for content that runs on it?  Oh fine okay then...  have it your way...

Nooooo????  You say you want to replace my cost for bandwidth, with cost for content?

Oh Phuck you, go away now...

See?

usually through sweetheart deals from local/state/federal government.

step two: charge rent, but talk like a capitalist.

Pay for actual traffic?  Maybe we can talk about it--after the telcos deploy the 45Mbit broadband hookups for everyone that's been bought and paid for already:

http://muniwireless.com/community/1023

Sheesh, the nerve!

and don't look now but we are already lagging behind England in internet technology.

These same FUCK WADS would charge us for breathing if they could get away with it. AIR FREE they'd say hey we own the air pay up plebs or suffocate!! These bastards use our tax dollars to build these networks and the Internet was founded by all of us with our Tax dollars and then they want to basically "privatize it" or steal it from us. Our Reps. should demand the Internet stay a form of public commons.

The Commons. The Public Trust Doctrine itself. That is what has to be preserved. These congloms are opposed to the very idea of the Public Trust. But We the People are sovereign, not the corporations that purport to limit the scope of internet speech. It is time we showed some sovereignty.

As an aside, I think that the US Supreme Court has recently strengthened the hands of local governments to exercise the power of eminent domain, albeit in a different context. Could also apply here. If these monopolists end up grabbing the mother lode it could be seized back by legislation such as eminent domain, or by judicial affirmation of the legal inoperability of transactions purporting to selloff chunks of the Public Trust to private entities.

Wi-Max is WiFi that blankets entire cities.  If they close of "the pipes," WiMax can step up and expand broadband at a fraction of the cost.  True, there is a lot of industry resentment against this (because they just spent so much on wired systems), and even laws are made against them, but there are many fronts against free internet, and WiMax is a harder one for companies to win.

And by the way, this is why you oppose huge telecom/media company mergers.  When one gets this big, their threats are no longer just blowing steam, but a credible threat.

The notion the internet is free is a conceit borne from the cognitive dissonance of its pioneers using their employers resources for there own amusement.  But it turned out just fine.

The real issue is how we avoid killing the goose.

If you feel the current DSL/CableModem/WiFi access speeds meet your communications needs at $40-60 a month there really isn't an issue.  But if you need more, say access at 45 or 100 Mbps then for technical reasons investments have to be made in the service providers access network.  This is the most capital intensive portion of the network; any network including WiFi.

So the question becomes how the service provider is going to recover their investment.  Are we willing to pay enough more per month to make it economically viable?  I'd guess the Cable Companies and Telcos think not or they wouldn't be pursuing alternative revenue sources to fund their business plan.

So, any ideas from our side, or just rant? my 2 cents

It's worse than just tube access.  If you live in Houston/southeast Texas [Bush/DeLay Country], the fascists at Time-Warner have taken away your access to cspan2 and cspan3.  Yep, the only truly uncensored, unbiased, unspun news channels on tv have been taken off cable and made available only as pay-for-digital.

TW has lied about their reasons: they say that cspan  wants to be on pay-for-digital.  Cspan calls them liars (politely, of course--they're cspan), and they want back on cable.

The latest TW lie seems to be that they cancelled the cspan channels to put up pay-for-view channels, but the cancelled channels are still blank.

Of coure, TW didn't consider cutting any of the many Fox fascist propaganda channels.

Houston: hookers galore, but no unfiltered access to unbiased news.  Fascism lives in Bush/DeLay country.

The quote: Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it.

The truth:  You see that approx. $5 a month 'fee' or 'tax' on your telephone bill?  That money is for maintaining and upgrading the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) lines.  They have already received their capital investment returns, many times over, and so long as this 'tax' is allowed to be collected, many more times to come !

One more LIE by the corporate welfare scum who want to own, not just everything, but everyone in this country.

Hi gang, let me offer 2 cents from a conservative on this. I also happen to be a web developer.

What "we" stand for is an absence of government regulation, and in the net neutrality debate it's even more critical than ever.

(If you want to skip my attempt at cliff notes below, you can go here, pardon the link whoring: http://www.onlyrepublican.com/orinsf/net _neutrality_and_municipal_wifi/)

The 'net is better with less regulation. Proponents of neutrality mandates are asking for more regulation, such that government dictates how private bits flow over private wires. It is punishment is search of a crime, and an expansion of government control over the best conduit of speech that I've ever seen.

We conservatives also don't much care about the motives or "morality" of any telco. Any one of them can live or die, just so long as it is consumers making the call. It is a competitive market, btw, the top three firms don't even add up to 50% of it.

Barton's bill does not mandate neutrality but it does give the FCC the authority to investigate claims of abuse. I think the latter of those two is still too much, but I would consider it a reasonable compromise.

We've done well to this point because we haven't passed laws for the 'net. If you agree with a hands-off approach, you should fight new legislation, period. Oppose Barton, by all means, but don't substitute it with something even more restrictive.

To Matt the conservative:

Net Neutrality isn't new regulation -- it's getting back to the state the internet has been since its inception. Until recent FCC decisions, telcos were required to be "common carriers" -- to carry all bits provided to them.  Net Neutrality gets us back to the state that helped to create the robust, highly competitive internet services market.

Also, it's a misnomer to call the policy that allowed telcos to no longer wholesale their lines to ISPs "deregulation."  A better term for it is "decompetition."   Recently, the federal government has been promoting a policy that gives the US a duopoly in the broadband market. With the duopoly in control, the US has higher prices and slower speeds than other places in the first world.

I agree that a competitive market should have minimal regulation. But regulation is perfectly appropriate tool to encourage competition.

Perhaps Sean Paul could document his assertion that: "The 'investment' the telcos made was from loans that were guaranteed by Congress for starters".  Specifically what loans, when, guaranteed by what bill?  Just so the rest of us have the same understanding.  Thanks.  And yes, Al Gore was a friend of the internet and deserves credit.

ROFL

You give us a bad name with your political bigotry and two-faced arguing.

Glorify anything that will tear down the "big, bad corporations", but don't let it stop people from the ability to say whatever they want (including spreading lies) for free. You must demonize it and attempt to start a panic.

You are not a liberal. You are all about fear. The left is in-truth all about hope. You and all those like you are fakers.

I'm sorry I ever came to MyDD in the first place. Your DD is the paranoid minority. Either go get psychiatric care or get used to it.

Troll, out.

Sean Paul makes an interesting point obliquely: that a lot of fiber was buried that is unused today.  One could argue alternatively that it is in fact used in the sense of "supply" that is driving down communications costs, at least in the backbone.  In fact the huge amounts of submarine cable that was strung around the globe helped to make outsourcing economically feasible.  You really do have to worry about the law of unintended consequences.  Hence my plea that we look at all sides of the issue.  Certainly there is a potential large downside to breaking the principle of net-neutrality.  But we do need to understand how it affects the econmics of the access loop.  Unless thing have changed drastically since I left the industry a couple of years ago, major investments will be required to realize high speed access bidirectionally (>= 50 mbps).  Net-neutrality is one of the issues that comes to play here.  An honest, educated debate is what is required, not a bunch of rant from the opposing sides.

Excellent article!  T1 high speed internet access is the future of broadband communications of internet technology.