Comments on: Senate ponders policing of Net neutrality offenses

Another committee considers changes to antitrust law that would imperil business models built on "fast lane."

A double edged sword...

>Others on the committee questioned the need for
>"preemptive" action against a problem they're not
>convinced exists.

We know there may not be a problem right now. We also know that there will be a problem if something is not done to prevent the problem from occurring. How do we know? Because big business is involved and history is replete with incidents where big business runs amuk and must be reigned in. Business leaders have an obligation to their shareholders as well as their own wallets. Therefore, we KNOW they will misbehave!

On the flip side...

We also know that the politicians almost never get the legislation right and that they too are preoccupied with maintaining their wallets, or more precisely, the re-election war chests.

We are soooo screwed!

[pmm6]

The opolies with provide all the content

you need. FOX, Dinsey, MSN, and GE. They will buy the bandwith. The independents will be in the slow lane. Free Press becomes the FEE Press. Want to download a file get Mircosofts get the version in 1 min want open source get it in one hour. "In Big business we trust in America". Should be the moto of the con-gress. BIG Business knows whats best stop the free thinkers and let us get the sheep in line.


You can be independent as long as you act and think like me. Join the other party if you want to be different.

[zanzzz]

Let Past Performance Be The Guide

Of course there will be "problems" if the telco's aren't made to behave. They have already failed to deliver the promised high speed broadband roll-out but cashed in the $200 billion in subsidies, tax cuts, et al. Why should they be trusted now? The problem is that the major ISP's aren't content to just be "pipes" while they see the Google's of the world reel in the profits. So now your ISP sets up it's own content delivery such as on demand TV. While they make noises about the costly infrastructure investment they are building to deploy these new services in reality the existing bandwith will be degraded so that their own content will get priority treatment. Then a marketing strategy of "double dipping" becomes irresistible. A two prong grab for money by shaking down large content providers to assure fast connectivity through the ISP. Secondly the "tiered" packaging of internet service to make customers pay for a non-degraded connection and "premium services" that you may not even want from your ISP but must pay for to access wide bandwith.
Sure, we can wait a year or two for this to unfold and then hold our breath will the prostitutes -err "politicians" in Congress decide to flap their jaws about it. Good luck with that!

[SFRick]

Biden on Net Neutrality

One can almost imagine tossing a porkchop to a ravening dog and
Joe Biden would be the one reacting in wonderment that the dog
actually gulps it down.