It looks like congress had a hearing about net neutrality and they still don’t understand the issue: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/a-rube-goldberg-theory-of-regulation-net-neutrality-hearing-gets-testy.ars. What options do you have with limited options or in some cases a monopoly? How can you say one doesn’t exist when your DSL provider is limited to 256k upload download and the only cable company in town caps your monthly internet usage at 50GB? I’m fortunate to live in an area with Fios, with a pretty damn speedy 15mbps/5mbps connection for a reasonable price. But my parents are limited to Time Warner Cable and DSL clocked at 1.5mbps/256k for the same price I pay for my internet. I keep reading stories about the caps in Canada, as low as 50GB and in New Zealand, as low as 50GB. How can we have another Apple of internet services that starts in the garage if our home broadband is so expensive? And we’re still behind some other countries like South Korea where you can get a 100mbit/100mbit connection for US $30/month. But there is still hope! If only each city would invest like it does for water and sewer systems and bring in Fiber to the Home where an ISP can hook you up for no or minimal cost? And finally treat the internet like it is, a utility and not a service. Its the future for heaven’s sake! Just look at companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Netflix, and Amazon. If we allow the ISPs to do what they want with the monopolies they have where we don’t have any options of anything comparably different we’re screwed. I like what some cities in Utah have banded together to do, which is what I said before, that the internet should be a utility and open to competition. The city invests in the infrastructure and leases it out to ISPs when someone signs up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_Infrastructure_Agency. Or is that too close to socialism or some other stupid argument?
Of course when you propose competition, the current monopoly steps up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-your-town-threaten-to-roll-out-your-own.ars