Net Neutrality
Before you weigh in on the issue of Net Neutrality please educate
yourself on the facts. There are a large number of very powerful
people out there that depend on voter ignorance and misdirection to
accomplish their goals.
The idea that the recent FCC ruling on Internet neutrality is a
power grab in answer to a nonexistent problem is just not true. It
can be viewed as a government regulation power grab or as a consumer
protection move.
The recent press releases claiming that the problem is nonexistent
has the same feel as the rhetoric produced about the country going
into recession -- is all in the consumers heads and not a reality.
How wrong can you be?
Let's hear from a few companies who are against net neutrality in their own words.
William L. Smith, chief technology officer for
Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an
Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for
example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search
site load faster than that of Google Inc.
Former AT&T Chief Ed Whitacre told BusinessWeek:
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. So there's going to have to be some
mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion
they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
We have to make sure they don't sit on
our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.
I wouldn't call these statements nonexistent. When we pay our
internet bill aren’t we already paying for the pipes. These
companies also received large government subsidies to expand
broadband infrastructure. (Build pipes.)
Those who oppose internet
neutrality argue that FCC regulation prohibits free market
competition by a government run internet and are mounting a fear
campaign of government regulation. The internet backbone was created
by the government and has always been run by the government and has
worked very well for entrepreneurs as well as establish offline
businesses. The new regulation is an effort to maintain equal access
across the internet because of a regulation change in 2005 that
opened loopholes.
I don't think the owners of sites
like Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, along with many others think
that open internet access is bad for business. If net neutrality is
so bad, why did Netflix
stock jump up 4.6% immediately after the FCC decision?
These companies have a new vision for the
Internet. Instead of a level playing field, they want to reserve
express lanes for their own content and services -- or those of big
corporations that can afford the steep tolls -- and leave the rest of
us on a winding dirt road.
The Free Press is a nonpartisan
organization that is trying to untangle the rhetoric around the net
neutrality issue. To learn more read their Frequently
Asked Questions and Fact
vs. Fiction.
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