Funny, cable prices have fallen significantly over the years and have plenty of competition to maintain low prices, but we still call them Evil Greedy Corporations.

The only evil greed I see now is the government wanting to get their fingers in every business imaginable. We've watched the debt from every president to date suddenly get trippled in a few months and still haven't learned the limit to the "Fed's" greed.

They want Net Neutrality? No. They want to dip into the last pocket that is truly free in our current society, the internet.

Go on. Give that up too. Doesn't it feel nice not to have to think for yourself anymore? Good boy.

McCain is a d---bag, completely out of touch with technology

so is al

I agree about McCain, but I also see some baiting by the article. McCain can jump off the nearest cliff and it makes not difference.

The Neutrality thing is just another Big Brother program being re-tooled to take over our lives. Hasn't anyone noticed that every president until now has had to deal with constant public scrutiny, yet now everyone is all hypersensitive about any kind of question in their decisions.

How do you stop the common people from asking questions? The press is already behind the government. You can tell by this "article"

You take away their means of communication and getting any information that would raise questions.

Has there been any improvement since the economy was "stimulated"?

How about after they took over GM? When they took over the Banks? Bailed out all the corrupt "Big" companies? Expanded government programs?

Sure, kill the internet. We don't need to read these kinds of articles anyway.

Al, what planet are you from. Cable Prices go up all the time and they use despitive marketing to get people to try it cheap then raise the price after a few months. Cable companies are evil.

Wow. People here must have the attention span of gnats. Cable used to have only a handful of channels and cost a couple hundred a month, but now you can get basic while having more channels than ever and that's too much for you?

Get in line for another government handout. I'm sure they have your best interests at heart, despite never having done more than expanding what they can take from the public.

Man, when people buy into the "government knows best" mentality, they go whole hog don't they?

This graphic is pretty but unlikely. If one ISP starts charging like that, how many people are going to stick with it? If they ALL start charging like that, how long will it be until an anti-trust lawsuit is filed? And do you really think powersites like Amazon or Google are going to stand for the restrictions on their traffic nonsense like this will create?

Cable prices change often. Sometimes for the better, other times not. I do agree that there is more offered today than when they started.

Back to the actual merits of internet neutrality, I see different services as connections to the internet.

What the FCC is trying to do is make it that once we pay these companies to connect us, their say in where we go stops.

So everyone who is complainging that this is "big brother" trying to step on our last freedoms, look at it from the other side of th coin. How free is it, if you want to go to a site but Disney won't let you because they find it's content questionable, or that this site is a little more expensive so you can't afford to connect and get the information there.

Now to be devil's advocate. Some sites do cost more to connect too, and eat up additional bandwith, should the companies be allowed to charge you more if you decide to go there, or are they expected to just eat up the difference and is that right?

That is what this discussion should be about.

Competition between cable companies? Really? If I want TV, I've got two choices. Comcast or Dish. Because I rent, I don't think I'm allowed to put Dish on the deck. Wow, THAT's a lot of competition!

Back to the actual merits of internet neutrality, I see different services as connections to the internet.

What the FCC is trying to do is make it that once we pay these companies to connect us, their say in where we go stops.

So everyone who is complainging that this is "big brother" trying to step on our last freedoms, look at it from the other side of th coin. How free is it, if you want to go to a site but Disney won't let you because they find it's content questionable, or that this site is a little more expensive so you can't afford to connect and get the information there.

Now to be devil's advocate. Some sites do cost more to connect too, and eat up additional bandwith, should the companies be allowed to charge you more if you decide to go there, or are they expected to just eat up the difference and is that right?

That is what this discussion should be about.

The two most frightening statements you can ever hear: "Hello, we're with the government" and "We're here to help."

Thank god, Bush is gone. Now we have the rest of them to work on.

The "Government Knows Best" argument is a dystopian idea that everything the government touches it screws up. It's a pessimistic viewpoint at best, and it's not even accurate. Many things the government does comes out successful.

Net Neutrality is IMPORTANT. We need it to ensure that we can connect to the content we want to see, when we want to see it. It's designed not only to protect the privacy of the consumer, but also to keep the ISP from filtering what we do and don't see.

Well, at least the marketing work's all done! ;)

Unlikely? A few years ago I would have said it would be unlikely for my bank to charge a $5 fee for cashing a check, now they are all doing it.

The ISP's job is to connect the customers to the internet, not throttle them based on destination.

This image is complete BS. The fact is that you will always have ACCESS to any legal content you want. This whole debate is a bait and switch because bandwidth hogs like google and facebook don't want to pay tiered charges themselves for faster bandwidth speed.

However, because the only way to manage the network after the government enforces its "non-discrimination" rule, will be to tier services for consumers. otherwise we will have continueal congestion of the network.

So yes, someone who only uses 5GB or less a month will pay $29.00 a month and people who download movies 24/7 and use say 250GM will pay their fare share too at around $200 a month.

Just remember, be careful what you wish for and remember that you wanted these reforms under the guise of "net neutrality."

What I know is that if a Republican politician doesn't want it, Big Business doesn't want it. If Big Business wants to block net neutrality it's because they will make more money without it. Our money. Net neutrality seeks to keep things the way they are. Ergo Big Business wants to change the way we use the internet so they can make more money. Our money.

LOL @ al,

Cable and satellite television service continually experiences extreme inflation rates. From 2000 to 2008 the inflation in cost of cable and satellite was 40% while average retail price inflation was about 25%.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/05/24/business/24cable.graphix.ready.html

And this is nothing new, I first tried out cable television in the late 80s and by the early 90s dumped it due to the stupid continual rate hikes.

Satellite is a better value but even there the rate hikes continually outstrip overall inflation rates. Then on top of it you are forced to pay for programming you don't want due to their lame packaging.

I finally dumped the satellite programming as well as I don't want to subsidize propaganda programs like Fox News. I get significantly better and accurate programming and information via the internet and OTA HDTV public programming on PBS.

In the linked chart notice the reduction in the cost of televisions, that is due to true competition, free markets and technological advancements. The cable/satellite industry and media industry are a complete scam. And now they want to apply their scam to the internet, screw em.

I pay my ISP a significant amount every month to have access to what I want. I do NOT want them to place controls on what I can download.

Without net neutrality, he first limits will not be noticed by most. Only a few heavy users will be hit with higher charges, then the greed will set in and the limit will become lower and lower. Next thing you know, a family will have access to text-based e-mail for $29/mo. Anything else will cost more.

If anything, net neutrality will encourage competition among ISP's once they recognize that we will not tolerate being treated like bottomless cash cows.

@Publius,

'after the government enforces its "non-discrimination" rule, will be to tier services for consumers'

Where have you been? Consumers are already paying tiered prices for ISP bandwidth, consumers should pay for tiered bandwidth, and bandwidth usage has absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality.

Google pays for bandwidth, consumers pay for bandwidth, the purpose of opposing net neutrality is to enable net discrimination, which is nicely portrayed in this mocked up ad.

Furthermore, the "continueal congestion of the network" you and the big telecoms are using as a club to instil fear in consumers is actually an opportunity for providers to compete not a reason to allow anti-competitive tactics. If one provider cannot provide a decent internet service for their customers than somebody else will step up and take their place. Welcome to free market capitalism.

Some corporations want a monopoly market free revenue trip but they had better suck it up and learn how to compete in a free market.

originally the government was there to help structure the people, and help them, any more the politicians are there to help them selves, a prime examples are blue laws, laws instated on a religious bases because the politicians didn't want any one to go against what they believed, politicians make more money in a year then the bottom 40% of people make in 7 years, yet they expect use to give them money to make sure their laws pass and they do their jobs right, bush is gone but he was replaced by a first, that's all the last election was about first woman to be vice president or first black man in office, but because he is a first many people look at him as infallible, and this is a prime example of what could happen because no one is stepping up and saying no, this will do nothing but keep the poor in the dark and let the rich people make more money, example how many companies currently have online only application systems? if you charge to go to these sites then you cut the application pool in half and the poor become more poor, endless bureaucratic bull.--

Re: Filmdude - What the FCC is trying to do is make it that once we pay these companies to connect us, their say in where we go stops.

Compare to telephone service over the years. In the Bell system, when you "got a phone" it was of course, a land line, and the service that went with it covered local calling. If you called someone farther away (long distance) you paid an additional cost. With the advent of cell phones, now when you "get a phone" you must contract with a carrier for a specified amount of time for service that varies in complexity, but when you call some one, you pay AND they pay. Ever notice that difference?
Television used to be broadcast over the "air". Public airwaves. It was financed by advertising. When you turned on your TV, you were free to watch whatever was being broadcast at no cost beyond purchasing the television set and watching commercials.
Now, you buy the television set, pay to have the signal delivered by cable, not over the public airwaves, and watch commercials. More commercials than ever before. You now pay (quite a bit) to watch commercials. Satisfied yet?
Net Neutrality, or "What the FCC is trying to do is make it that once we pay these companies to connect us, their say in where we go stops" is the attempt to establish the internet as an invaluable channel for information AND enterprise. To make it available at the lowest cost to the most people possible. To make it the public roadway to all the exciting potential it is capable of.
Did you want, while driving, to pay an additional fee to stop at a gas station (download a Movie), an additional fee to stop at a restaurant (use a search engine), another fee to go potty (pay a bill online), or yet another fee to pull into your driveway (purchase an email account)? That is, in addition to paying to be connected to the internet and buying those services?
Once you understand the mindset of corporate will, you will know why you are paying from both sides every step of the way. Or had you not yet noticed?
If we do not share in a government to establish and guard over right practices, who will?
Keep your eyes on, folks.

"Many things the government does comes out successful?" please, list them. When has the government stepped in and taken charge and made the situation better? Everything the government has taken a hand in for the public "good" has turned a good idea into a bad policy with nothing but red tape and pointless bureaucracy.

Are kids getting smarter today than back when the government and unions didn't have a hand in how we are taught and what is promoted?

How about the DMV?
Welfare?
Immigration?

Please, if there are so many times the government has proven it can turn a difficult situation into a good outcome, I'd love to see it outlined and promoted.

Hell, we can't even win a war against cave dwelling religious nuts and we're supposed to be a "super power".

We've got politicians promoting bills that are thousands of pages thick who don't think it's important enough to read before agreeing to it.

If the cable company gave you a thousand page contract to sign, would you trust them? Apparently, that doesn't apply when the government decides to make a decision.

Diane,

I'm with comcast. I don't have a choice in respects to ISP. If i don't like it, tough. Kind of sucks to be where I live.

Al you belong with MacCain and I for one am very glad not to have given him my vote.
and furthermore anyone who does not want net-neutrality is probably either dumb or a stooge for some bigwig company.

i need this goverment to protect me from those big corporate businesses who do not care about us consumers and want to price gouge us as much as they can do.

Get used to this if McCain's insanely misleading "Internet Freedom Act of 2009" is passed. I can't believe the future of the net in America is in the hands of someone who doesn't use email. Oh well, I guess he can continue to get the most money out of any other Senator from the telecom companies. He has no idea what he is doing (other than getting money), and what's more, he doesn't care. Why should he? He doesn't use the internet. He probably looks up to former Sen. Ted "series of tubes" Stevens as some kind of expert.

@Carl,

Your local DMV's competence may be related to the average competence of your community as a whole. The DMV where I live has an efficient online system. I file and pay online and receive my registration renewal in the mail.

But a better analogy to net neutrality would be the NHTSA, the beginnings of which can be traced all the way back to 1924 when Herbert Hoover was instrumental in implementing regulation and specifications for traffic controls.

As with your current skepticism about the involvement of government in business the corporations have continually fought against the NHTSA and all the government organizations before the NHTSA that tried to impose regulations with the welfare of the citizens in mind.

Auto manufacturers fought safety belts, safety glass, etc, etc, and in the mean time the death rate per 100 million miles only became worse and hit its peak in the mid 1970s.

The results of the spiralling out of control death rates the NHTSA gained more authority and now many safety features are not only standard but auto manufacturers finally figured out that selling death traps was not good business and safety features are actually a selling point.

Regulations and specifications mandated by the NHTSA and Congress have resulted in a continual decrease in traffic related deaths. A major success of government regulation.

The traffic death rate peaked around 1973 at over 54,000 deaths and even though there are more that 2x the number of drivers on the roads today the death rate has continually dropped since then with less than 35,000 deaths in 2008.

Yes, government involvement is not always good and mistakes are made, but the continual rants we hear today about government being one big failure is simple ignorance.

The creation of the internet is one of the most potent turning points in our sociological evolution since the internal combustion engine and prehaps the most important asset to our species. In my humble opinion access to this form of communication should be a birthright to us and future generations. People are more connected globally than they ever have been in human history. And yes, a fantastic medium for entertainment but it's commercial applications should not overshadow what it is capable of socially. Hopefully one day it will be free for all, from the homeless to the hopelessly rich.

I "Belong with McCain"? I saw little value in having McCain take office and have since found no value in Obama. Nothing has been done to improve the country and everything being pushed has an underlying agenda of taking over every means of support our country has for maintaining itself.

You say you need the government to "protect you from corporate businesses who do not care about us consumers" but the first thing the government did with our "stimulus" money was bail out every big corrupt corporation that had been price gouging and taking part in ruining our economy.

Yeah, group me anywhere you're not. I prefer not to blindly follow party lines or talking heads like some people.

@Utah,
I don't mean to make it sound like the government has never done anything right, after all, we grew from a bunch of people kicked out of a country and became the greatest source of freedom in the world.

I would just like to see the government do something for a change that didn't have something in it for them. Taking over GM, banks, healthcare and so on... That's what we criticize corporations for trying to do and we're letting the government go ahead as if they can run everything at once efficiently.

They can't. If they want to take something over, why not start small in their own system and prove their proficiency before forcing it on the whole country?

My only question is will net neutrality stop the government from filtering our internet during "times of emergency" as they have proposed.

Net neutrality is not Big Brother taking over the internet. Net neutrality is telling ISPs they can't reserve priority services for big spenders and dump the rest of us in slower service - which is exactly what Ed Whitacre said he wanted to do at AT&T.

It's interesting that both advocates and opponents of net neutrality phrase their arguments in terms of preserving openness and freedom. But net neutrality responds to real threats to openness that ISPs have already tried or threatened. How it might amount to some Big Brother clampdown on the Internet, when the language of the FCC's Notice contains nothing of the kind, is never explained. The FCC's process so far has been unprecedentedly transparent and responsive to the public.

There's one other democratic check on government excess: elections. President Obama is doing exactly what Candidate Obama said he would do on net neutrality.

AL, at the top, must have not come into contact with Comcast. I would love to live where he does, my bill is double what my relatives pay in the Midwest, they also charge $50 for instillation and when they come out the first time "oops forgot something" another $50 because they forgot something and it might not stop there.

Wow @Al, I am so sorry for you and the world that you live in. The FCC is charged with regulating all non-federal government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and TV), and all interstate telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable) as well as all international communications that originate or terminate in the United States [wikipedia].

Why is it okay that the gov't [fcc] is involved to help regulate most other forms of communication and yet somehow doing it for the internet inspires a "government knows best" fear in you? Where were you last week/month/year to complain about the FCC?

Net Neutrality states that ISPs are not allowed to give preferential [big word for you I know] treatment to any data packets [which keeps things as they are now] versus McCain's bill which wants to allow an ISP like comcast to say, "youtube access will cost you more." or "We don't like youtube because we are starting our own video service there we will slow it down." Also it's hilarious that McCain, who admits he doesn't know how to use a computer but is also the largest receiver of Telco donations at $894,379 http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUS246040901420091024 introduces this bill and call's it the "Internet Freedom Act". Yeah, freedom for ISPs to charge you whatever they want and mess with your traffic however they want. I love how all these "Freedom" acts tend to give corporations the freedom to mess with the people.

if this was created by a redditer, where does reddit appear in the logos? did i just miss it?

When the net neutrality debate began it was over the idea that Internet providers were concerned that too much media streaming would adversely affect their customer's bandwidth; the idea that one person streaming high def movies shouldn't be permitted to suck everyone else's bandwidth. They wanted to either charge the streamers more for their usage (great public outcry) or throttle the specific packet types related to streaming media (again, great public outcry).

It actually is rather understandable that these companies want to continue to provide an acceptable value to all of their customers and are concerned that a relative few are ruining it for the majority. This discussion is about business and giving customers what they paid for. Once the feds got involved, net neutrality has come to have deeper and more sinister political meaning. Now it involves what you can and can not say on blogs, what commercial sites can say without disclaimers, and what you can say about the people in power if you have a different opinion.

In short, net neutrality is no longer about how to provide fair service to customers, it is about what amount of freedom should be permitted by the "we know better than you about what's good for America" people in charge. Talking about the graphic posted should be a discussion of limiting unfair pricing packages, not net neutrality.

@staiano – stain for short. Regulations in place have never had the invasiveness that this will have. “Allowing” of anything by the government is just another way of saying that the government will have yet another hand in the freedoms we take for granted. Yes, freedom. I’m sure that’s a foreign word to you. I’m sure “enslaved” would sound like “protected” in your mind.

The fact that you blindly trust policies and bills being forced on the country by the most corrupt government to take office in the history of the U.S. says volumes on your ignorance.

Government that works for the people is greedy ... not the corporations that are motivated solely to make tons of cash for their shareholders? Guess who al works for? Wanna bet he's a lobbyist?

@arkough

Best explanation yet. Companies in monopolistic positions (whether private or state-controlled) will try to erect toll booths and be a drag on the productive economy as much as they can. Rent-seeking companies have to be kept in check by public policy no matter what economic system you have. Think of this as a pre-emptive cut in taxes paid by the public to telecommunications companies.

The defeat of net neutrality could stifle innovation and leave US-focused internet companies at a disadvantage compared to those in countries where with policies to encourage competitive, open network access.

The concept of unfettered net xfrs is great. The concept of government control over the net sucks. Note that the FUD concerning throttling has NOT yet happened ... why not? 'cause the first one to implement it will lose business big time. If it ever -does- happen, that might be the time to cautiously consider some sort of legislation, but even then I think the market would bitchslap the offenders rather quickly. Be really careful what you wish for ,,,

Throttling certainly has occurred. http://hothardware.com/News/Comcasts-New-Network-Throttling-Now-In-Place-/

What is going on here is Cass Sustein (sp?) is trying to "nudge" everyone into thihnking this is a good idea. Think about it this way. Right now you can sit in your pjs and post anything you want. No questions asked. The web is the place of free-est speach on this planet. If this goes through we have giving up part of that right to free speech. Oddly enough, SyFy is owned by Universal/NBC. Which in turn is owned by G.E. Which in turn, is in line to profit from Net Neutrality, Not to mention Jeffery Imelt is one of Barak Obama's closest confidants. Now, SyFy is trying to put a positive spin on this issue to garner support. Feel like a chicken being led around by a leash yet? If not, wait for it, you will......

"Funny, cable prices have fallen significantly over the years and have plenty of competition to maintain low prices, but we still call them Evil Greedy Corporations." - By al at 1:47 PM ON 10/28/09

Really? Not in my area where there is only one cable company so they can jack prices as they see fit. I'm already paying nearly $125 for basic cable television and internet access, which is the smallest and CHEAPEST package they offer. Not everyone lives in a big town or city and has competing companies to choose from. Do I call my local cable company greedy? You're damned right I do! They've got us bent over and you deal with it or you do without. Those are your choices if they have their way.

LJ

I wish the cable companies would spend the millions that they are using to lobby our elected officials on developing proper internet infrastructure instead. the US has one of the worst in comparison to the rest of the world, esp Europe and Asia. And the Republicans (whom I usually support on most issues) claim that Net Neutrality stifles development and growth. Really? How many new jobs & technology does implementing a tiered billing system create? NONE. Just more money in the cable companies' CEO's pockets. Stop beating this dead horse named Cable and develop the ground work for affordable and available Fiber-optics or even something better. Oh, that cost money you say? Well, most industries SAVE for just such a thing. What? Did you think you could ride cable into the 22nd century? The cable companies are our own domestic "OPEC".

Al is one of those trools who like to be the first post. He obviously works for some entity that gets paid by the Big Bad Cable co.

Bottom line is the can't pump all that data over s single coax cable. And provide real HD tv along with internet and telephone service. You can only do that with fiberoptic cabling. I wish I could get FIOS. But it's not offered in my area.

Cable co want to prioritize what kind of data they send first. They want you to pay for a service that they only will provide when it's not inconvinent for them to do so. Because the more people watching HD TV, the less bandwith there is for internet data flow.

Gee, Dvice (ran by SyFy, owned by NBC & MSNBC, owned by GE, whose CEO is on Obama's advisory board) is supporting Obama's FCC what a suprise.

I'd rather just have a city provide WiFi that you pay into if you want it, like Lompoc, CA, than the FCC regulate it. Which should not be able to regulate cable because it does not use public airwaves like radio and TV.

Remember that is wasn't too long ago that providers used to charge per minute vs flat rate now. So that price has gone down if you compare it.

"By Filmdude at 2:21 PM ON 10/28/09

Now to be devil's advocate. Some sites do cost more to connect too, and eat up additional bandwith, should the companies be allowed to charge you more if you decide to go there, or are they expected to just eat up the difference and is that right? "

Umm. That is why these sites PAY for their hosting somewhere along the line. They PAY for servers, PAY for bandwidth (which is the wrong term as really bandwidth is speed, and we are talking data transfer, not speed), they PAY for how fast their speed is, and on the other end, the private citizens PAY for their connection, they PAY for their monthly data transfer (well, most do, though some like me have ISPs that allow unlimited transfer still), they PAY more for faster speeds.

So if they are claiming that too much data transfer is being used by these companies then obviously they are not being charged enough for their base hosting service. And we also need to take another look at the contracts between ISPs for when someone on Roadrunner talks to someone on ATT, at which point the ATT person with unlimited transfer can use up the monthly data transfer limit of the person from Roadrunner and end up costing the person from Roadrunner more money. That also needs to be fixed because at some point different monthly transfer limits of different companies will interact and cause problems.

Either way, again I say, the data transfer rate (which is at the heart of this whole topic) is paid for on both ends, by the companies managing these sites, and by the consumer for their residential internet service. Again, if it is not enough, then figure out which is being undercharged and increase their data transfer rates. No need to start charging for every site. If they do that then they also need to FORCE cable/satellite companies to list how much they are charging for each of their 200+ channels and allow customers FULL ala-carte rights to choose 100% of the channels they do and do not want.

"By jak at 4:52 PM ON 11/02/09

Al is one of those trools who like to be the first post. He obviously works for some entity that gets paid by the Big Bad Cable co.

Bottom line is the can't pump all that data over s single coax cable. And provide real HD tv along with internet and telephone service. You can only do that with fiberoptic cabling. I wish I could get FIOS. But it's not offered in my area.

Cable co want to prioritize what kind of data they send first. They want you to pay for a service that they only will provide when it's not inconvinent for them to do so. Because the more people watching HD TV, the less bandwith there is for internet data flow. "

Umm. I am in Lawrence, Kansas. We have Sunflower Cablevision. They run full high grade fiber for all of their connections, right up to the node for their neighborhoods. From there they run super high grade RG6 line. They also have MANY nodes to both have as few people as possible on them, and to keep distances at or under 100 feet per customer, which at that short of a distance they are fully capable of sending full 1080p uncompressed HD, and internet speeds of 50Mbps downstream/1Mbps upstream, and run both at FULL speed (using 2 TVs watching HD programming and 2 running non-HD) at the same time with no speed drops.

If other cable companies can't do that then they are cheapskates that need to install better networks.

Total manipulation by corporate rapists (as usual). Keep up the good work a**holes! We are sure to be living just like out of the movie "Soylent Green!"

By the way, if you look carefully at my posts, neither of them support or fail to support "net neutrality". I have read very little on it so I am currently neutral myself on it.

In theory if done right it can be a good thing for the public, but as with any law recently passed I am waiting to see what gets tacked on to this bill that either changes its very core, or has totally nothing to do with the bill.

Oh, and as to the people talking about how cable companies do not use public airways. 99% of all cable companies get their initial signal via satellite to their own buildings before pumping the TV signal down their own private infrastructure, so yes, at some point in time your cable TV is satellite powered, and thus falls under FCC regulations. Just not the rest of it (phone, internet, anything else not satellite powered), though somebody apparently forgot to tell most cable providers that.

Our government has a history of giving bad/flawed legislation "warm and fuzzy" names in the hopes of garnering public favor. This bill is no different. We are all currently able to voice our opinion, visit various sites, without being told what is "fair and neutral". As with other bills currently making headlines, all I can say is READ THE BILL. Placing the internet under the 'benevolent' jurisdiction of the FCC, would allow the same emergency pre-empt powers to the government that now apply to TV, Radio and your Phone (yes, you phone service bandwidth can be snagged for use by the government in a declared emergency). Also, do you want the government being able (in the name of neutrality and diversity) telling you that your web site has to come down because you only state one opinion/side of an issue? Instead of passing more government control of the media, we should be asking why our lawmakers don't pass laws that will allow more competition of ISP's...get rid of the franchise monopolies. Bottom line - the internet is one of the last mediums of expression not under the government's thumb.

Look all you net neutrality zealots fail to realize that NN also means that spammers that set up email hosting sites or robot pfishing / hacking sites; or spending the day downloading the entire frickin' internet will suck your bandwidth dry. There is up and down side to the issue, but I have no problem paying less money than a traffic hog, or having my ISP say no to people who set up these abusive sites. Mark my words, if net neutrality passes, your spam content will multiply by factor of 10.

1. "Net Neutrality is IMPORTANT. We need it to ensure that we can connect to the content we want to see, when we want to see it." is a quote from a recent post.

Oh - I thought I could already use search engines to find what I wanted when I wanted it and I can use my own mind to figure out which information is what I needed to see...

I guess I forgot I Do need someone to tell me what to think instead - and also I should be gladly willing to pay more money for them to tell me theses things - Boy - the insane things a person like me who grew up in a society of freedoms tends to think of as reality!

2. Another part of this post was, "The "Government Knows Best" argument is a dystopian idea that everything the government touches it screws up. It's a pessimistic viewpoint at best, and it's not even accurate. Many things the government does comes out successful."

Yes - everything they do does not go bad. Only important things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security (all bankrupt - a good thing right?), ridiculous pork barrel spending (aka stimulus money that some how disappears and fails to meet the targets it was after - remember some of the car companies are right back where they tarted before the packages now).

No, not everything the government done goes bad - this actually is a fact. However, if there is a way the people making the laws can get money in their own pockets - the facts are the sad facts.

BTW ever notice how they name incredibly power-grabbing concepts such as these as something that actually sounds good?

Being neutral means not taking sides. This insane concept of regulating the web in order to eliminate politically incorrect thinking is anything BUT neutral.

If someone is stupid enough to want to pay more money to use the internet so that they can be told what to think - instead let's get someone who has no moral scruples to make the "New American Freedom-Based ISP." The new system would give new freedoms by restricting any opinions not in keeping with the philosophy of the owners (so subscribers are free to see only what the owners want them to), it would charge subscribers more money for everything they do on the internet (so as t maintain the freedom of the new service to thrive and to gold plate their bathtubs), and as an added bonus, subscribers would be given free, "I am a media puppet" badges to wear! The contract of service would be for the lifetime of the original subscriber and it would be mandatory that the descendants of that subscriber also be "free" to be in the same system or they would be fined and forced to sign up.

Baaaaa - Mooooo

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Ben Franklin

not totally relevant, but it essentially sums up this argument in my opinion.

My internet is already "neutral" enough. I don't need it being fixed. Especially by the agency that is controlling radio and TV waves in a such a way that controlled debate is offered as pluralism of opinions. This would give the right to govt to control content, sooner or later. As sen. Jay Rockfeller said: "Internet should have never existed".

I have a question for the author though. If this is such a greave danger, why isn't it already happening? Why don't those evil providers already try to get rid consumers out of their dough? I believe the answer is that consumers would quickly run away to another provider happy enough to take them and earn his existing profit margin. what do you think?

Also, when some of you say big corporations are against this proposition do you consider the size of the copmanies that are proponents of NN? I think Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Skype and others are pretty big corps, too. Instead of calling government to protect their profits, they may as well create brand new state of the art telecom company that would be "Net Neutral". Just don't ENFORCE thier "great idea" on everyone else. Let me choose do I want provider that is net neutral or the one that requires more money for movie downloading vs. news reading.

BTW, "Net Neutrality" is such Orwellian name. Think "Patriot Act" - if you are against it
you are not a Patriot.

Also, trying to use association on this matter ( "Obama vs. Mccain" ) is a cheap shot trying to play people's emotions.

Yeah, net neutrality is a pretty important issue. Just google "factopo"

Diane, you make it sound like people actually have a choice in America, outside of going to dial-up.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of ISPs, especially incumbent ISPs in America have a very large monopoly in their markets. Comcast is the chief example of this being as they hold a solid 33% monopoly in all of America. Verizon has barely begun to cut into that monopoly. This allows Comcast to impose certain things such as rate hikes on cable fees (Why we left Comcast for Dish Network in 02), and introduce things such as usage caps (As immensely depicted above) and shaping to the users, some of which can get pretty severe. I've seen some people who have flat out had connections denied for periods of time.

You think if I had a choice, I'd still be with Comcast? No. Reportedly terrible billing and all, I'd roll over to Verizon faster than Gaius Baltar would go for a Cylon for the immensely better (and more stable) service without the worry of usage caps and the worry of having my internet cut off for a year if I was to go over it. That's right, if you go over your usage cap twice in any 12 month period, Comcast cuts off all service to you for an entire year without a second thought. Now remember that note about 33% of America being a held monopoly under Comcast? I happen to be in that 33%.

Now metered billing and net neutrality are two different things yes, but they are also two sides of the same coin and representative of an evil which stirs to strike down any innovation and prefers to keep things the way they are which is why America continues year after year to lag further and further behind in scientific innovation, especially in the way of Information Technology based on Broadband.

And please, no one use the population density excuse. New York City alone has a higher population density (per mi^2) than all of Japan as a whole, yet Japan is frequently cited as having some of the fastest home internet connections in the world for the lowest prices.

"American," you said the following:

"Yes - everything they do does not go bad. Only important things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security (all bankrupt - a good thing right?), ridiculous pork barrel spending (aka stimulus money that some how disappears and fails to meet the targets it was after - remember some of the car companies are right back where they tarted before the packages now)."

How about postal service? Is that important? How about the FDA? Public schools? Fire and police departments? It's like air travel: You only hear about the crashes.

Nope, that's not what it means. That's some hotel thing which has nothing to do with it. Spreading disinformation just clouds an important issue about how much control we're willing to give the FCC over the Internet.

their goal isn't to make money from the internet it's to completely ruin it