More competition would easily force net neutrality without a federal bill.

I'm with McCain on this one.

I had some posting issues.

BULL. SHIT.

We are already screwed by ISPs. Where I live, there is ONE high speed provider. There is NO COMPETITION. If they were able to decide to block access to whatever content they wanted, there would be NOTHING I could do about this.

Ya, I am with Moe here. The ISPs want the status quo. What they've had so far is a monopoly (I forget the term when it's multiple holding a monopoly). But, they've been worrying more about getting more $$ out of us for less, and it's only going downhill. TRUE competition would mean we would have more small ISPs and they would be able to compete against each other. We would be able to have more than 1 cable company providing. We would have the choice of DSL from different services if possible. And they could all compete. Right now, if you want cable internet, you have one choice, and that is, whoever has the contract for the area you live in. DSL is always through the phone company. And anything else is just not feasible (typically). We don't have true competition. At all.

But before that gets fixed (if at all), we have a problem. We have large corporations who increasingly want our money. They can't get it through competition, so they get it through exploitation. Net neutrality is part of what it is there to quash that. We need companies to not discriminate against services for no reason other than to artificially create barriers or make them more money. They are stifling innovation, expecting what worked 5 years ago to be acceptable today. That's problematic.

I did vote for McCain, but this is one area where I would disagree with him. The large corporations are not what need protection here. And you aren't protecting the citizens' interests by proxy. You simply are protecting the large corporations' profit margins.

wait for another isp?

Create your own ISP and start selling service? (This is exactly why Microsoft was never considered a monopoly in the US)

Why does the government need to be involved?

You can always stop giving your ISP money, and if enough people get upset about it, either the company will go bankrupt or they will change their ways.

That isn't an option for everyone.

That has not happened in the ten years that I have had high speed internet in three different areas of the USA. It will not happen. The country is split up by the large ISPs and they do not move into others' areas. I was told this in those exact words by my current ISP. There will be no other ISPs coming in that offer high speed access, ergo, no competition.

This is a foolish thing to say. It is not feasible to anyone and I am amazed that you even offer this as a serious option.

I do not have a spare 50 million dollars lying around to start a new high speed internet access company for the Phoenix area. If I did, I probably wouldn't give a shit about this issue.

If I do not like the selection of potato chips from Basha's, I do not try to open up my own grocery store. If I want chips that Basha's does not carry I have the option to go to Fry's or Safeway or Food City. Unfortunately, it is not so with ISPs...see my comment above on that issue.

Because the ISPs have exactly zero interest in what is good for us. Given the leeway to limit or block any access they want, they will immediately do so in order to squeeze more money from us.

Given the facts as I have received them from my ISP, this is completely untrue. You cannot just say "Oh well just don't buy the product and eventually they will change." This is because there will NEVER be enough people that decide to cancel service in an area...that does not mean that what the ISP is doing is OK, or good for the customer. All it means is that they hold the monopoly and though shit if you don't like it.

If this goes through, ALL of the high speed providers will immediately start charging for access to video downloads. To music downloads. To MMORPG access. To whatever they deem fit to charge more for. When ALL of the providers are offering the same rape of customers, there is NO COMPETITION, only equal opportunity rip offs. They will disguise it as a "Choice" that we have by offering different "Quality Levels of Service" but in the end it will be nothing but robbing us just because they can.

Given the facts as I have received them from my ISP, this is completely untrue. You cannot just say "Oh well just don't buy the product and eventually they will change." This is because there will NEVER be enough people that decide to cancel service in an area...that does not mean that what the ISP is doing is OK, or good for the customer. All it means is that they hold the monopoly and though s**t if you don't like it.

Agreeing with Moe on this. My experience has spanned basic broadband accounts, and dedicated symmetric lines as well. And the sum seems to be "Pay for a basic account, and mind your TOS, as your bandwidth may suffer from your 'activities.'"

That, or pay a sh*tload more for the service you probably should have been receiving, if you can get it.

The early-'90s push to keep the Internet available to a broad spectrum of the public was a good idea, (else this community itself might not exist.)

While Moore's law applies to computing overall, it does not (understandably) apply to broadband infrastructure, and the two are at-odds lately, at least in my area, and I'm in central Los Angeles, where you'd expect "broad competition," exceeding most other areas, NPI.

If, even after the AT&T breakup of the '80s, or further deregulation in 1996, phone-service providers started trying to pass legislation to choke off actual landline phone calls, based on usage, think of how differently the story might play out.

The advantage to phone services in that scenario is given due to its technology being in place for well-over 100 years, versus the Internet's relative nascence.

But the Internet is no different: It's now our telephone, and will be ever more-so for our descendants.

Not regulation, nor deregulation; neither competition, nor monopoly is a silver bullet here, but a due and proper benefit/cost balance is to be expected.

Quality internet services are paid for by most people in civilized areas, and by some in the further reaches who can afford it, as they do the telephone.

The medium actually gained prominence because of laissez faire legislation, and its growth has lagged somewhat behind the machinations (and infrastructure problems) of the "brick and mortar" corporate schedule.

Opponents to 'Net Neutrality are only seeking lobbying advantage, not some level playing field for all. You don't have to have your head stuck up some 19th-century notion of economics to believe that.

The urge to "grow" the World-Wide Web was given as a challenge to companies to adapt and overcome these same obstacles. A few survived this call into the '2000s. Yet they are here, and apparently, here to stay.

But this push, by some of those resistant companies, is doing little more than confusing the terms of their propositions.

The entertainment industry's leaders are already falling upon this same sword. We can actually watch the rest do the same, or vote for them on their way down.

Oh it is so rare that I get to brag about my home town or job but..............



It is our plan to have the whole city receiving free WiFi within 10 years.

Of course I am not talking Vios speed. But I have used this provider and it is good enough for what I need. And what a way to thimb our nose at the big TW who has owned this land for too long.

Let's not be so quick to disagree with McCain. He is after all, a computer genius



[/sarcasm]

so in 2008 he admits he doesn't know anything about computers but now he knows how to safeguard America by granting ISPs to control what we view?

Bull.

This is even more of a problem with today's tendency for companies to merge. Some ISP owned by company Time Warner doesn't wan't want you to use Hulu because that is owned by NBC & FOX. They want you to use their site instead. They cut back the speed of hulu so that you won't have much of a choice. You could imagine a million other situations where a corporation would see it as in their financial interests to control your speed.

This isn't about "government control" as some state. It most certainly isn't akin to the horrible so-called "fairness doctrine". It is simply leveling the playing field for the consumer. This is one area where Obama is correct on.

NO...


YES...

Again you prove how your libertarian ideals are pipe dreams that will not work in reality.

As silly as it seems to many people, Internet is a utility. It is a communications utlity much like phone service.

While I strongly believe in competition, things like utilities (water, power, communications) do NOT work when left on their own. If the power company suddenly started charging you more it's not like you can just decide not to pay, or switch to a different power company.

The same is true with most ISP's. They need to be regulated to a certain degree by the government to ensure that they provide a fair service.

Is it fair that the college kid is running his own MP3 download service on the same line as the corporation who has communications with a head office? Probably not. The office WANTS to pay more to ensure their traffic goes through but aside from getting a dedicated line (expensive) QoS controls and Net neutrality is the only method that they can do it. They would be allowed to pay an entra fee to ensure their traffic over the college kids. This doesn't sound so bad. The problem is that the ISP's won't stop there. Game traffic? Fee. E-mail traffic? Fee. Just like we see fees for texting, talking, and downloading with cell service this will be another way for them to gouge customers which have absolutely no choice.

Even a conservative can say NO to McCain's proposal here.

I love how people have so much faith in their government. But if bush was pushing neutrality you'd all be screaming government takeover.

They did push for neutrality under the Bush regime. It wasn't Bush himself putting it forward but it occurred during the the dark times of his reign.

So which is it?
Like power and water...or like the phone companies.

Because if it's like the phone you can chose Verizon, At&T, Charter cable, Time Warner Cable, Sprint, and on and on.

I have a very reasonable phone bill due to this competition.
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On a side note, I'm amazed, and ashamed of the mob downvoters that give a plime member a e-asswhipping for:

A pretty clear maturity level indicator.

You diminish your argument by replacing debate with assumptions.

Why the hell did this comment get downvoted so badly? seems like a decent comment to me and before I upvoted it he was at -1..pretty lame

I don't really think Josh deserved downvotes here either, I think his ideas are ridiculous but I still don't see why everyone is so quick to downvote..

So I get downvoted -300+ because I voiced an opinion that didn't attack anyone?

That's absurd. I don't really care about downvotes, because we all know they happen. But for something that doesn't violate any of the supposed protocol? I'm not going to keep from voicing my opinions on this, I just find it incredibly absurd.

Anyway, back on topic.

High speed internet is not a right. If you choose to pay for it, then you should agree to the terms of your ISP, which means they might block some sites. If you have a problem with this, you can either go to your local government and have them fix the problem, you can stop paying your ISP, you can move, or you can get together with a bunch of people and start up your own ISP. The federal government should never been an option on this issue.