NET NEUTRALITY . An Opinion .

Net Neutrality is like Cable Deregulation ,
the losers are you and me.
My bandwidth is slow today
I wonder why?

The issue of NET NEUTRALITY for Americans and other nations is much  like the Bill if Rights . The right of free speech , or religion .  On Jan. 14, 2014, the *** U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order.And on May 15, the FCC voted to propose a new “open Internet” rule that may let Internet service providers charge content companies for priority treatment, relegating other content to a slower tier of service. The ruling was a blow to the Obama administration, which has pushed the idea of "net neutrality." And it sharpened the struggle by the nation's big entertainment and telecommunications companies to shape the regulation of broadband, now a vital pipeline for tens of millions of Americans to view video and other media.For consumers, the ruling could usher in an era of tiered Internet service, in which they get some content at full speed while other websites appear slower because their owners chose not to pay up. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is pushing a plan that would allow rampant discrimination online. (1)> If approved, this proposal would kill Net Neutrality.Wheeler’s plan would let Internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon create a two-tiered Internet, with fast lanes for the few who can afford the extra fees and a slow dirt road for the rest of us. These companies would have the power to pick winners and losers online and discriminate against online content and applications. And no one would be able to do anything about it.So far more than a million Americans — a record-breaking number — have filed comments slamming the FCC's proposal. I have to support Net Neutrality. (2)>  I dreaded the decision of " Cable Deregulation " which did the opposite that it was supposed to do .  Protesters are in favor of preserving net neutrality and an Open Internet which would reclassify broadband under the Title II common carrier laws that regulate phone services. In January, the Open Internet rules were struck down by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that required broadband providers to treat all Internet traffic equally. Government control of how packets are sent across the Internet is a terrible idea. Net neutrality is wrong. It's simply about government control. It sounds good in theory but in the end, the government wants to control what you can say and what you can do on the Internet, and that's what this is about. This ruling is a disaster. I am old enough to recall the early days of the internet. The old "Ma Bell" phone system charge a price per bit for computer communications and delayed the internet for the better part of a decade. all of whom complained bitterly how the Bell System was blocking the development of a key economic capability. Fortunately the Supreme Court broke the control and monopoly pricing of communications in time for the Internet to develop in America. Now we are returning to the past. Price per bit is the holy grail of internet service providers and htis represents around the tenth assault by the ISP's to get a stranglehold on the information circulation system of our country. Computer networks are as much a public utility as electrical networks. The nations lifeblood depends on them.To place network traffic under monopoly control and pricing will slow the flow of information, the response time of our economy, and the ability of individuals to obtain training and information on the Net. Universities and training centers will suffer and be restricted to those able to pay what the rentiers charge. It is a regressive step and the US no longer has the luxury of time to wait since our competitors are moving faster and more efficiently in the information economy.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

***If you are thinking about blaming the courts for their decision, don't: Legal experts, even those in favor of net neutrality, have said the court made the correct ruling. Why the ruling is correct harkens back to March 2002, when the FCC decided to reclassify broadband Internet accessfrom a telecommunications service to an information service. By deregulating those offering broadband Internet access, the FCC had hoped the Internet service providers would increase their investment in infrastructure. An unforeseen byproduct of deregulation was that ISPs began exerting god-like control over traffic on their network, which Comcast did in 2007 when it disallowed BitTorrent traffic on its network. (1)> The political implications for the demise of Net Neutrality are simple: The deep pockets buy all the bandwidth to push their message. The Republicans feel this is their message anyway, so they want the commons of the Internet turned into a toll highway whose prices will keep out hoi polloi, i.e., everybody else. You and me. (2)> The Net Neutrality issue is virtually a copy of the 1996 Cable Deregulation act, Since enactment of the 1996 Act that deregulated cable rates, consumer cable prices have been rising at three times the rate of inflation and even faster for basic and expanded basic service, which is the choice of the overwhelming majority of cable subscribers. These rates have risen by more than 50 percent. Individual markets have suffered much larger increases. For example, New York consumers have been particularly hard hit. In the few years since enactment of the 1996 Act, New York City cable subscribers have seen their bills for the most popular programming tier soar. Cablevision customers in New York City have experienced a cumulative increase of 93.7 percent - nearly doubling monthly bills. Even on the "low" end, Staten Island Cable customers have seen their bills rise 52.5 percent.