URGENT CALL-TO-ACTION: Last Day for Public Comments to FCC on INTERNET REGULATION

[tnvoter]

They don't want to do that. Its something politicians made up as a "what if" scenario. The very people who created the internet don't want net neutrality legistlation, and no ISP to my knowledge has stated any desire to block portions of the internet to their customers. A lot of the proposals would actually make some current technologies illegal, such as the packet scheduling protocols used in many routers.

Honestly, any ISP who blocked access to certain parts of the internet people found desirable would quickly watch their customers leave them. Its really not even possible to regulate internet access in such a way! Even if a bunch of evil corporations did manage to do it, new networking protocols would arise to bypass their restrictions. Any attempt to regulate a packet-switched network is going to be a loosing battle, since each node determines the destination of each packet. You'd literally have to physically control each node in the network.

At most, its an anti-trust issue. The only way a company could restrict internet access is if it had a monopoly or near-monopoly, which of course means such restrictions would just be symptoms of another problem.

I'm a computer engineer, I've studied many networking protocols. I find the idea of congress regulating the internet for our "protection" to be completely and utterly absurd. It could so easily be written in a way that would hinder the developement of the internet, and to somehow think congress knows enough about the internet to be able to act in its best interest is absurd.

Exactly, this neutrality thing is bogus.

In order for an internet provider to have a license to provide the internet - it has to provide access to all of the internet. So this is an issue to a problem that does not exist.

 

[Gee]

I'm not sure I can say this loudly enough, but,

No ISP has expressed any desire to limit the internet access of their customers in the way the net neutrality advocates claim.

They just don't want to. Sure maybe someday they will, its certainly within their power. If they all get together and conspire to do it, maybe we'll have an application of anti-trust laws on our hands. I personally have 3 or 4 broadband options where I live, and most people have at least 2.

Pre-emptive regulation sounds almost as bad as pre-emptive war, IMO