The Net May Be “Neutral” But The FCC Is Most Certainly Not

a reply to: jtrenthacker

What will you do when there is only 1 or 2 ISPs in your area. Here in Orlando your pretty much stuck with brighthouse, Comcast, or century link. Do you really think those companies don't collude together on who gets bullied into paying more. Of coarse they do...so how do you have any choice to promote or support a better option. The answer is you can't.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
I'd have to argue that giving private businesses the right to do what they want with their products should always trump government interference

So… it would be okay for your call from your Verizon phone in NYC to be given degraded audio quality and a time limit if you're calling someone on Southwest Texas Phone company in Texas, or even no access at all to a CenturyLink person in California?

This is what the common carrier classification for phone lines prevents. Because, that madness was going on before the Telecommunications Act.

Yes, because they own the service. If I don't like how they handle the service, I can find someone else with whom to do business. And if they all act like that and it pisses me off enough, I can use my freedom as an American to start up my own company that does things differently, and if there is enough disdain for other companies, mine would grow like a weed.

Internet access is not a right, nor is it the job of the federal government to stick it's damn nose in and try to usurp control over how private companies provide access to it. Your what-if is relatively weak, and coming from someone who is quite dependent upon the internet to run this site, I can understand your concern, but I must argue that a private company's right to run their business as they deem appropriate is not trumped by the FCC's desire to control something--Big Government doesn't need yet another leash on a privately-owned dog.

Challenge: Show me something that the federal government began regulating that didn't get worse, either in cost, quality, or just plain lead to too much control by the federal government. Of course, that's subjective, but I'd be interested to see what you say.