Network Neutrality
May 25th, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
A lot has been made lately about Network Neutrality, and while I would normally argue that government regulation is a bad thing, I would argue here that it is needed. We can’t have ISP, especially the upstream ISPs, charging more for certain access. Say SBC decides it doesn’t like Google “using it’s pipes for free.” So it restricts Google access unless Google pays more. This hurts customers at the downstream line and Google. That is, it hurts us. Even if you don’t use SBC as your personal ISP, your ISP may use them, or your packet may go through SBC’s “pipes.” Which means your search is slowed down, as SBC puts restrictions on it. Those who fight against Network Neutrality argue that it is a free speech issue, and they have a right to restrict the speech they allow across their network. However, I don’t think that argument applies in this case. It isn’t like a web host stopping the customer from making a web-page against their terms of service (many web hosts don’t let their customer make porn pages for example). We are talking about ISPs controlling the fundamental backbones of the Internet itself. It is stuff like trying to destroy net neutrality that makes it hard to tell people that we can trust companies to do the right thing and that we don’t need a big bloated government to constrain them, which is what I would normally argue for.
Edit to add link to CNN.com story: Coming Soon: The Web Toll.
