At the D5 conference, Senator John McCain said that the government should not impose net neutrality regulations, but rather let the market solve the problem:
Sen. McCain suggests that there should be as little government regulation of broadband as possible. Walt notes that the telecom industry is re-aggregating back into “one unified AT&T.â€
Sen. McCain says we should let the market and technology solve the Net-neutrality issue: “When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.â€
I’m a libertarian, and an advocate of free markets. However, because the government has effectively created a duopoly in high speed internet access, via monopolies for telephone service and cable television, the market is unlikely to provide net neutrality. Both the telcos and the cable operators want to use tiered service to increase their revenues, by blocking or slowing access to any services that compete with their own offerings.
In March, AT&T/Cingular demonstrated how little respect they have for their common carrier status, by blocking their customers from access to conference services which competed with their own expensive conference service.  The courts could (and should) fine them and strip them of their common carrier status for shennanigans like that. We don’t tolerate this behavior for telephone service, and there is no reason that we should tolerate it for Internet access either.
The carriers make ridiculous claims such as that Google isn’t paying their fair share of the cost of bandwidth. They want to blackmail Google (and other content providers) into paying protection money, or have their customer access throtttled. But the carriers clearly ARE being paid fairly for internet traffic to and from Google. Google contracts with carriers for a very large amount of bandwidth, and have probably negotiated good rates, but the carriers are happy to take their money. No one has forced their hand. Similarly, end users are paying for their broadband internet connection, and for that payment expect to be able to communicate with any web sites and internet services they choose. The carriers are being paid for the bandwidth by both ends of the transactions; Google is not getting a free ride, nor are Google’s customers and users.
The carriers can “get profit from their investment” without also being allowed to operate an extortion racket. Net neutrality isn’t about solving an injustice being done to carriers, but about keeping the carriers from screwing their customers.
McCain on net neutrality
At the D5 conference, Senator John McCain said that the government should not impose net neutrality regulations, but rather let the market solve the problem:
I’m a libertarian, and an advocate of free markets. However, because the government has effectively created a duopoly in high speed internet access, via monopolies for telephone service and cable television, the market is unlikely to provide net neutrality. Both the telcos and the cable operators want to use tiered service to increase their revenues, by blocking or slowing access to any services that compete with their own offerings.
In March, AT&T/Cingular demonstrated how little respect they have for their common carrier status, by blocking their customers from access to conference services which competed with their own expensive conference service.  The courts could (and should) fine them and strip them of their common carrier status for shennanigans like that. We don’t tolerate this behavior for telephone service, and there is no reason that we should tolerate it for Internet access either.
The carriers make ridiculous claims such as that Google isn’t paying their fair share of the cost of bandwidth. They want to blackmail Google (and other content providers) into paying protection money, or have their customer access throtttled. But the carriers clearly ARE being paid fairly for internet traffic to and from Google. Google contracts with carriers for a very large amount of bandwidth, and have probably negotiated good rates, but the carriers are happy to take their money. No one has forced their hand. Similarly, end users are paying for their broadband internet connection, and for that payment expect to be able to communicate with any web sites and internet services they choose. The carriers are being paid for the bandwidth by both ends of the transactions; Google is not getting a free ride, nor are Google’s customers and users.
The carriers can “get profit from their investment” without also being allowed to operate an extortion racket. Net neutrality isn’t about solving an injustice being done to carriers, but about keeping the carriers from screwing their customers.