Net Neutrality Sounds Good in Theory Only
The new FCC Chairman, Julius Genchowski, is pushing hard for changes that will affect the internet forever. He recently introduced ”net neutrality rules”, that would prohibit Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner from acting as gatekeepers of content on the Web. Put another way it would force these broadband providers, private companies, to treat all internet traffic the same and allow it to flow freely through their networks.
Sounds great right? I have two problems with this:
- I always reject the federal government intruding on private companies unless and until I am convinced that the companies are doing something terribly wrong. In this case I don’t believe they are by limiting the load high bandwidth hogs from third parties have on their networks and paying customers. Already in several major cities customers are complaining about network degradation due to heavy iPhone usage.
- By opening the floodgates the speed of the internet itself is in jeopardy. Especially in the event cyber-attackers target our high bandwidth providers and deliberately grind the internet to a halt.
Cloaked as “Network Neutrality” I content that this regulation has nothing to do with making the internet neutral and everything with moving the internet closer to becoming a government regulated entity with long term disastrous effects on our freedoms.
The cartoon below surely made the artist who created feel good about making the greedy fat white man in a suit appear to be cutting someone else’s cable, but it, like so many people, miss an important point: The cable these businesses are delivering bandwidth through were bought and paid for by their customers. Why should their customers be forced to suffer serious issues with bandwidth degradation by allowing anyone to stream data across their networks?
Before you answer that in a knee-jerk fashion consider this:
Recently a cable about 4 inches around was laid near our house alongside a state highway. Inside this cable are billions of strands of fiber that will digitally connect Washington D.C. with a city about an hours drive away. The federal government owns a portion of this massive swath of fiber along with several of the companies people love to use as punching bags.
This cable being laid is costing a small fortune and these companies wouldn’t be laying it if they didn’t think they could recoup their investment through profits over many years. I should add that the cable owned by the U.S. government won’t be shared with anyone but the federal government. Not even state or local governments.
How would eliminating the profits of AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and the others help us? Why would they continue to invest bringing broadband service to every square inch of our country? If this occurs who will step in to “help”? That’s right, the U.S. Government. They would step in to save-the-day by building out the network with tax dollars and with that comes ownership. Do you want the government controlling, in effect owning, the internet?
I don’t. They need to butt out and let the free market work.
Even if you disagree with my stance on this please think it through and ask where this will lead in the decades ahead. Is handing control of the internet to the federal government wise? Do you think we’d have come this far if AT&T hadn’t be DEREGULATED? Which worked better in that case… the free market or government control?
For more on this topic:
WSJ: U.S. as Traffic Cop in Web Fight
BusinessWeek: Strict Internet Regulation Would Discourage Broadband Investment
Washington Post: House Leaders Lodge Complaint