A Disturbing Vision Of The Future

This is another perspective on the Net Neutrality issue.

From ACLU:

A Disturbing Vision for the Future




The era that Net Neutrality supporters have long predicted is here—major companies have begun divvying up the internet. Last week, Google and Verizon announced a "policy framework" of how the rules for the internet could work in the future. The framework is a disturbing vision for the future. Wireless internet—such as services delivered over smart phones—would be completely unregulated; companies would be free to prioritize their own services—for everything from music to video to chat—over those of competitors.



Telecom providers could also do whatever they want with managed services, like Verizon's FIOS, that are offered directly to the companies but use the same wires and bandwidth as the regular internet. Regulators under this new framework would be neutered, reduced to policing a narrow area of consumer complaints with no power over vast swaths of the web. If these new rules are adopted, the regular internet will quickly become a backwater. All the investment and capital funding would go toward building up the managed services and wireless networks where the companies would have free reign to use their market power to make the most money.



But none of this is inevitable. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering action this fall to regulate telecommunications providers so that they have to provide full, fair service to everyone with no discrimination or deals between companies.