Comment Re:The real reason? (Score 1) 187
Ok. I'll take a stab, although I admit I am probably not the best one here to do so.
If Cox et al are common carriers, then the advantage legally is that they are not responsible for their customers bad behavior, as they have no control over it. Much like the phone company can't stop you from transacting an illegal activity over the phone. However if they are common carriers, they also can't discriminate between your traffic and Netflix (for example), to give Netflix higher (or lower) bandwidth. This is a disadvantage to cable co ISPs as Netflix, etc. is taking away from their HBO sales, On Demand, etc. This restriction is (to some*) known as Net Neutrality.
* I say "to some" because recently I have been hearing "net neutrality" used in a somewhat different way recently. A way in which I can't quite get my head around. This was from specific radio commentators, who I usually happen to agree with. Since they were speaking about specific legislation, and since several of them seemed to be operating from the same (strange) definition, I am not sure if the term has recently been redefined in the proposed bill, or if they just all got the concept wrong in the same way coincidentally. I would not put it past congress-critters to have redefined the term such that it means almost the exact opposite of what it used to mean, but I would not put it past the commentators to have misunderstood either.