Comment Customers are getting fraudulently double dipped (Score 1) 270
If we wanted to go back to AOL's gated network of the 1990s we would invent a time machine and cover it with AOL CDs.
We the customers are paying for a certain amount of bandwidth to the Internet and we have long since paid for the build out of the Fiber Optic network infrastructure through our monthly payments. It is simply fraudulent to be charging customers a fixed price for bandwidth and then effectively limiting peering to other networks so as to create an incentive for other networks and content providers to pay off the Telecoms to provide that telecoms customers their content as a service... these are services we as customers are already ostensibly paying for or are requesting. It isn't like a content provider can turn on your computer or tv and make you download their content... the Internet is primarily about end users initiating some communication and either the computer on the other end responds or not. Verizon or Comcast sitting in the middle and deciding which communications should get a fast lane based upon who has the most cash is just a bad way to run a communications network and a bad way to regulate a free market.
Sure transparency in what kind of peering arrangements telecoms have with other companies all contracts regarding quality of service or internet connections could be useful for regulators who might have the time to spend years sifting through all that paperwork to figure out what is good for the free market or not, but it is no substitution for net neutrality which would assure customers that they are actually getting the bandwidth and good faith service they are paying for rather than perniciously getting fleeced at both ends with service that the telecoms feel free to effectively throttle down whenever they feel like it despite apparent contracts with their customers to provide a certain level of service.