Comment Anti-net-neutrality is regulation by de-regulation (Score 1) 185
It may initially seem that introducing federal regulation for the purpose of preserving net neutrality would effectively mean, 'regulating the Internet'. Not doing so will result in more regulation however.
Recently, the article below was posted on Slashdot. It describes the situation that a servide provider, wishing to serve customers over the cellular network, would find themselves in:
http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/07/19/2
Regulations are regarded with suspicion by economists, because regulations force providers to jump through hoops and work their way through red-tape in order to provide their service to customers. There is little *government* regulation of cellular network services, however, the cellular network companies themselves have introduced *plenty* of regulation to make up for that. In order to have access to customers, a potential service provider must comply to all the regulations that each different network provider stipulates (no chat services, for one network, no games on another for example), in addition to paying huge sums of money to even connect to the system, often some 10 times the amount that is required to operate a web service on the Internet. The regulation issue is a nightmare as the rules and regulations are different for each network; in order to operate a service on the cellular system, you must comply with several different sets of network regulations at the same time.
Information is one of the most valuable commodities in the 21st century. The Internet is a vital transport network for information, just as the road network is a vital transport network for physical goods. The anti-net-neutrality lobby has stated that the changes to the Internet proposed by the communications companies are somewhat similar building new toll-roads. Toll-roads can work well, however, the comparison is flawed. The Internet is already akin to a toll-road system; a high bandwidth Internet connection costs more than a low bandwidth one, just as driving an articulated lorry on some toll-roads costs more than driving a car (due to increased wear and tear on the road). Removing net-neutrality however, is more akin to determining the road toll based on the destination of the vehicle; you would pay less to drive to Wal-mart than to a small independent store, even though the distance to either is similar. Alternatively, going to the independent store could mean being forced to drive on a dirt track as opposed to a highway, it could also mean being prevented from going to the independent store at all; you would be re-directed to Walmart. This would all be dependent upon which company provides your 'road-service'.
Cheers
Brittix
