- Court Backs Comcast Over FCC - WSJ.comA U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission overstepped when it cited cable-giant Comcast Corp. for slowing some Internet traffic on its network, dealing a blow to big Web commerce companies and other proponents of "net neutrality."
*snip*
The court's decision prompted calls Tuesday from Democrats and consumer groups for Congress to pass new legislation to give the FCC more authority to police Internet providers. "They may have won the battle only to face a larger war," said Rebecca Arbogast, a telecom analyst for Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Inc.
So maybe the problem isn't that we need net nutrality but rather that we need to stop those monopolies of cable companies in localities. Why not allow multiple cable companies in one area?
It's not that they aren't allowed, it's that it costs a ton of money to dig up every street and knock holes in the wall of every building you want to wire up. Hence all the subsidies for wiring up a city, especially more rural communities that would never be cost-effective to do it privately.
Big TelComs, especially cable companies, want to be able to selectively throttle your internet access based on content. For instance, they slow down your access to NBC.com because they have a sweet deal with FOX or ABC, the goal is to get you to go to ABC or FOX instead.
Don't think for a second that this is about freedom of business or some other bull. It's about money. Here's why:
COMCAST Cable Packages!
Basic package: 29.99/month. You get email, yahoo, and the associated press news site at full blazing speed!* (*everything else throttled to 25k/sec)
PREMIUM News Package: Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and more! Get blazing fast access* (*the same speed you get right now) to all these sites! +$3.99/month
Blogger-Addiction-Package: Get all your favorite blogs at SUPER high speed! +3.99/month
Pro-Searcher: Don't like Yahoo? Get access to MSN, Google, and AskJeeves at our highest speed! +$5.99/month
and so on and so forth.
They want the "freedom" to censor your content by throttling it, pushing you to other sites that they have a better contract with. Seeing as how cable companies are often localized monopolies, and a crapload of taxpayer dollars go to helping them lay all the expensive cable, I say they can piss off.
There is a very simple solution. Just don't use Comcast, but use one of the many companies out there that provide DSL without throttling content. There are plenty of them. Some will throttle, some won't. But it's your choice. If Comcast loses too many customers, they will change their minds about throttling. If not, they will keep throttling. It's as simple as that. Your access to the internet is not decided by government, nor is it decided by Comcast. It is decided by you. Just change your provider.
That would be all well and good if you had choices in cable providers. But it's not very often that an area has two cable providers that directly compete. Pretty rare actually.
The answer is to let them directly compete.
How?
Use more taxpayer funds to lay a duplicate set of cable?
No, lift the current regulations against them laying more cable. The answer to faulty current regulation is not MORE regulation.
Uhh, you know they have to basically tear up our roads and buildings to do this, right?
Big TelComs, especially cable companies, want to be able to selectively throttle your internet access based on content. For instance, they slow down your access to NBC.com because they have a sweet deal with FOX or ABC, the goal is to get you to go to ABC or FOX instead.
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