Net Neutrality is Over

The Justice Department and the Bush Administration has ruled that Net Neutrality is not needed and would hinder competition, innovation, and would shift costs to consumers. The entire article can be read here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/06/tech/main3240101.shtml?source=RSSattr=SciTech_3240101.

The ridiculous logic of having a tiered service for access to the Internet is that only big business will have a solid connection for fees that only they can afford. Small businesses will be shut out in preference to sending traffic from the sites that pay the highest fees. Much like Google Ads where only the ones who pay top dollar will be shown on the sponsored ads column on the right. The problem with tiered services is that the only real winners are the telecommunication companies providing the connection and the big corporations and organizations that can afford the fees. This just increases profit for the Internet providers and leeches off the common people much the same way that cable companies increase fees for cable television yet give you sub par service. It is a sad day when the government whose job is to protect us from monopolies and unethical business practices is actually supporting these ideals.

I hope that when Internet2 is finally implemented and this old dinosaur Internet is taken down, that Net Neutrality makes a comeback, because otherwise the Internet will not be able to support small business owners and consumers will not be able to afford the ridiculous price hikes in service. If they wish to end Net Neutrality, then caps on what they can charge for network traffic, and for Internet Service need to be implemented. From the profit they make from this tiered service, my cable Internet should be no more than $20 a month for a 6Mb connection. I find it amusing that the Cable and Telephone companies involved in this situation claim that Net Neutrality stymies innovation, when in fact all these years the cable and telephone industries never updated or upgraded their lines yet increased fees every year by 4-5% stating that is was for upgrading service. Only recently has Verizon finally jumped into Fiber Optic cable in order to regain profit lost to cable companies such as Comcast who have delved into the phone business. If cable had not done that, we would be using copper land lines for the next thousand years.

Ending Net Neutrality is a bad decision and will affect millions of small business owners and consumers with only the Internet Providers and large corporations being the only winners. I hope it all crumbles down around them and they are forced to revert to Net Neutrality....