Net Neutrality - Why it is Vital to All Citizens

Where this becomes an issue is when your ISP or your ISPs provider, decides to slow down or even block certain portions of the 'net or applications you may choose to use.

For example, let us say that your Internet Service Provider is also your cable company. Let us say that they have launched a video-on-demand service that you can access, for a fee, over the Internet. Now let us say that you choose to go to a competing online video service, or even a free video website and you find your download speeds have slowed to a crawl. Why would an ISP do this ? They usually do this so that you will use their paid service instead of a competitors.

Think of it this way: Let's say you use your local telephone company to call your mother on the other side of the country. Unfortunately, you can't hear mom all that well because she uses a different telephone company and yours has decided to degrade any calls you make to someone else using a different telco that theirs. I don't think that would sit too well with anyone - So why would we let it sit on what has now become a basic need of most modern civilized nations - the Internet ?

The problem can get even nastier when your ISP is not only your telephone or cable company - But when they are also the biggest player in your state or province, meaning that anyone who wants to compete with them - be that reselling their services or renting parts of their network to sell to other people. This becomes a problem (also) when they decide to limit speeds, technologies or quality to their competitors and not to themselves.

Now, some make the argument "But they paid for all that infrastructure, it goes against capitalism and free marketing to force them to sell to their own competitors!" - Normally, this would be absolutely correct. However, in the Internet world, there is a very important term: "The last mile" - This refers to the physical wire(s) that connect your house to the rest of the world - usually your telephone or cable company.

Now, how would you like your neighborhood with five or even ten telephone poles in front of every house, if every time someone wanted to compete in Internet provision in your community ? How about having your streets ripped up four or five times a year to lay new fiber - again, to compete in providing Internet access ?

Of course, there are some who say that you can easily compete in the wireless spectrum, using radio, satellite or microwave technologies. This is true for people who want to do nothing but read email and surf the web and don't mind the occasional interruption when the weather gets bad or something blocks the line-of-site from your home to the ISPs receiver. To a great many people, however, wire line communications is not only desirable, but necessary.

So ask yourself this: Are you really comfortable, especially with Internet access becoming an integral part of our lives, with only ONE provider ? What if you get into a billing dispute ? What if you can't stand their service ? What if they simply do not provide the specific service you want or need ?

Competition - healthy and FAIR competition - is not only a good thing, but absolutely vital to the progression of our society, technology and yes - to profits that have trickle-down effects right across the nation. When you allow a single entity to control vast amounts of citizens communications, trusting that they will have your best interests in mind... Well, that is simply foolhardy.

A good business, in any industry, will always succeed - and profit - with good products and services, good customer relations, fair pricing and evolution of their offerings. Any company who sees its' only way of success as a monopoly, well, that's good only for their stockholders and usually a very, very bad thing for tens of thousands - and in some states and provinces, millions - of people.