[wyager]

Bullshit. The "freedom" of the subscriber is not on the line. The subscriber can do as they wish. I can't go into a hotel and claim I have the "freedom" to use my room as a distillery just because I paid for the room.

The ISP can also regulate bandwidth as they wish. They're a company, not a public organization (depending on where you live). If you don't like it, choose another ISP. If you can't choose another ISP, work to change the situation so you can.

I'd rather get people pissed off enough at the current monopolistic ISP situation to change it rather than keep the situation at just the right place that no one is happy.

[lotyrin]

So... I'm supposed to move to another city, maybe even state, in order to place competitive pressure on my ISP?

Of course you mentioned the monopolistic ISP situation that creates that problem, but that seems to just be handwaving; I don't think you can point to angry consumers as a solution without explaining what exactly you think those angry consumers under a monopoly can possibly do to improve their situation without government intervention akin to the current FCC neutrality arrangement.

[argumentum]

Agreed totally, except for the order of what should happen. The monopolies, which are usually granted by agreements with local governments, should end first.

[djur]

How do you propose to distribute access to fiber networks laid in public land, then? Are the new competitors in these markets going to make individual contracts with every property owner they come in contact with, too?

[argumentum]

I don't know .. that's something to be debated, however it does impinge on my individual freedom if my government decides who can wire what to my house. I did not personally agree to grant any corporation such a right.

Until then, arguments that net neutrality violates the freedom of the ISPs don't hold up, as any state-enforced monopolies must be considered at least partially public property.

[nknighthb]

It's something that has been debated. Do you think telecoms and utilities sprang into existence fully-formed world-wide the day you were born? These issues are not new, they date back centuries.

[argumentum]

Then how can you consider these companies to be truly private?

[nknighthb]

I don't. Neither, I'd wager, does djur, who you initially replied to. You should read his other posts in this thread.

He and I are both speaking of the practical problems of the mentality that governments shouldn't be involved at all, not arguing that telecom monopolies are a good thing.

You can't have a practical system of utilities of any sort without government involvement. That doesn't mean you have to have government-granted monopolies to nominally private companies. There are other options, like having the core utilities (e.g. fiber) be a public utility to begin with.

[super_mario]

That analogy is not at all applicable. It would be more like you rented a hotel room over the phone, but when you show up to check in, they say "Oh, you are black. Sorry, we can't give you that room, but we have a smaller one in the basement".

Net neutrality means that it does not matter what kind of car you have, you are allowed to drive on the highway. No one is going to say, oh you are not driving a domestic sedan, sorry you have to drive over there in the slow lane.

Lack of net neutrality goes directly against entrepreneurship. Any Joe Blow can buy bandwidth, build a server and start offering service online and compete against anyone and often times successfully. But without net neutrality, telco has the power to kill your business, by throttling access to it (which is esp. important in the early stages of your business). In fact your competitors can pay the telco to throttle you (why not? it may be cheaper than competing with you).

It is also extremely easy to kill access to dissenting views, blogs, news sources etc. This all rides on net neutrality.

[zobzu]

so you say people will work to lay fiber everywhere til they can have a neutral internet?

Oh yeah, right, that'll happen because it's totally possible!

Freedom of saying this ain't right. Freedom of making laws against it. Freedom to steal. Freedom to pirate servers. Extend the thinking far enough til you get to freedom to kill people. Exactly the same thinking.

This circular argument is useless. Freedom without means to limit and enforce it is no freedom at all.

It's obvious that for the general good, there should be net neutrality. If you make it impossible (laying fiber in all the country from scratch is impossible), this is wrong.

Just like killing people or stealing is wrong.

[alexeisadeski3]

My LTE is frequently faster than my home cable.