America was founded on the principles of freedom.

To escape tyranny, to avoid religious persicution, and others “ideals” that we believe to be self-evident and naturally righted to us by birth.

Yet less than 300 years later we are now with our backs to the walls as we yet again make a stand that tests how free we believe ourselves.

It is self evident that the internet should remain and forever shall be unregulated and neutral. Why? As humans it is our natural to speak out, to rebel, to opinionate, to discriminate, against any and all things. Yet the mediums we have to do so have dwindled down over the decades.

The internet maybe the last medium where free thought and speech can spread to every mind body and heart without the fear of someone knocking at your door in the middle of the night to take you where you will never see the ones you love again.

Dont believe me?

I am named after my dead uncle, who was no older than I am today, who was taken in the middle of the night by the Islamic Republic of Iran. For what we know he was taken to a prison, tortured and then shot against a firing wall… all for just speaking out to his neighbor about his dislike for the new regime.

Is this what we are coming to as a society?

To bed with lions is no better then to bed with wolves, either way look at it you will end up giving up the last things you may hold dear.

Net Neutrality, because America has lost all other freedoms.

Bob gave an interview about telecom regulation in the current issue of Linux Journal.

There is some really good stuff on Bob’s website. BTW, Bob worked at Microsoft from 1993-1998. His bio says, “I focused on the consumer use of computers, in particular, home networking, and the idea of ‘No New Wires Networking’. See the HomePNA web site for details on one of the implementations that I specified.”

Another facet to the REALLY BAD decision to allow big corps to gain a monopoly in this (and other areas of course) is illustrated by a problem I’m currently having with Comcast. There is a VERY interesting web site named comcastwatch.com that would be worth your time to look over. These people seem to be tracking and discussing various problems that they are having with Comcast.

My specific problem is that I got a call from Comcast a few days ago warning me that I was using too much bandwidth. This is despite NO indication as to exactly constitutes excessive AND the complete lack of any method of finding how much a person IS using other than a call from them which is too late to help you. They also told me that the second call about this “problem” would result in termination of my service.

All this that they’re doing or trying to do to their “captive” customers despite the terms of the agreement that I and others signed with them where Comcast uses terms like “always on” and “always connected” and “unlimited usage”. Just to do the math, my rate is supposed to be 1.5 mbps (mega bits per second). Hmmm. If I leave the service connected and do maximum downloads EVERY second of the month… Let’s see, 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 30 days/month * 1500000 megabits/second / 8 (bits per byte) = 486,000,000,000 (486 gigabytes)… This is the number they complained about.

At this point in time I have few options. I can just try to guess how much I’m using and pray that it’s below their UNDOCUMENTED threshold or I can find another provider. But wait, there are no other providers in my area so I’m between a rock and a hard place… What do I do? Only use their service half the time? There is no other recourse as far as I know of.

Some help with this problem would be nice but the larger picture NEEDS to be addressed.

Regards,

George…

I am a small, rural Internet provider who serves many areas that would have no broadband access if I did not cover them. My company was the world’s first wireless broadband Internet provider and continues to innovate in that field. It’s our mission to provide an alternative to the cable and telephone companies where they do provide service, and also to serve areas that they do not deign to serve.

While the “Save the Internet” folks have their hearts in the right place, the specific actions that they are proposing would have serious negative consequences that would even be contrary to their own stated goals. In particular, granting verbatim their petition before the FCC — or passing your bill as currently written — would actually drive small Internet providers out of business, including those who serve rural areas such as Western Massachusetts. I urge you to review my testimony before the FCC at

http://www.brettglass.com/FCC/remarks.html

and also my FCC filing at

http://www.brettglass.com/Comcast%20Comment%20V2.pdf

for information on how to modify the legislation which you are sponsoring to avoid these untoward and unintended negative consequences. I will be in DC at the end of the month of April and can speak directly to you and/or your aides on this matter; they can contact me via my e-mail page at

http://www.brettglass.com/mailbrett.html

Thank you!

–Brett Glass, Owner and Founder, LARIAT.NET

I think one needs to look no further than the debacles in the realm of sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps and the like in order to discern what happens when regulation is absent or is poorly enforced.