If Local Loop Unbundling was reinstituted the way it was originally envisioned, and implemented so that the Verizons and AT&Ts and other large networks couldn’t raise the wholesale prices higher than retail, would that be better? Personally I think it would.

France and other countries who took this idea from the US (ironic, huh?) and made it work, now beat our butts on speed, fiber buildout, pricing both wholesale and retail, competition, etc etc etc.

I’d be curious, Brett, if you feel that would be the better direction for Save the Internet to take, since true competition in this space would preclude the need for Net Neut legislation, since we’d all then have a choice if there was an ISP not giving us what we needed. I’ll also point out that Senator Kerry, in one of his blogposts, did comment in the comment/discussion about LLU that it would be tough to go back to, though it’s hard to understand why, if the law is changed and made more bulletproof against court challenges (the bane of the first version in 1996), this couldn’t work.

Liberty920, noone is saying your service will be degraded, just that you’ll have to pay more to get the QoS you desire.

My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian
http://www.AngryIndian.com

To use an analogy that came to my mind recently:

Packet Inspection is to Racial Profiling
as
Deep Packet Inspection is to Genetic Profiling

Average citizens could only afford bread and water from the menu of services they would offer.

If TDR were alive today, he would break these assholes up like he did the JP Morgans of his time.

My point is that the images of people spotlighted on this site should depict the diverse spectrum, political, social, and religious who oppose these media giants… who are trying to create a second cable system and further dumb down civic discourse in this STUPID land of ours.

Wee are the guys in Brooks Brothers suits who strongly opposed the COPE ACT.

Grass roots doesn’t mean long hair and jeans

I think we should all fight for net neutrality, since it is not fair for big companies to exploit internet users! In this world where democracy is very important an infringement on internet freedom cannot be accepted. I think it is a great initiative to fight against the infringement of net neutrality.

“The critical point is that content should be delivered without discrimination from a middle entity, based on the decisions we make at the edges of the network.”

And then you say:

“I make a similar choice when I decide to have a letter delivered by Fed-Ex as opposed to USPS. These services will deliver them based upon a choice I made.”

But how, exactly, can you choose to have your content delivered faster if you do not pay for that special service, and unless all of the “middle entities” understand that you’ve paid for faster delivery, and get compensated for doing that? The answer: you can’t.

You must do more than “make decisions” by fiat at the edge of the network. You must make arrangements with the owners of the various parts of the network (and it isn’t just one network, like the postal service) so that they are properly compensated for giving you special service. That’s simply fair. If you try to use BitTorrent to “hack” the network into giving you faster delivery for free, the network providers are quite justified in stopping this practice.

You also write:

Fed-Ex won’t open my packets and decide: “Tim is sending a book we don’t like, were going to put this one in the dead letter bin.”

Actually, if you have ever shipped something via UPS, you should know that you are asked for a description of the content. And if it’s dangerous — or something that is otherwise impermissible to ship — they will turn it down. They will also refuse to ship items unless they are properly packaged. And suspicious packages ARE inspected in transit by all carriers, including the postal service. This is to protect the network (which in this case consists of people handling the packages), as well as the recipient, from abusive behavior.

Now, obviously, these carriers do not open every package. But if a package is suspicious, they do engage in “deep package inspection” — that is, they open the box. This is reasonable. It’s important to identify bombs or other malicious packages before they do harm. Mail sent to the Federal government is even irradiated before delivery to prevent biological attacks.

So, your analogy is apt, even though what you are saying above is not correct.

As for blocking of content that someone “doesn’t like:” this is not happening. Comcast is not blocking access to this Web site, for example, even though it is slandering them.