David Vessell

Network Neutrality lets my radio station compete.

To whom it may concern,

My name is David V, and here is my story.

In 2005 I co-founded Cygnus Radio, an Internet radio station. We pay for our services, and we stay within them. Already we pay:

* HostMonster for a web site, with an allocated amount of network bandwidth. If we exceed it, we pay more.
* Server Beach for an audio streaming server, with an allocated amount of network bandwidth. If we exceed it, we pay more.
* Each DJ who works for us, sends their audio from their computer to our streaming server. Each pays for their own personal Internet access, which has an allocated amount of network bandwidth, presumably.

In all of these cases, we already pay for what we use. If any of our Internet service providers wanted us to use less bandwidth, they could charge us more, but it would be based on our usage, NOT on what we are doing with it.

So how would ending network neutrality harm us? By letting anyone else whose network we might use to charge us more because of the *type of content* we're sending, not how much we're using. That's not fair, and it opens to door to corrupt practices. For example, Clear Channel Communications, who have a ton of money, could pay to have their content be handled at a higher priority. Since there is only a finite amount of bandwidth at any given time, increasing their priority requires a decrease in the priority of our music stream, which would degrade the quality of our product. But since the network companies would still get their money, they have no incentive to increase their carrying capacity. The potential for abuse is very large. This is just one example.

I understand why the Internet companies want to do away with network neutrality. They claim they want to send video services. That's fine. But if they don't have the capacity to do it now, let them pay for increasing it. Don't penalize the rest of us. And I doubt their sincerity on the video thing anyway. If they wanted to create a special class of management for video, they could do that. But they are going way beyond that, and that's where the potential for abuse comes in. Trashing network neutrality isn't just about video, it's about letting them pick and choose who will get quality service and who will not, and it's based purely on their own financial interests.

By keeping network neutrality, everybody plays by the same rules, from huge global corporations to mom and pop content providers, and keeps a level playing field. Internet radio stations are having a difficult enough time trying to keep the RIAA from ruining us. We don't need greedy network companies compounding the problem.

David Vessell
co-founder, Cygnus Radio