net neutrality commercials?

[Craig White]

On Mon, 2006-12-18 at 09:39 -0700, Darrin Chandler wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 09:15:55AM -0700, Nathan Aubrey wrote:
> > 
> > I still don't understand what it is. I have read a few things and it seems 
> > they were quite confused as well. Atleast, they made no sense to me. When 
> > someone I trust finally takes a stand one way or another, hopefully he'll 
> > explain to me why so I can make a decision. 
> > 
> > Is there a clear explanation of it? Or does anyone care to take a stab?
> 
> If you listen to either side the issues seem simple, but it's not simple
> because both sides have a hidden agenda. Typical of anything that moves
> from the business world into legislation...
> 
> One of the most interesting ideas I've heard came from Robert X.
> Cringley: each municipality should take charge of its own local network
> infrastructure. Laying the fiber could be subcontracted out, but the
> fiber would be owned by the town/city/county. Long distance links
> between cities would be provided by existing carriers. This would create
> a market with carriers competing to provide service, rather than a few
> carriers acting as a cartel, and no need for federal legislation.            
> 
> http://www.pbs.org/cringley/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060629_000351.html
----
Alan linked us a month back to a phenomenal explanation of all of the
powers at play on this topic which was a one hour speech by Lawrence
Lessig at LinuxWorld 2006

http://www.linuxworld.com/events/keynotes/lwsf06-lessig.html

I can assure you that no matter what your level of technological
understanding you arrive with, Lessig makes it interesting, informative
and worth your time.

Lessig also has written commentary about our soon to expire congress
which had hearings on this topic which were dominated by businesses with
an axe to grind and it's clear that the loser is the American public
because big business interests will ultimately always win out.

The shame of all this is that ultimately, it is the commercial interests
that retard expansion of high bandwidth Internet from reaching the rest
of America's homes while other countries such as South Korea have 90+ %
penetration. It's the commercial interests and the lack of net
neutrality will retard the next generation of technology expansion
because the unfunded, low funded startups will not have access.

Craig