The Net Neutrality War and a Level playing field.

Some years ago, the following letter was printed in the Richmond Times Dispatch and I think it hits the nail on the head. "Internet providers should be considered public utilities rather than their current “special” information provider status. Like electricity or water, if a business’ Internet is down, that business cannot operate in today’s world. Loss of Internet at home is also disabling.

The fact that providers enjoy a favored status puts the very technology that society has built off of for the past two decades at risk thanks to a proposed FCC rule that would create fast (and by nature, slow) lanes for companies that pay for them.

This proposal would take a level playing field, open to free markets and new ideas, and turn it into another corrupt market where incumbents keep new innovators from challenging their bottom line. Verizon could place Netflix in the slow lane, while giving ultrafast performance to its own On-Demand service. The deepest pockets win. The FCC proposal would destroy the digital free market, not protect it.

Verizon, Comcast, Cox and other companies built the networks that provide these services using grants, tax breaks and local monopolies. Those networks belong to the taxpayers. Only by treating these companies as Type II Common Carriers, can our digital economy be secured from the dualopolies that we are forced to choose from.

If the available options for high-speed Internet service were diverse, the market could decide but most U.S. consumers have three or less viable choices. Under these conditions markets tend to provide the minimum service level customers will tolerate.

As an IT professional, an independent voter and a patriot who wants our economy to thrive, I implore Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and Rep. Randy Forbes, to tell the FCC to reclassify Internet providers as common carriers."