The US government should implement a Net Neutrality policy.

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers." http://www.msnbc.msn.com... == Net neutrality is the idea that access to content from the Internet should be of level playing to all consumers. That is, there is no means nor possibility for tiered speeds of access. Essentially the debate boils down to what is ISP property when dealing with the Internet and should these property owners have a say in how their property is used. While most of the code and communication protocols used to develop web pages are open sourced, i.e., free for use by the release into public domain, the physical components are decidedly not free. Servers, the specialised hardware that allows content to be available must be bought, owned and maintained. Likewise the infrastructure used by ISPs to allow access, the cables, satellites, wireless transmitters must be bought, owned, serviced and maintained. The servers, the ISPs, the end user at home, all use property, property that is rightfully owned, to cumulate in the experience of being able to access the Internet. It is decidedly not a free enterprise. The Internet is decidedly not a public domain, despite rhetoric to the opposite attempting to assert as such. ISPs build and maintain networks because they are profitable. It's why access speeds have increased through the use of new technology. Verizon, for example, is laying new fiber optic components at an estimated cost of 18 billion. http://seekingalpha.com... ISPs profit by charging Web content providers and Web surfers for access to their lines. These profits then go towards the increased infrastructure of the ISP, whether by expanding the reach or the upgrading of the infrastructure in place. It is precisely this system that allows the type of access and reach available now. Net neutrality seeks to undermine this. An ISPs infrastructure, their property, is theirs to use and profit from as they like. Net neutrality is quite simply, a call for private property violation. The Internet is not public property; the Internet is a system of privately owned personal computers, servers, cable and satellites. Because data is transmitted through private property, the call for net neutrality is an attack on the rightful ability of an ISP to use the property it owns as it sees fit. Under threat of government force, an ISP under net neutrality, must remain passive with regard to how data flows through the networks and lines they own. This includes web content providers who under FCC proposed legislation would not be charged differentially, regardless of the volume they bring. http://www.fee.org... http://www.netcompetition.org... ISPs are profit motivated. That is, they seek to formulate the best user experience for as many of its consumers as possible. By forcing an ISP to treat all data neutrally, the FCC and net neutrality advocates desire to prevent that ISP from enacting policies, offering services, and using technology in regards to its own judgements and business models. As such an ISP would be unable to offer services, or formulate policies that would be tailored to and beneficial for consumers (and from that beneficial to the ISP which in turn funnels back into consumer end usage). Certain real time applications benefit from smooth data flow e.g., streaming video, on-line gaming, VoIP or applications such as Skype. Under net neutrality such requirements from users cannot be tailored to consumers, that is, if net neutrality is in place, then all data is treated equal in terms of priority, which includes data that does not require streaming e.g., email (for example a hospital wishing to invest in a package that allows high quality video streaming for operations would be disallowed under most models of net neutrality - at best at non discriminatory policy based FCC approved rates i.e., not tailored). An unregulated ISP has the ability to offer tailored services to those who need it. Net neutrality says nay and that an ISP must treat all users as equal regardless of usage or consumer desire; in other words, all data must be treated equally regardless of content. It really is no different than paying for premium cable TV services, express mail delivery and the like. The fears that net neutrality advocates bring are unfounded. The call for net neutrality is nothing more than the call for ISPs to be public servants of the population they sought to provide value for. Let's say you have a website which you just bought called debate.org. It is very important to you, and you are willing to pay a premium price to your ISP to get a prioritised connection which makes the site load faster. Should you be able to purchase such priority service from an ISP? Net neutrality of course says no. Net neutrality simply stifles the idea of a consumer base of contractual arrangements between those seeking value for value. == 1. Net neutrality will encourage and protect innovation and competition That unregulated Internet will stifle competition is found false simply through the rise of Internet use itself i.e., an unregulated Internet is what brought such ventures mentioned to the fore to begin with. The ability for an ISP to tailor access to consumer bases is irrelevant to any one enterprising idea. Servers are not ISPs, servers must likewise rent to ISPs to allow access to their content - no process that invokes suppression of services there. The fear mongering completely ignores that ISPs must run as a business under competing enterprises and that supplying services to customer bases is in their best interest. Providing for mass end users is simply good business practice and nothing about a deregulated Internet changes that. What net neutrality will do however is stifle those services that require or show preference to high quality streaming - streaming that many services use, streaming that many people are probably willing to pay premium access for. Claims of flexibility are likewise false, since the FCC policies are precisely designed to enforce static methods. 2. Internet Protocol Standards Such protocols are open for use, design and improvement by anyone. It is unrelated to ISP management of data transfer. Enforcing a static system is anathema to network advancement, explicitly contrary to your prior point. Many protocol standards are already inherently error prone, net neutrality will not change this. It will stifle the ability of ISPs to invest in for example, CO-mode. http://www.netcompetition.org... 3. Free exchange of information, and rights of the consumer Nothing about deregulated Internet implies ISPs will act like China. They have no reason to censor information. The FCC under net neutrality however can. As for ISPs that monitor traffic, that is irrelevant to net neutrality. It is simply a contractual issue between end user and service provider. Comcast throttled torrents because the video downloads took up a large % of bandwidth which affected non bittorrent users. AT&T reports 5% of users using > 50% of bandwidth capability. ISPs property the traffic is being sent through, so their right to prioritise data. Doing so allowed them to not increase fees to cover otherwise resulting costs. http://www.infoworld.com...