Net neutrality

Pro seems to think we've had net neutrality for years. But that is simply untrue. The entire controversy surrounding net neutrality concerns proposed laws, not laws that already exist. [4] Unless Pro can cite a single net neutrality law that's existed for years, his entire argument falls apart. The reality is that we've never had net neutrality and the Internet has not only been fun but grown at an incredible pace. As PayPal founder Peter Thiel notes, "[n]et neutrality has not been necessary to date. I don"t see any reason why it"s suddenly become important, when the Internet has functioned quite well for the past 15 years without it ... Government attempts to regulate technology have been extraordinarily counterproductive in the past." [5] -- Pro says "in many places you only have one [ISP] option." That's true, but the big companies aren't to blame. Local governments are the problem. "Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned 'rights of way' so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need 'pole attachment' contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground." [6] The result: "Local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than these things actually cost." [6] ISPs try to enter new areas all the time. The problem is that entry costs -- not the laying wires part but the costs of negotiating with local governments -- are extremely high. That's something neither net neutrality nor antitrust laws will change. The irony of Pro's position is that it asks for MORE government regulation when government is ALREADY the biggest obstacle preventing competition among ISPs. The solution is getting local governments to allow the free market to do its thing. That's how you get more competition among ISPs, which in turn lowers prices. -- Pro claims that "people do nothing because they are bought off" and "there are many loopholes." But that's also not true. Pro gives no source for his claims because the claims are bunk. ISPs aren't bribing anyone. I'm not even sure who they'd bribe, but note that the only way bribes work is under a regulatory scheme, which is what Pro supports. I'm the one arguing that we let the free market do its thing, which means bribes wouldn't help anyone. As for loopholes, again I have no idea what Pro's talking about. If by loopholes, Pro's referring to the antitrust laws, there aren't really any loopholes in the law. You either show harm to consumers or competition, or you don't show harm to consumers or competition. It's economics all the way down. If you show harm, it's illegal. That's how the laws work. So if an ISP has a monopoly on providing broadband, and it charges monopoly prices for "fast-lanes," they'd be found liable and/or guilty under current antitrust laws. There's no need to build a rigid regulatory scheme on top of that. -- No one would propose that the U.S. Postal Service be prohibited from offering Express Mail because a "fast lane" mail service is "unfair," "undemocratic," or "bad for the economy." Yet that's exactly what net neutrality would do for Internet services. In a free and open market, incentives exist to create premium services, with faster, guaranteed delivery quality, for things like medical monitoring which require higher reliability. Of course, suppliers could be expected to charge higher prices for these premium services. Such discrimination is procompetitive. Blocking premium services in the name of neutrality, on the other hand, can have the unintended consequence of blocking premium services from which consumers could benefit. ATT has even said that under a net neutrality regime, they'd have no incentive to invest in broadband infrastructure. The reality is that net neutrality chokes broadband competition, because it prevents experimentation in business models and pricing. We don't need net neutrality because the antitrust laws already protect consumers and competition from anticompetitive discrimination on the Internet. Broadband providers can't do anything that would hurt consumers or competition. If they do, it means they have monopoly power (because you can't impose monopoly prices without monopoly power, as consumers would just buy your service from your competitors). And if they have monopoly power and abuse that power (by extracting monopoly rents), they're already doing something illegal under current antitrust laws. Which is why FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has said that the perceived threats from ISPs to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don"t like are non-existent: "The evidence of these continuing threats? There is none; it"s all anecdote, hypothesis, and hysteria. A small ISP in North Carolina allegedly blocked VoIP calls a decade ago. Comcast capped BitTorrent traffic to ease upload congestion eight years ago. Apple introduced Facetime over Wi-Fi first, cellular networks later. Examples this picayune and stale aren't enough to tell a coherent story about net neutrality. The bogeyman never had it so easy." [7] ISPs don't slow the Internet down in a free market; they compete with each other, which creates incentives to speed the Internet up. Net neutrality would choke that competition. [4] http://money.cnn.com... [5] http://www.nationalreview.com... [6] http://www.wired.com... [7] http://www.fcc.gov...