The concept, referred to as net neutrality, pits open Internet companies like Google Inc against broadband service providers such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Comcast Corp, which oppose new rules governing network management.
"Today, we can't imagine what our lives would be like without the Internet -- any more than we can imagine life without running water or the light bulb," Genachowski said in his first major policy speech at the Brookings Institution, a public-policy think tank.
But service providers say the increasing volume of bandwidth-hogging services -- such as video sharing -- requires active management of their networks and some argue that net neutrality could stifle innovation.
This is baloney. Big telcos like AT&T continue to introduce technical advances in long haul infrastructure that can handle ever increasing bandwidth. What they really fear is this proposal will have the effect of requiring them to increase bandwidth over the middle and last miles -- and do so faster and at higher cost than their business models permit.
That in turn will lead to pressure for alternative models in which states, local governments and telecom cooperatives will do the job with open access networks, rendering the incumbents increasingly irrelevant over the middle and last miles.
1 comment:
As I've been reading various comments, I agree with some of them where they state they have some mixed feelings about this idea being both good and maybe not so good. As long as it does not interrupt too much of the ISPs. Of course, we may not know that until the basic "trial and error" take place.
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