F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

This reminds me of how a military contracts are assigned: Write a spec of what you need, and have companies bid to meet it. Unfortunately, if a company gets a good connection, they can just have the spec drafted in such a way that only that company could meet it. And thus, corruption.

> What do you think we have now? A robust ecosystem of carriers?

No, not at all. I think we pretty much have a duopoly with the cable company (Comast+TW) and the phone company (AT&T) as the only realistic choices for the vast majority of consumers.

>Also, your post sounds a lot like you don't want Title II because you'll have to comply with regulations and you don't like the current system because instead of complying with regulations you found a loop hole and then the ISPs found a loop hole to throttle you. This whole post sounds like why it's bad for you and provides no reason why it would be bad for the vast majority of people.

If that is what it sounds like I'm sorry because that was not what I wanted to convey. I wanted to convey that Title II regulation may solve the net neutrality issue in the short term, but may set a framework and precedent that will subject all ISPs (and the Internet) to other harmful regulations which could ensure we never move beyond the duopoly we have now. Remember cable companies and AT&T are masters of guiding agency regulation and state laws (see for example the state laws banning municipal fiber projects). They are probably going to lose this round because of the public outcry and their outrageous behavior regarding net neutrality, but we should be very weary of what they will be able to do with the new regulatory framework.

I don't have anything to do with the VOIP company anymore, my only skin in the game is as a ISP customer whose only choices are Time Warner and AT&T for internet access, both of which offer what I consider crappy service and speeds. Although I actually spent several months and a bit of money looking to put together a local fiber ISP in my area, but in the end shelved (or put on hold) the plans due to a (mostly state/municipal) regulatory environment that was heavily tilted in favor of incumbent companies who were cable cos or telcos.

See siblings for thoughts on California. Deregulation can be done poorly or well. For a counter-anecdote, see the story of Southwest, an airline started with solely intrastate routes, which kept it from FAA regulation and allowed it to compete on price in a way that other airlines couldn't. It now carries the most domestic passengers[0], is highly rated for customer service, and has posted >40 straight profitable years (including the span of the most recent recession)[1]. FAA regulation was considered necessary due to the high fixed costs associated with operating an airline.

I am fully aware of the concept of a natural monopoly (econ major here), but the fact is that the majority of cable providers were granted exclusive franchises by municipalities. You may object to the source, but I am at work and don't have time to track down other support for this statement. Hopefully we can both accept the facts even if you object to the reasoning[3]. The article is talking about cable television, but since the incumbent ISPs are the same firms as the cable television providers, I hope you can agree that the analysis, regardless of your agreement or disagreement, is at least relevant.

Finally, there are many areas with multiple cable companies/ISPs (I live in one, and recently moved from an area where Verizon made a large FiOS investment and is competing very effectively with TWC - I do know that they've put a stop to expansion on FiOS). It is clearly possible to see competition in this area. The fact that many/most municipalities offered exclusive franchises and that we now see many monopolies in this area is only proof that many people _believed_ cable service to be a natural monopoly, not that it is. The fact that we see areas with competition in this sector is a strong piece of evidence that natural monopoly is not the case.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines [1]http://southwest.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1975 [2]http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html

no even that's too high - your ISP shouldn't be dealing with UDP or TCP (or anything else) - they should route IP packets and be done with it

If the pay-for-use you mean is "data caps", I think the reason a lot of people are fully against the idea is because historically they've been unreasonable. Like if your water was charged at a dollar a gallon. Because there's just one provider.

To continue the analogy, people had "unlimited" water before, and they might use 10, or 100, or 400 gallons in a month, they're not really sure. And then TWC applies a cap of 60 gallons and wants double the money if you want 100 gallons. If you hit 200 gallons before for some reason, forget it. No one in your area is offering you that.

So people said "what's this caps, screw caps, no more caps!" because they were crazy caps, and you couldn't just pay a roughly linear rate for more data.

Comcast used to have a 250GB cap, which is more reasonable. But it's flat, for all consumer tiers. And you can't pay less for 100GB or a bit more for 270GB.

And various companies at various times have had "unofficial" caps.

I think pay-per-gig-used could be reasonable, but I understand why many people are dead against it, so far it's only been a way to screw them.