Net Neutrality and the costs of infrastructure Part I

I have been reading for a while now about the Net Neutrality and "Save the Internet" sort of passively for the last few weeks now. While I see that this has a great deal to do with how the rest of my online life will be shaped, I just hadn't mustered the energy to go look at the mess and try and muddle out whether or not I needed to be concerned or not.

Given the countries recent legislation, I had a bad feeling going into the research on this, and had my slashdot.org news byte bias on high.

The basic end of the legislation and all the lobbying that is going on by both sides appears to me to center around the central theme of infrastructure. How it is used and regulated. AT&T comes from a history of Telecommunications feels shackled to innovate by their past regulation agreements and wants to not have to continue to open up its networks to carry whatever traffic passes through. This is the principle of "common carrier" and required the protected Baby Bells to share and share alike, but it also required them to contribute to a Universal Service fund that helps pay for infrastructure upgrades and support.

Cable companies, do not appear to have the "Common Carrier" portion of regulation interesting as they are represent the largest portion of "Last Mile" service providers for internet.

Tags: Net Neutrality Regulation IPTV VOIP Telcos Convictus