[MW Forums]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will look at concerns raised by net neutrality advocates. more

[seanmcg]

Quote:

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We certainly look forward to the analysis of an agency that exists to protect competition of the broadband market in which 98 percent of customers receive their service from either the telephone company or the cable company, if they have that choice at all, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in an e-mail. There are no market forces at work here, much as Chairman Majoras wishes there to be.

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While I think I understand what she is trying to say, I disagree a bit with the "no market forces" quote. Unless a municipality has only allowed one company to provide broadband access, then any company has the right to try to set up the infrastructure necessary to make this service available. The market forces at work here are demand and return-on-investment. It is not cheap to set up this infrastructure, so unless a company can recoup its investment, why would they get into the market? It seems to me that since cable and phone companies have alternate uses for the cabling, they can spread their costs out.
What seems to be the underlying assumption, and one worth talking about, is that broadband access to the Internet has risen from luxury to utility; from nice-to-have to God-given right (OK, now I'm being hyperbolic /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif ). At what point does that happen with any service? However, whether luxury or necessity, rolling out broadband service is expensive. Either a company has to make a big risk, or a municipality has to dedicate taxpayer dollars to the effort.
Like I said, and I'm being honest, it is worth talking about.

[jmincey]

"While I am sounding cautionary notes about new legislation, let me make clear that if broadband providers engage in anticompetitive conduct, we will not hesitate to act using our existing authority."
Riiight. Just as the Bush Administration did in regard to Microsoft.
The die is cast and this so-called investigation is simply a dog and pony show, an empty gesture so that the government can have more credibility by saying due diligence was done. But at the end of the day, this is about a mindless and robotic chanting of the mantra, "Government is bad; market is good" -- irrespective of the specifics, context, or industry conditions that come to bear in each individual case.

[Grapho]

What bothers me is how little attention this kind of thing gets. Just like the NSA thing. Regardless if you are in favor of it or against it, people aren't talking about it. It gets shoved under the rug by the national media and instead we get all the information on the Jonbenet Ramsay case. We get a lot of coverage on the Israeli/Lebannon conflict and nothing on Iraq. Just look how little people commented on this story here at Macworld. I guess things are going so bad in Iraq, that the only way to do something positive is to keep it away from the publics attention, just like this entire internet neutrality thing. If it doesn't benefit the big fish, the big fish will try to keep it out of sight.