Re: [PLUG] Net Neutrality

[Doug Stewart <zamoose@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Art Alexion <arthur@alexion.com> wrote:
> Pre Internet, we had the concept of "common carrier".  If, like Bell
> Telephone, you were a common carrier, you couldn't interfere with the content
> you were carrying.  This was the price, as another poster put it, for having
> the public subsidize you and for being in the carrying other peoples' messages
> business.  Back then, a phone company with a direct line to your home or
> business was recognized as being different from a radio station, where the
> receiver has real options in the market.
>

You might have a point against Verizon, seeing as they're descendants
of Ma Bell. Your case against Comcast is null and void, however, since
they received no (overt) public subsidies to build their cable
network. (That was the whole POINT of cable.)

> The concept of Net Neutrality is really an extension of the common carrier
> primcipal to ISPs.

If North American Van Lines had a parallel set of roads they built and
paid for themselves, you'd have an analogous situation. As it is,
common freight carriers tend to receive that classification based upon
the fact that they're using public facilities (i.e., roads). As a part
of that right/privilege, they must not discriminate in their freight.

-- 
-Doug
@zamoose
http://literalbarrage.org/blog/
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