"Trust us" there's nothing to fear here. We promise we won't screw over customers or take advantage of our position. We're good ISPs.... we swear. We only care about the customer.

The term "Net Neutrality" is the name of a law/regulation, that the service providers (Verizon, AT&T) want passed.
It will allow them to charge large companies more money to give you what you already get.
Not to be confused with the law called "Net Neutrality", the internet IS neutral. Everyone who pays for a fast connection, gets their data, or sends it, faster than those who don't (DSL is faster than dial-up).
Don't be confused by the name, it's a scam on the part of big businesses to get more money from bigger businesses.

Actually, Glenn, that is the exact OPPOSITE of what people who believe in Net Neutrality are pushing for, and I don't know what fool is going to be fooled by you, Mr. "Has to be paid for by AT&T".

Utterly confused me there Glenn.

Moving on, the DOJ is wrong yet again, this would create a restricted pay-premium internet, a rich and the poor internet, not one with such exceptional, free services that are freely usable, the DOJ is out of touch, as always.

What I oppose is the regulation of an increasingly intrusive government.

[Most countries today have an extremely advanced regulatory system for their government. It's called the general election. - Rick C. Hodgin]

If companies want to pay big bucks to have premium access then let them. My only standard would be that premium access and basic access can communicate with each other without discrimination. Let the market decide, let there be an explosion of interconnected networks. Let corporations make a lot of money (so they can purchase goods and services and pay their employees well).

There's NO shortage of bandwidth. It just has yet to be built, let the companies be motivated enought to go for it.

Or we could just pay for it from government coffers like Japan, but what someone pays for is under their control.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't get it. It makes perfect sense to me that if I want a faster connection to the internet, I should pay more for it. No one should force me to have the same speed connection as my neighbor, or the guy across the country. Granted, I'm not a corporation with high bandwidth requirements, but still, this "two-tiered" internet crap is meaningless. In order to make everything "net neutral" (by the law's implication, not the telecom's), we'd have to downgrade to the lowest common denominator: dialup. Can't charge those big corps the extra money for an OC48 connection (or whatever the hugely ultra high bandwidth stuff is called today), because some corner Mom-and-Pop convenience store has an ISDN connection! It wouldn't be fair to the Mom-and-Pop store for 7-Eleven to have a high-bandwidth connection, so we can either upgrade Mom-and-Pop's ISDN to something with more bandwidth (expensive, and therefor not an option), or we can downgrade 7-Eleven's.

But maybe I just have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the hell everyone is bitching about here. I fail to see how consumers would benefit from the so-called "Net Neutrality." If I want something, I should be able to buy it. I also fail to see how corporations will be protected by "Net Neutrality." If someone thinks that Verizon or AT&T will just jack up the rates for internet service for the other big corps, that person has a fundamental misunderstanding of economics and free markets.

...you mean they've been payed off again. What a sad freaking world we live in. Just like the "trial run" of letting Mexican semi'trucks deliver throughout the entire US, instead of dropping off loads at the border for US drivers. Hmmm...who does that one benefit? (sarcasm).

What is wrong with our current system? Consumers (in this country) aren't being barred from Youtube, AT&T isn't blocking access to the Comcast site.

Until an actual problem arises from our current situation, why should we have to make laws to regulate an industry which is still in it's infancy (lets see... who here had broadband 15 years ago?)

Give it time and a free market will cater to what consumers want. Government regulation is a last ditch effort, not a preventative measure. we've seen how well preemptive strikes work.

can I give Andrew an AMEN!

"I also fail to see how corporations will be protected by "Net Neutrality." If someone thinks that Verizon or AT&T will just jack up the rates for internet service for the other big corps, that person has a fundamental misunderstanding of economics and free markets."

Since when does the Department of Justice know business? They only know what the current Executive Branch of Government tells them.

SBC clearly stated that they would drop their request for Net Neutrality as part of there agreement when they wanted to merge with the old AT&T. They did this in order to win approval for the merger. Now, the government department that originally expressed concern about net Neutrality not that long ago suddenly endorses it! OMG.

I'm a little unclear here, is the DOJ now headed by the guy that use to wash Barbara Bush's car, or the guy that use to cut papa Bush's hair?

Heh, well, I don't believe the DOJ is being paid off, obviously our senators are, thanks to the cash being hurled in barrels at the Republicans what was once a bipartisan issue has become largely partisan, it's a shame, it really shouldn't be.

"Net Neutrality" just means that we will have to pay Verison's and AT&T's costs. The bandwidth hogs should pay more.

what a bunch of misleading BS in these comments. First of all Andrew: Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T (and perhaps your boss?) has said he is against net neutrality because Google is "getting a free ride" on his pipes. Of course this is totally false as everyone on the internet, consumers and providers, are paying their ISP.

Net neutrality is not about bandwidth so stop misdirecting. It is about content from any source being treated the same. It is about content from Google not being slowed or hindered by AT&T because Yahoo paid the fee and Google didn't. It is about stopping an internet where your ISP determines what your internet can do.

The internet was born Neutral. It should remain so.

A good introduction to the issue in just 2 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U

There already is a large interconnected network: its called the internet. The lack of Net Neutrality would create different levels of internet. And like corporations will really pay more just because they are making more! Honestly now, other than Goldman Sachs, what company has just suddenly paid out mega money to their employees for good performance in the past few years?

Someone had to pay to get the bandwidth out of the governments hand in the first place right? Two years ago we would not of been having this conversation because the FCC controlled the bandwidth just like it controlled the public airwaves. Now, all of is to be sold off.

So while you say you are against the laws, I say you are all for changing them to do things for people in an uneven fashion, are you not? You certainly support the notion that laws should be changed to support telecoms. And Yes actually, AT&T has blocked access to websites before. When there was a union strike against AT&T in Canada, the company shut off its customers from accessing the Unions website. Read about it in the Washington Post Archives or the NY Times.

To put it simply...If AT&T and Verizon get their way with new regulations through legislation. This is what will happen. Websites regardless if they are big corp like google or small local flowershop site will end up paying more as they become more popular. Websites essentially become punished for growing and becoming successful. The more popular you are the more you pay. Regardless if your website makes money or not.
AT&T wants a piece of the profit that others work hard to earn.

If I remember correctly Andrew the reasoning behind the "same speeds" is not to force every consumer down to 56k, it is to enforce regulations that prohibit an ISP from limiting bandwidth to a certain site. All traffic on the internet moves relatively at the fastest speed it is able to (taking into account traffic and types of connections being made including ISP service selected). Without some types of guidelines to ensure that this remains it would give ISPs the ability and right to introduce an artificial bottleneck to a particular site. Perhaps that site did not give the ISP enough money to remain at a premium speed (or regular speed in our present understanding), which would give its competitors who have remained operating at a high speed much more traffic (no one wants a site which takes ages to dl).

On the consumer side we might see changes in services. For instance we might be forced to select 'channels' of the internet for our use. I believe this is the most troubling aspect of not having regulations on what ISPs can do to consumers’ connections to the internet. For instance, a 'yahoo channel' may include sites affiliated with yahoo such as video, yahoo search, etc, all running at a "highspeed" (for us normal) rate while access to rival sites such as google search, youtube, etc will be slow (how slow depends on the ISP). It may possibly not even be accessible because you didn't purchase the 'google channel'.

With regard to the "laws" comment, time has shown that those who sit on their hands, because every thing's "working fine", get screwed over by most big companies (Enron anyone?). This bill/act is a preventative measure yes, so what? If every ISP is convinced they can dictate who has access to a specific site and who doesn't, who's going to stop them? It's not like the internet can be boycotted, so what can consumers do? I wish this were taken more seriously because if companies agreed to censor traffic they could effectively wipe any kind of free speech and ideas that do not have large corporate backing from what we know as the web. It would create stagnation so disgusting compared to what we have now, rife with propaganda and forced ideas... it makes me sick just thinking about it.

There are some other facts that people generally either leave out, ignore, or just plain don't know about this whole issue.

What the telecommunications companies are trying to do is build up our infrastructure by getting fiber to the doorstep (IE in to the consumer's houses). The problem with this is finding the funds to do it, so these companies have come up with a plan to charge the large companies to have their content streamed to the consumers more quickly leaving some company's content to get there more slowly. You can, of course, pay to get the content more quickly.

All if this is in the name of the consumer. Consumers out there are always wanting something newer and faster, and right now the infrastructure that we have just won't compensate for it. Physics will only go so far in allowing higher speeds. So where do we come up with the money? Do we, the consumers, shell out thousands of dollars to have our homes hooked up to the fiber rings? Do the telecommunications companies empty their pockets to provide it to us? Do they charge content providers? Personally, I don't know. I don't want my content limited, but I don't want to shell out the kind of money required to upgrade the connection I have to fiber.

The beauty of it is, we actually have consumers demanding this legislation. Just frighten them into thinking we might screw them over, and they beg their congressperson for the very legislation that enables us to do it!

What a country. Viva regulation!

If I get a $5 carwash, I expect my car to be fairly clean. If I get a $50 finishing job, I expect my car to be immaculate.

If I buy regular petrol, I expect my car to run. If I buy premium, I expect my car to run with better mileage and performance.

If I buy bargain basement ammunition, I expect a couple of duds and marginal accuracy. If I buy expensive ammunition, I won't tolerate misfires or poor groups.

I don't see why the internet should be any different. Like all cases above, a free market will keep prices in check. Beyond that, my choice to pay more or less should dictate the quality of internet I receive.

it's whats going to happen at some point or another.

I hate being throttled.

none of you backing up the DOJ have ever been to an auction, apparently. In the real world, there's always one idiot who's willing to bid an item up WAY beyond its real value, just so he can have the pleasure of "winning" the prize item.

This also applies to broadband. If you make broadband pay-for-play, some idiot's going to put his entire paycheck into a fiber-caliber connection, just so he/she can play World of Warcraft without any lag. This type of consumer is clearly NOT the average consumer; however, the broadband companies will start pricing based on what that broadband-obsessive person is willing to pay, NOT the average joe. Business uses outliers like this to keep prices for anything artificially high.

Worse, once you start allowing people to be prioritized by the amount of money they can pay, you will eventually start seeing company executives look at the base-level consumers as consumers of "public" services, and their support levels (not to mention the service itself) will start to lag behind the premium customers. No matter how much the market complains, if all the ISPs have the same quality of service, you are stuck with what you pay for.

So, by allowing pay-for-service, you divide the current everybody-equal service into more-important users and less-important users. Where I get decent service now for what I pay, by creating this division, you are lowering my service level by imposing "priority levels" without increasing capacity. In other words, POOR USERS GET SCREWED.

If you don't believe me, try calling Microsoft and complaining about the fact you have to pay for technical support calls...oh yeah, you have to pay $35.00 just for your complaint call. Get it now?

It seems the time is coming where we must turn our backs on the internet, as it has become, and turn to another medium that is still yet to be locked down by bureaucracy and commercialization: Wireless. Remember when there were just BBSes that you just dialed into? Everyone could send and receive emails and files at will (and argue whether X-modem transfers were better than Y-modem). Wireless (or WiFi) is another "internet" that has been quietly growing for some years. It is separate from, and therefore uninhibited by, the Internet.

In the absence of net neutrality laws, your telco is free to throttle any voip traffic it sees on your dsl connection (cause that competes with their analog phone line product). Your cable modem provider can limit netflix downloads (they compete with the cable companies pay-per-view movie product)

As ppl are pointing out, verizon might decide that it is best for you to use yahoo instead of google. ¿how? well, just throttle down google and throttle up yahoo... all that for money.

If you travel trough a pay per use highway, you do no expect to be asked at the toll: we are you going? home depot? I'm sorry, I will have to stop you five minutes, as home depot doesn't pay us money...

In a capitalist market, net neutrality legislation would be completely unnecessary. Unfortunately, most places in the US only have one or two content providers (Telcoms and ISP's) which must at some point transfer information through other Telcoms and ISP's pipes. Therefore, what we have here is effectively a monopoly, which if you are not familiar with US law is illegal.

If net neutrality does not pass, Telcoms will have the ability to throttle bandwidth and give packet priority to whatever business or person pays them. This in turn could mean limited or reduced access to free websites (e.g., tomshardware, wikipedia) that do not have the resources to pay for this type of bandwidth prioritization.

If you decide you do not like this business plan, and choose to get internet from somewhere else, you have zero options. Therefore, net neutrality is very important legislation and should be passed.

In conclusion, I will start off with a quick summary: The way the internet works now is exactly like the USPS (which the DoJ attempts to use as an analogy in the article), you pay a premium for the bandwidth you use (size of package) and the speed at which it arrives (next day, overnight). A net neutrality free world would allow the Telcoms to not only charge you a premium for size and speed, but also allow them to give priority to bandwidth from companies that have paid them. This is effectively the same as if the USPS opened your package and sent it faster/slower if it contained something that it approved/disapproved of.

If you have questions about Telcoms true intentions, check out Comcast's throttling of Bittorrent (which has negative and positive usage), the Madison River ISP incident, and AT&T's censorship of Pearl Jam/other musicians. Net neutrality is good, please check it out past these comments.

these companies are making uncanny large investments in their networks... look at verizons fios push for a modern example. they DO need to be paid for this, and since they have been allowed to wire up these networks for a century or so starting with telephone lines, that is THEIR gain. deal with it, it kind of is a monopoloy, and one we've made ourselves unable to live without.

I'm fairly certain a number of you read and post on Digg, because the posts mirror that site almost exactly. Post after post of FUD and fearmongering, anti-corporationism, class warfare, all missing or corrupting the fundamental principles of whatever is being argued... and occasionally a few sprinkles of sense, which are quickly buried by the yelling and screaming. I'm talkign to you, Andrew and E1000.

In a free market you pay based off supply and demand - granted prices tend to lag, but if the cost of high speed internet gets too high, the demand WILL shrink. If a group wants a fiber line to ensure their WoW is lag-free, so be it. It's not much different than an Emir wanting to buy a A380 for his 'business jet'. We're paying too much for Internet access because there are not enough suppliers in the marketplace. As WIMAX technology starts to come into the market we'll likely see new avenues of access that are independet of the large cable/phone companies.

I think most of you have this all wrong. Net neutrality doesn't mean everyone has the same rate from their ISP. You can always pay more to get faster speeds from your ISP and surf faster or play games with less lag. But what happens on the other end?

This is the whole ATM thing all over again. It's not what your bank charges, it's what the other bank charges. You have Comcast and want to get info from a site that is on Verizon's network. The traffic from Verizon should be allowed to pass through to you at the download speed that you paid for. Comcast should not be able to throttle the speed because the Verizon site you are downloading from didn't pay extra to make sure that their traffic gets through Comcast's network unhindered. Nor should you have to pay to make sure that you can get to a site on Verizon's network.

Both are very real possibilities without net neutrality. Just think, 10 years ago, who would have thought that an ATM would charge you for withdrawing money when your bank already took care of those fees? 10 years from now will you have to shell out additional money whenever you surf "off-network"? Will the internet have "roaming" charges?

I'm not sure people here really understand what is going on. Net neutrality is the principle that connection to an ideally unrestrained network by the internet, not be fundamentally altered by a service provider. This includes stopping ISPs from doing such things as blocking ports, drastically filtering or changing the incoming information (such as seeding advertisements to you or blocking websites that are not in line witht he views of the ISP), or unjustly limiting the data flow of that connection. It is the last portion of most net neutrality laws that come into dispute. These things tend to come up in a package deal when they hit parlimentary systems and this last tenet of net neutrality can be written into law such that tiered service becomes illegal. This is because tiered service can sometimes be interpreted as limiting a network connection based purely on profitability rather than bandwidth availability and a possible threat to neutrality of the internet (as it may add monetary discrimination to its access). Neutrality laws often do away with tiered service in favor of maximized bandwidth based on your connection with no additional fee for that maximum level of service. ISPs dislike this idea for a few reasons. Most obvious of all is the fact that their most premium (and possibly even much more moderate) offers are likely to be unfair under the new law. A more defensible argument is that tiered service is convenient for bandwidth management, as full bandwidth of the line to every home is not available through the ISP. Tiered service provides a natural way of regulating bandwidth based on consumer demand. While it is hard to form an opinion on a particular net neutrality law without knowing its specifics, I think I would much prefer a law for net neutrality as the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. This is of course assuming the law is drafted on the TRUE spirits of the movement.

The DoJ actually took a neutral stance on the real issue.

Cable and telephone companies are trying to muscle into the each other's historic business sectors while competing in the fledgling broadband sector. For years cable had the advantage of a preexisting but flawed infrastructure while DSL had suffered from speed/rang limitations. Now that DSL is much improved cable doesn't hold the advantage it once did.

Cable is afraid of a direct price war with DSL because in the long run it is a loosing prospect. They don't want to spend the untold billions on upgrading a fundamentally flawed infrastructure which was never originally designed for this application. So they are changing the rules of the game, making it qualitative(tiered service) instead of quantitative(simple $ for unfettered # Mbps).

They are gambling that the vast majority of the public would rather have the cheap, filtered service, which cable can do. Which would leave DSL the high cost, high maintenances users.

The DoJ knows this, being more in touch with the idea of infrastructure, and has taken a neutral stance to let the consumer decide if cheap(emphasis) and filtered broadband or less cheap unfiltered broadband is the future. If the DoJ had endorsed Net Neutrality it would probably be the beginning of the end for cable broadband.

Google, yahoo, youtube, and online content providers all cry foul because filtering undermines their business model and their presence in the market. This is why Net Neutrality was really started.

Unfortunately, the DoJ is missing the forest for the trees. The internet revolution has happened(it is on going) and it was made possible by unfiltered broadband and the unbiased nature of the internet.

This is not about limiting the bandwidth of clients like a 7-11 or someone playing Warcraft. It is about ATT or your cable company getting payed by Microsoft to limit your access to youtube or redhat.com.

If Microsoft wants faster access for its customers on ATT or Comcast, Microsoft should pay for a direct connection to the ATT or Comcast network.

Net neutrality has been one of the fundamental principals of the internet. We did not need a law in the past because no one had the guts to talk about breaking it.

Don't let Microsoft pay Cox Communications to block my access to the next Fedora core.

(Please forgive any grammatic or spelling errors, I think I have the flue.)

Part of the problem is the term "net neutrality." Neutral sounds good, right? What it is really all about is big companies want to make huge money off the internet without paying any more than gamers.

No, Net neutrality says that if your website gets its bandwidth from MCI, ATT can't charge you for access to their customers.

You pay for your bandwidth. ATT or comcast's customers pay for their bandwidth. Your customers ISP should not have the right to charge you for something already payed for by their customers.

Just to make this a little bit more clear, this is the same as if Honda sells you a car, you drive your car to Sonic for lunch, then Honda sends a bill to Sonic.