AT&T, Time Warner, and the Need for Neutrality
I think this article misses the point somewhat.<p>There is nothing wrong with a company providing all these services, so long as they are not able to abuse their position.<p>Now, net neutrality is _a_ not very effective way of stopping dominance. But, its almost not what you think or want it to be. What you actually want is competition, so that when a company does something stupid (ie slow netflix to a crawl) you can up sticks and move to a better service. (no I don&#x27;t mean a duopoly)<p>Now, you&#x27;ve just seen me say that NN isn&#x27;t what you want. Let me unpack that rather controversial statement. Firstly NN is the equal treatment of _all_ traffic regardless of source, protocol or destination.<p>You really don&#x27;t want that, as it means that real time stuff will get hampered by bulk traffic, and bulk traffic knobs (you know the people that are more than willing to spend $25 a month on a torrent box, $500 on local storage each quarter, but not pay for content.) Will get a free pass.<p>On the flip side, it means offers like <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.three.co.uk&#x2F;go-binge&#x2F;shows" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.three.co.uk&#x2F;go-binge&#x2F;shows</a> (watching netflix doesn&#x27;t count towards your mobile internet cap) can&#x27;t happen. Now, judging by whats happening to Three, this is what customers actually want.<p>So, what America needs is bulk transit ripped away from the big three. Where there is ISP dominance in one area, Regulated wholesale prices, allowing virtual operators to provide internet using rented last mile infrastructure.<p>This is not perfect, as unless you fully strip those providing last mile infrastructure from those providing ISP functions, there will be a reluctance to roll out new technologies in less profitable areas.