| Oh, the people will weep.... Oh, OK, I'll stop thinking now. Yeah, let's subject the big bad baby bells (ok they suck, but you're not forced to use them, now are you thanks to those little things called deregulation and the free market via Telecom act of 1996) to the same sort of b.s. that made the cable industry so much fun: Local monopolies negotiated by local politicos without an iota of oversight compared to what happens on a national level.
Everybody knows that Net neutrality is a Good Thing (tm) because Vinton Cerf and the EFF said so, and they both have vast experience in the legislative process (Not). Yeah, what a great idea it would be if we could get a technology challenged Congress and FCC to tell verizon that they must not charge google more for bandwidth (like Google would take that lying down) or charge individuals to access Google, or otherwise block Google. ("What was that giant sucking sound, and where did our customers go?) Even if Verizon was that stupid, it would be nothing more than an even faster path to irrelevancy. Boo hoo indeed.
And you think Congress and the FCC would stop there why? How about setting rates for DSL at the 2006 "bargain rate" of $50, and forbidding the $15/month plans as "predatory pricing"? How about forcing cable companies to support 911 access with all VOIP plans or suspend operations. "Fairness " can be interpreted so many different ways, can't it? |
