Verizon: Please, Only We Can Lie About Network Neutrality → Proposal would let the camel's nose into the tent.

The big problem with the "Goorizon" proposal is that it would allow the government to regulate the Net. Once that camel's nose is in the tent, that would be it -- game over! The FCC would attempt to acquire the power to enforce "decency" on the Net. And because any traffic prioritization would be deemed to be "presumptively" wrong, quality of service would go into the toilet and rates would go up.

The Internet has prospered for 27 years with no regulation, and it needs none. We should reject not only this proposal but all proposals to regulate the Net.

Brett,

Are the special access lines you use to carry your WISP traffic back to the Internet backbone part of the "Internet"? If so, then I am curious why you think the net has never been regulated. You yourself have advocated all over the place for even more stringent special access regulations, since they are an input to your business.

Also, if what you really mean is last-mile ISPs like yourself, you are wrong there too. All sorts of webs of regulations have applied since the birth of the Internet, from the Computer Inquiries to ISP-bound traffic access charges, to the 1998 Advanced Service Order. We are only recently in an era of un-regulation.

Proving once again, "only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Better "decency" rules than let thieves run wild.

“The Internet has prospered for 27 years with no regulation…”

Of all the totally ridiculous, anti-factual statements that can be constructed in the English language, this is close to the worst.

The internet originated as a DOD project, 100% government funded. It was BORN in a government-driven environment.

Public access to the internet was originally thru telephone companies which were totally regulated in their obligation to act as "common carriers" who (a) could NOT discriminate as to who you could contact, and (b) could not be responsible for the legality of what you did on their network. Once upon a time, we had enforced network neutrality.

The FCC, created by your Congress in 1934, is charged with ensuring efficient, low-cost, most valuable management of the nation's airwaves. Wireless services have (at least, nominally) ALWAYS been under the government. The airwaves that cell phones use is licensed from the government.

Even the blatantly one-sided Verizoogle proposal doesn't dare make such obviously clueless assertions. Why do you? If you want to assert that govts always screw up business, go ahead. But I'm about to get on a (delayed) flight and am sure glad that the FAA requires Delta to inspect its planes, requires minimum rest times for crews, etc, on the flight I'll be on, unlike those poor souls who perished in Buffalo.

So, to your claim: it's absurd. To your political beliefs, ask any real economist: what are the conditions where a "free market" performs badly? When you have only two sellers controlling over half of a market, is there any reason to expect the country to benefit? PS: the answer is "Gawd, no!"