Those calling for a net neutrality law--including online services companies Yahoo and Google--fail to recognize that broadband providers need new business plans to build out next-generation networks, he said. Net neutrality laws could also limit providers' ability to manage their networks...

The industry says it needs a tiered system because all those little video clips people send to each other are hogging bandwidth. The next time you see an ad for Time Warner’s Road Runner broadband service, notice that streaming video is part of the lure of paying $44.95 a month. An Associated Press story earlier this week quoted Verizon and BellSouth spokesmen warning that as the video trend continues, the Internet could choke—like an overbooked flight, an ISP would be overcapacity if all of its subscribers downloaded high-quality video at the same time. But as the story points out, Internet traffic doesn’t work that way. It grows along with the capacity, not ahead of it.

We wouldn’t be watching YouTube videos over a 64K modem, because it wouldn’t be worth the aggravation. The industry says all that innovation will cost money, and that they will have no choice but to pass that cost on to consumers. Oh, we consumers would suffer, they warn us, even those of us who just want to check e-mail.

The fact is, ISPs have been whining about multimedia content since RealAudio first launched its streaming sounds in 1995. Not only has the Internet survived, but ISPs have raked in billions in profits as a result. The video franchising piece of the new telecom bills, remember, would let phone companies set their own terms for launching nationwide video services.

Public-interest groups are afraid that telcos would use their gatekeeping power to block access to the sites of their competitors and critics. Poppycock, the telcos say. We would never do anything like that. The FCC wouldn’t let us get away with it! And anyway, we wouldn’t want to. We believe in all this net neutrality stuff. Cross our hearts. Pinky swear. No need to make it part of the law, now is there?

And we should believe them why? Remember, AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon willingly sold the private phone records of American citizens to the Bush administration’s illegal domestic spying operation.