Tangled Net

TANGLED NET
[SOURCE: National Journal 7/8, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
A long piece on the Net Neutrality debate by one of the best reporters on the beat. Net neutrality is about the rules of the road for the information superhighway -- and whether, some day, traveling in the fast lane will require paying a toll. Because of the convergence of television and telephone service into digital transmissions, the outcome of the battle will affect all aspects of communications. Net-neutrality advocates -- Google, Microsoft, and the other tech companies -- say the telecom companies (the Bells) and the cable industry shouldn't be permitted to control the Internet through discriminatory pricing in which their business partners enjoy a huge competitive advantage by gaining access to the wires into homes and offices. The telecom and cable guys -- the neutrality critics -- counter that “net neutrality” is just a fancy way of saying that the government should regulate the Internet. They say, let the free market, not Washington, reign.
http://njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-GMDB1152648438194.html