Network Neutrality: A debate full of sound and fury

[Commentary] "Follow the money" definitely gets to the bottom of the question of why the incumbent telcos have totally lost their mind over net neutrality. It has become a breathtaking display of whining, bullying, fear mongering and distortion of facts. Net neutrality is really about ensuring fairness on an Internet that is a channel for open communications. It's about protecting consumers, businesses, nonprofits and government entities from harmful practices executed in the best financial interests of those 30 or so companies that manage a third of all Internet traffic. One thing anti-net neutrality advocates fail to tell you is that service providers can indeed charge different prices to different people (or organizations) that access different levels of data. But net neutrality says providers' pricing policies can't be predatory/anti-competitive. These service providers have a business model and entrenched mindset that necessitate they tightly control the environment in which they do business. A prime example is applications (e.g. ringtones) for the handsets that carriers sell. "Walled garden" was the name given to carriers' attempts to control and charge for everything in their network. Customers couldn't buy anything from outside of the garden, many startups and small companies couldn't get access to the garden. This mindset and type of business modus operandi is what many people believe carriers will enforce on the Internet. If net neutrality rules are passed, carriers are paralyzed with panic that they won't be able to maximize profits. Two things loom large to justify both fears.