Net Neutrality
The story goes like this. ISP companies control your access to the Internet and can throttle your bandwidth or even deny you access to the Internet altogether. Hosting companies must also use ISP companies in order to get the services you use (like Google, Amazon, and Facebook) to you, and ISPs can throttle and limit the bandwidth of these just as easily. So far ISP companies throttle bandwidth mostly to slow illegal downloads, but what they want to do is regulate the Internet so that you can only get to pieces of it for a nominal fee. If you want Hulu or Netflix that will cost you $29.99. Adding Facebook and MySpace will run you $9.99, and so on. The fear of this scenario has caused a lot of people to jump on the bandwagon to protect Net Neutrality, but this fear is entirely baseless.
Imagine what would happen if your local Cable provider starting selling their Internet package this way. What would you do if you had to buy your Internet piecemeal so that to get to all of the Internet you were paying $100 or more. Well, you'd probably switch to DSL or a satellite option. Most areas have both Cable and DSL as an option, and you can get satellite just about anywhere. No matter where you are, that's 2-3 different companies to choose from. Now there are a few areas where there is Cable but not DSL or visa-versa, but those areas are becoming fewer and fewer. My point is as long as there's competition ISP companies are not going to try to screw over their customers. It would be bad for business. If ISP companies really wanted to sell Internet this way, they probably would have done it by now. It would be nice if there were more ISP companies to create more competition and add more assurance that the chopped up Internet scenario won't happen, but I'll get into that later.
Net Neutrality is in danger, though. Many people are calling for the FCC to step in and enforce Net Neutrality. They want the FCC to put regulations in place to make sure that ISP companies don't abuse their power. In order to make sure all data is flowing evenly and smoothly, some traffic would have to be throttled and the FCC would have the last say on which traffic. Instead of 2-3 companies controlling access to the Internet it would be just one entity. Once the FCC has control, what force is there to keep them from abusing their power. The ISP companies have each other to worry about, but can the FCC go out of business?
While we're on the subject, can Cable or DSL companies really go out of business? My argument is based on the fact that they can, so I think this is worth looking into. Why is it that you have only one cable company and one (wired) phone company to choose from in any given city? Well, as phone lines were being established across America it was decided that the phone service was a natural monopoly, meaning it could only exist as a monopoly. Apparently, we couldn't conceive of the possibility of 2 or more companies running phone lines side by side. Since it was sure to be a monopoly anyway the government stepped in to regulate it thereby forcing it to become a monopoly. The same thing happened with cable companies later. That's why we only have one of each to choose from. However, most cable companies have starting offering phone service in the form of Voice-over-IP, and phone companies have started offering television services. It turns out that phone and cable are not natural monopolies after all. That means there's competition, and that means there's at least a slim chance that one of them could go out of business.
The reality is that it's unlikely that the cable or wired phone companies will go out of business until we no longer need their services. That said, cell phones were never declared to be a natural monopoly and as a result there are many of them to choose from. Cell phones are providing some great competition for the phone companies that only provide land lines, which is what I mean by "wired phone companies." I myself have a cell phone and no land line, and I know several other people who also don't have land lines. The wired phone companies are losing their grip on the phone industry and will have to rely more on their television and DSL service. With services like Netflix and Hulu that deliver on demand movies and television shows over the Internet, we're likely to see television become obsolete one day. (By the way, I also don't have basic cable.) Once cable and phone companies are forced to focus entirely on their Internet service then we'll see true competition. As cell phone technology gets better, we're likely to see more robust Internet service from cell phone companies as well.
In other words, as the government loses it's influence over the media it currently has control over, we'll start seeing more competition. Competition is a good thing, because it forces companies to offer the best service they can. The only way Net Neutrality can be threatened is if there is a single entity, or a small number of entities that can be manipulated, controlling the Internet. The reason that there are so few Internet companies to begin with is due to government interference. The way most people want to defend Net Neutrality is through government regulations, which will likely only create the problem we want to avoid. The real way to defend Net Neutrality is to keep the government's hands off of media.
Imagine what would happen if your local Cable provider starting selling their Internet package this way. What would you do if you had to buy your Internet piecemeal so that to get to all of the Internet you were paying $100 or more. Well, you'd probably switch to DSL or a satellite option. Most areas have both Cable and DSL as an option, and you can get satellite just about anywhere. No matter where you are, that's 2-3 different companies to choose from. Now there are a few areas where there is Cable but not DSL or visa-versa, but those areas are becoming fewer and fewer. My point is as long as there's competition ISP companies are not going to try to screw over their customers. It would be bad for business. If ISP companies really wanted to sell Internet this way, they probably would have done it by now. It would be nice if there were more ISP companies to create more competition and add more assurance that the chopped up Internet scenario won't happen, but I'll get into that later.
Net Neutrality is in danger, though. Many people are calling for the FCC to step in and enforce Net Neutrality. They want the FCC to put regulations in place to make sure that ISP companies don't abuse their power. In order to make sure all data is flowing evenly and smoothly, some traffic would have to be throttled and the FCC would have the last say on which traffic. Instead of 2-3 companies controlling access to the Internet it would be just one entity. Once the FCC has control, what force is there to keep them from abusing their power. The ISP companies have each other to worry about, but can the FCC go out of business?
While we're on the subject, can Cable or DSL companies really go out of business? My argument is based on the fact that they can, so I think this is worth looking into. Why is it that you have only one cable company and one (wired) phone company to choose from in any given city? Well, as phone lines were being established across America it was decided that the phone service was a natural monopoly, meaning it could only exist as a monopoly. Apparently, we couldn't conceive of the possibility of 2 or more companies running phone lines side by side. Since it was sure to be a monopoly anyway the government stepped in to regulate it thereby forcing it to become a monopoly. The same thing happened with cable companies later. That's why we only have one of each to choose from. However, most cable companies have starting offering phone service in the form of Voice-over-IP, and phone companies have started offering television services. It turns out that phone and cable are not natural monopolies after all. That means there's competition, and that means there's at least a slim chance that one of them could go out of business.
The reality is that it's unlikely that the cable or wired phone companies will go out of business until we no longer need their services. That said, cell phones were never declared to be a natural monopoly and as a result there are many of them to choose from. Cell phones are providing some great competition for the phone companies that only provide land lines, which is what I mean by "wired phone companies." I myself have a cell phone and no land line, and I know several other people who also don't have land lines. The wired phone companies are losing their grip on the phone industry and will have to rely more on their television and DSL service. With services like Netflix and Hulu that deliver on demand movies and television shows over the Internet, we're likely to see television become obsolete one day. (By the way, I also don't have basic cable.) Once cable and phone companies are forced to focus entirely on their Internet service then we'll see true competition. As cell phone technology gets better, we're likely to see more robust Internet service from cell phone companies as well.
In other words, as the government loses it's influence over the media it currently has control over, we'll start seeing more competition. Competition is a good thing, because it forces companies to offer the best service they can. The only way Net Neutrality can be threatened is if there is a single entity, or a small number of entities that can be manipulated, controlling the Internet. The reason that there are so few Internet companies to begin with is due to government interference. The way most people want to defend Net Neutrality is through government regulations, which will likely only create the problem we want to avoid. The real way to defend Net Neutrality is to keep the government's hands off of media.