The Telephone and Cable Companies Are Alone on Net Neutrality

The mystery about the debate over Net Neutrality is why there is a debate at all.  For seventy years, the concept of not allowing telephone companies to discriminate in their treatment of their customers was enshrined in the Communications Act. It wasn’t until 2005 that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to hand the keys to the Internet over to the telephone and cable companies.

Except for the telephone and cable companies, and their battalions of spokesmodels, surrogates and bought-off sock puppets, it’s hard to find someone who can argue with a straight face that the network operators should be able to manipulate the Internet for the benefit of one company or advertiser over another.  And yet they do, under the guise of red herrings like “network management” while proclaiming their opposition to “excessive regulation of the Internet,” that would take away financial incentives to invest in broadband facilities.