

Making ISPs common carriers? Congress, the FCC, and public interest - FluidDjango
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/making-isps-common-carriers-just-a-simple-error-correction.ars

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ShabbyDoo
The critical issue to me is that my local government has granted a duopoly to
my telephone and cable providers to provide broadband to my house. One could
argue that I also get 3G coverage and the possibility of high latency
satellite, but, for practical purposes, I have two options.

I'm a small L libertarian and would have no problem with network providers
"innovating" by moving to a back-end revenue model except that this is not a
free market situation. My local government has granted this companies near
exclusive rights to shake me down. And now, thanks to this most recent court
ruling, they can sell premium access to my house (Edit: meaning that they can
sell others, like Disney, the semi-exclusive right to deliver high-bandwidth
content).

I actually blame my local government for this. I believe the contracts with
the phone/cable companies require local approval of rate plans, but I doubt
they place stipulations on access discrimination as a revenue model. Perhaps I
should lobby my local councilperson and not my congressman?

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hoop
What effect would moving "information services" back into "telecommunication
services" have on smaller companies? What about WISPs, will they be counted?

