This isn’t complicated.  The broadband providers are lying.  They are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt on innovation and privacy.  All lies.  I watched a clip of Mark Cuban recently warning against net neutrality that was so blatantly disingenuous it was comical.  He began by arguing for web traffic prioritization because the Internet won’t work otherwise.  “Bit are bits.”  He ended with a tangent into hacking.  He could not have tried harder to steer people from a real understanding of this topic.

First, cable companies are already regulated.  They were initially granted monopoly control over cable access to your home so their rates and service levels are regulated.  And because charging you $300 a month isn’t enough for them, they don’t want to be regulated over broadband too.  Broadband in this sense refers to your Internet access.  In their defense, their dilemma is that television is migrating to the Internet.  All content is moving to the Internet.  Bits are bits.  But they’re the geniuses who piled data on top of their regulated cable.  Right after they added voice.

My position is I pay for a specific data rate and I expect all content to be delivered at the full rate I’m subscribed to.  Likewise, content providers buy bandwidth from their provider.  Prioritization is a scheme to charge for bandwidth from content providers who are connected to another bandwidth provider’s network.  This is about double dipping.  It’s about greed.  I’m not a fan of regulation, but these guys are already regulated.  I expect the bandwidth I paid for.  In a few weeks, I’ll be switching providers, receiving 20 times my current 50 MB at half the price.  Start using my iCloud email now because I’ll be dropping my Comcast account soon.