[TriLUG] OT: URGENT: H.129 to be heard in Thursday's Finance Committee!

[matt at noway2.thruhere.net]

My problem with this bill has nothing to do with Google's fiber plans or
anything like that.  I read it as a blatant attempt to ensure that viable
competition to the existing ISPs does not have a solid chance to get off
the ground.

These providers used to be regulated monopolies.  About 10 years ago, a
bunch of someones came up with the great idea that they should be
deregulated and that there should be free market competition.  Now, they
want to buy legislation to give them the advantages of being a monopoly
minus the regulation portion.  Just couch the legislation under the term
"jobs creation and preservation bill" and they will swallow anything.

If they should then be allowed to decide what type of content shall be
allowed on their networks, e.g. 'net neutrality', the public will be in
for a real treat.  They will be free to decide that they don't like the
message of a particular site, or group, or whatever and could simply deny
you  access.  You don't like this, well then switch to a competitor.  Good
luck with that; there are no competitors that provide a similar level of
service and the ones that do exist also filter the content for your
convenience.

> Hello TriLUGers,
>
> Just yesterday, AT&T announced it would immediately cap it's U-Verse
> users at 250 GB per month. Anyone going over that cap (NetFlix users,
> for instance), will be socked with overage fees.
>
<snip for brevity>