The Two Sides of the Network Neutrality Argument

Dana Blankenhorn argues on his blog that when it comes to news reporting, just because there are two sides to every story doesn’t mean they are equally correct or honest. I tend to agree.

In seeking to identify two sides, it’s easy to let lies slide by from the weaker side.

Readers don’t learn the right lesson from this. They’re taught two sides, in fact, exist, when one side is being propped-up in a vain attempt to appear “fair.” Thus, when someone else comes along who just lies, based on an agenda, the readers (who follow the agenda) will consider this later source “fair and balanced.” And if this later source then says the Sun revolves around the Earth, or the Bible is science, they’ll buy it.

But remember where it starts, an obsession with balance, even when the facts don’t justify it. This is the crime that lets the others live, the bad habit which needs to be stopped.

And so we come to network neutrality. Dave Farber’s Interesting People list has been getting an earful on this issue lately, with nearly everyone stating that freedom of speech, freely heard is a core Internet value the Bells and cable operators should not be permitted to violate in the name of profit.

Some, of course, disagree. But their arguments are willfully dishonest.

Dana points out that in the network neutrality discussion, the side of the Bells and some others is merely being accepted as “the other side” of the argument, without a deep analysis of the veracity of its claims, or even a cursory review of whether it makes sense and is within context. As someone who has spent an awful lot of time trying to figure out why network neutrality is important (I have an implicit feeling it is, based on my education, experience, and common sense, but I need to be able to clearly articulate and support this viewpoint), I have spent an awful lot of time tracing out all of the logic behind the arguments.

In the end, arguing about whether government regulation is right or wrong in this case comes down to a couple of simple facts:

1. The Telco’s and Cableco’s own wires into our homes, and increasingly own wires between large networks.
2. There are vanishingly few other ways to get “internet” access, and since Telco’s and Cableco’s are regional, they each own the entirety of their type of wiring (there is only at most 1 Telco and 1 Cableco that services each home, and many times, there’s only one of the two).

1. The Telco’s and Cableco’s are publicly traded private companies, and therefore are primarily interested in making money and returning shareholder value. They have a long history of this, and that’s how its supposed to be.

   But as a result of these two facts, Telco’s and Cableco’s have been given the opportunity to exert market dominating power over what goes over their cables, even though you and I and lots of service and content companies are paying for unfettered access, and even though this certainly adversely impacts the economic viability of the internet.

   Given they are profit maximizing companies, they will take any and all advantage of their marketplace, within the limits of the law. A tiered internet brings nothing to us as consumers, and puts burdens on all internet content and service companies. And as far as anyone can tell, the only real benefit is to increase the Telco’s and Cableco’s bottom lines. The only things that keep a private company in check are competition (which is by definition non-existant in the cable-into-your-house internet business) and some form of legal restriction.

   Keep this in mind when a Telco or Cableco exec says: “we would never do THAT”. Because marketplace pressures ensure they will do that, as long as it helps their bottom lines. Unless we do something to prevent them from profiteering at ours and our economy’s expense.

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