Internet Neutrality

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A hugely important topic. Much of what we enjoy about the Internet is hardwired into law. Now telecom providers try to speed up their own services over that of others using (and already paying for) their network. Recently, I was surprised how little debate with the Verizon representative there was when I cancelled my home phone with them. "I am just using my cell phone." They were just fine with that as they also occupy the cell phone market. (Try canceling your American Express credit card: good luck. It will take at least 20 minutes until they take *no* for an answer.) On C-Span I followed the debate on Internet Neutrality. The proposal was that congress should pass law forbidding discrimination against competing Web services. The CEO of Google and Larry Lessig, among others, gave testimony. If a company like Google introduces video applications- should they (ie. Google) have to pay the ISP for the extra bandwidth that the users of this service use up? The same issue comes up with voice over (ip)telephony. Download Lessig'a testimony here (pdf).