I am interested to see how this issue plays out in the progressive community. My friends in Redmond, Washington tell me that this is a battle between Microsoft/Google and ATT/Comcast. Neither side gives a damn about the little guy, in my opinion.

Indeed this is a battle between Microsoft/Google and ATT/Comcast and yes they all could care less about you and I. However it just so happens that in this case the interests of the little guy and Microsoft/Google happen to line up.

Here's the issue from a technical stand point: the telcos/cablecos want to be able to prioritize the traffic on their fiber backbones giving priority to their traffic or traffic of companies that have paid them for "premium" delivery of their content. That means that unless Google pays ATT to deliver their traffic that transits ATT's networks ATT will downgrade Googles traffic priority. Currently ATT's network treats packets from any site (even if they don't use ATT as their ISP) the same (ie. dumb pipes to quote the telco FUD).

Now Google of course will be able to payoff ATT's extortion, however I doubt Blue Oregon or any of the millions of other little guy sites that make the Internet the what it is will be able to. Thus their traffic either gets downgraded or not passed at all. This despite the fact that ATT end users pay every month to access ALL of the internet, not just who paid ATT to deliver their traffic. This of course applies to applications like Skype that ATT sees as competition to their long distance business or BitTorrent that Comcast sees as competition to their cable business.

The Internet was founded on the idea of dumb pipes not a smart network. Dumb pipes allow you to decided how to use them at the ends. The pipes are non specific to the type of service, web, video or some appication we haven't even thought of yet, it doesn't matter. If you can plug it in at the ends YOU decided how you use the network, not ATT. All "smart network" means is that the telcos get to decide what you see and do on the net. They still haven't got over the idea of per minute long distance and interactive TV. This is the single biggest challenge to the net yet and Sen Wyden get huge props for standing up on this one.

We all agree that net neutrality is something we value very much, and is something that several large corporations are instructing their bought-and-paid-for representatives (nearly all Republican reps and senators, several Democrats as well) to take away from us. So who is stepping up to the plate to protect net neutrality? Oregon's Ron Wyden.

We're lucky to have Ron Wyden fighting on our side. His leadership is to be commended. I've found myself saying it a lot recently: I'm really glad Ron Wyden is my Senator. Too bad our junior senator, Gordon Smith, is taking a leadership role in helping Verizon/Comcast et al create a non-neutral net where we pay them billions more for the same services we get today.

Not sure I can agree with all of you. A lot of you seem to be implying that the Hands Off The Internet side of this debate is all for changing things. We're really not. Our name is pretty clear on that--our goal is to protect the internet from being screwed up by a bunch of ham-handed politicians more interested in their own reelection campaigns than what happens to the internet.

Do you really think that your average government official has the first idea of how to regulate the fastest-moving and fastest-changing technology out there? Is it really a great idea to take control away from the free market and plop it into the lap of the slow-as-molasses house of red tape that is Washington DC?

These are our concerns. Frankly, if your ISP is doing something you don't like, pick up and leave them. Your payments are their lifeblood, and without it, they're dead. They know that quite well, and will listen to their consumers first. They can't exist without them. The government, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. While theorhetically responsible to their citizens, once this gets into the hands of the bureaucracy, the consumers are powerless to be heard. At that point, it's up to the FCC to decide. And no one will truly benefit from that situation.

Hands Off, I've been working in the Internet business for a LONG time (do you remember NSF net, I do) including having built an ISP from scratch. Net neutrality has very little to do with ones ISP, it about the backbone networks and how they pass traffic. When you request a page from say Blue Oregon your packets often transit many companies networks in between Blue Oregon's hosting provider and your ISP. The Telco's who run the transit networks and large broadband ISPs want to decide what packets get priority during transit, obviously giving priority to packets who's originator's have paid for priority service and blocking packets for services they feel compete with their business model (how long do you think VOIP long distance will last on ATT's network). This however is not what the Internet was founded on. What made the Internet different than say a circuit switched long distance network is that all traffic is treated equally no matter if it comes from Google or BlueOregon.com. Any to any, any to many, many to any. The network in between doesn't decide what traffic gets through or doesn't. That's Net Neutrality in a nut shell. Unfortunately the telcos who you shill for prefer the long distance model (ie. the only Bell Heads vs. Net Heads problem) where they control the traffic and charge per packet of information despite the fact they make huge amounts of money on the current Internet as ISPs, hosting providers and via peering agreements. They are benefiting from billions in public (think ARPA Net, NSF Net and Al Gore) and private (think Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Netscape etc.) R&D that went into building the Internet we all depend on, yet due to Comcast, Qwest, ATT's greed that's just not enough. That's why it will take an act of congress to codify protection for Net Neutrality otherwise the open Internet as we know it could be replace by a pay to play corporate controlled world more like cable TV.

Republicans explain the Internet: "The internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck." --Republican Senator Ted Stevens, seen on Boing Boing.

<h2>If idiots weren't running our great country, it'd be hilarious.</h2>