Last week's column on Net neutrality elicited some strong responses. Most disagreed with me. As Ovum analyst Mark Seery said this week at Globalcomm, Net neutrality is one of those topics that no one truly understands, so people end up just supporting the argument for the side that affects them most, not on what's fair. Nobody's an expert yet.

I may not be an expert (yet), but as you will see by the first response here, I am "bonafied." And I know, from watching one of my all-time favorite movies, "Oh Brother, Where Art Though?" that being "bonafied" is important. And since the movie was probably filmed in or around the first responder's hometown in Mississippi, he must know it, too. He may even have been in the movie, but it would be hard to recognize him under his white hood.

Rod (veep of a boutique networking company) says:

You sir are just a bonafied idiot. Research what the telcos have done to small businesses over the last 20 years and you will see how wrong you are. Once you "see" what they will do with a tiered Internet it is too late to go back. And yes it cost money for bandwidth, I pay dearly every month for my little DS3 connection. If you don't understand what they are doing give me a call and I can enlighten you. [Rod, the Enlightment began in the 18th Century. You missed it.]

After a polite rebuke for name-calling, Rod wrote back:

OK, so maybe I was wrong calling you an idiot (asking God for forgiveness here). Maybe I should have called you mis-informed. No, idiot was the right phrase, and that is not name calling it's just stating fact. I guess you could be misinterpreting the telco's propaganda...So maybe idiot is not right, just ignorant may be a better term. [Make up your mind, Rod.]

If the telco's were not selling bandwidth to the end user at less that what it cost to deliver [And you're complaining?] they MIGHT not be looking to gain revenue from content providers and metering the Internet. The cable companies are being grouped with the telco's in this price war and bundling scheme but the telco's are the one's that drew first blood. I have worked with both and the cable companies are not happy about having to sell their services at below cost but they are forced to just to stay anywhere near the prices the telco's are selling at. Big difference is the cableco's don't get a substantial amount of their revenue from the government. The telco's do. [Would that be the big telcos that are paying the Universal Service Fees or the little guys you're having trouble competing with?] If I pay for a 10mb circuit that is my 10mb to do what I want with as long as I don't break the law with that usage. Their intent is to make a law [Telcos don't make laws.] that says I can only do what they want me to do with my 10mb. When AT&T is the only provider you have for your data, voice and CATV [That's right, the satellite and broadband wireless companies are all going to fold, too] I want you to come back to me and tell me you have a better deal. [I can't do that, Rod, but I can tell you how to spell bona fide and that the apostrophe in Telco's and cableco's makes them possessive not plural.]

Jesse wrote:

Net neutrality is not about tiering (or the prevention there of) per se. It is about keeping such things transparent and fair. The issue is not about packet prioritization, it is about keeping network operators from discriminating against services they don't like. Without Net Neutrality, MSO are going to do everything in their power to make sure that Internet based video providers cannot provide the same level of service they can over their networks. Since telcos are getting into the video game, there is no reason to believe they will act any differently. It doesn't bother me if people have the option to pay for better carriage, but what about the other side of the coin where the network operator purposely degrades the basic tier so that service is useless for anyone who does not pay a premium. This is generally known as a protection racket and without Net Neutrality there would be nothing to stop network operators from getting into that game -- "it would be a shame if youse packets just happened to fall offa the net . . ." [I hope that's a reference to the guys that run protection rackets and not a comment on my Chicago accent!]

To say that having Net Neutrality means that network operators have no incentive to improve their networks is a tacit admission that there is no actual competition between them. It is a very simple argument really; either the operators physically open their (tax-payer subsidized) networks or they keep them open in a virtual sense via Net Neutrality or they start paying for right of ways and access to public infrastructure. Why should they get to have their cake and eat it too? Why should voters support a policy for network operators that is against their best interest as consumers? While you could easily argue that there are more pressing things for government to get involved in, you could make that argument about anything the government gets involved in. Also, just as some argue that Net Neutrality addresses a problem that doesn't yet exist, so does tiering. I have watched streaming video many a time over my Comcast connection and it works just find without any packet prioritization in place. It seems to me that demand for packet prioritization will only be there if operators purposely degrade their service or allow it to degrade by not increasing capacity. If anything, Net Neutrality would force them to continue to spend on there networks, but in a way that is actually beneficial to consumers and not just them. If AT&T and others really had no immediate plans to start pillaging the Internet, they wouldn't be talking about such things so much. Me thinks Whitacre doth protest too much!

And my good friend Wes from Virginia wrote:

I don't think there's anybody in this country who wouldn't agree that there are a lot more things, simple things even, that Congress could be legislating on. With even a little bit of effort, they could push the boundary quite a bit more. We'll stick to 'Net Neutrality for now.

The way I see it, and I am dumbfounded that [legislators] were able to see this, Ed Whiteacre and Ivan Seidenberg are two people this country and anybody who uses the Internet or telecom should be scared of. Very scared. Between them, they have us on the precipice of the old Ma Bell once again. Figure out who BellSouth will "merge" with and who gets stuck with Qwest and there you are. [Wes, you missed that one, AT&T is gobbling up BellSouth.]

Both of them have been beating their chests about how Google, Yahoo and the rest should PAY for access to their networks. Have they conveniently forgotten the peering arrangements they have with these companies? Very lucrative peering arrangements, too. And not only do the content companies pay for their access, the other carriers they buy from also have peering arrangements with each other, so as long as the amount of traffic traded is roughly equal, everybody's happy with the negotiated rates. Why should they have to pay to get onto these carrier networks and then we have to pay higher prices to get whichever one we want? Congress is at least paying enough attention to us to see that allowing a double dip on Internet content would result in more mail than they care to deal with.

And so I come to the conclusion that being an RBOC is like being George W. Bush, at some point, no matter what you do, people aren't happy. And Seery was right; There are no experts here.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@prismb2b.com