“Net Neutrality” law pork-posal returns to the US Congress in January

Quoting Frank Zappa:

America is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.

While the concept of Net Neutrality is noble, it is flawed. It assumes the only path to connectivity is a duopoly that is to be micro managed by a nanny care government. The problem with regulation is it choses winners, losers, and stifles real competition. A regulated soft drink industry would offer only Pepsi and Coke to the mass market, much like the state of access providers in America today. Never the less, some politicians refuse to let go of any opportunity to leverage public concern to extend their reach deeper into the fabric of our daily lives.

Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads a key House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications law panel, had previously said he planned to revive his anti-discrimination bill from last year this December.

But a spokeswoman told CNET News.com on Wednesday that life for her boss has been hectic in recent weeks with pressing other issues, such as the Federal Communications Commission’s recent move to relax media ownership rules.

The plan now is to introduce a new bill in January. The language is likely to be similar, although not identical, to an effort that was twice defeated by a Republican-dominated Congress in the last session. (from Cnet)

Our law makers, including Mr. Markey have consistently demonstrated their clueless-ness in all things tech. Their legislation is directly derived from the corporate lobby that is often engaged in a bidding war for their attention. It has then been filled out in to a behemoth of countless pages filled with goodies for special the special interests favored by individual members.
There is a pox on the house of both Republicans and Democrats in their misinformed and bungled handling of the open access issue. The internet has grown exponentially almost entirely due to a complete lack of regulation. It is been very effective in self regulating with one very large exception: Competition in access. The reason it has been stagnant in the area of access is that current government regulations guarantee a dominant duopoly.

If Mr. Markey is really sincere in his wish to provide open access to all, he will burn the net neutrality legislation and replace it with a re-instated local loop unbundling law, and strictly enforce it. With real competition, the bad behavior that the duopoly is prone to will fade into the sunset along with the granting of power to misguided politicians to decide how will use our internet.