Dvorak is pretty awful and this article is no exception.

This always seems to be the question: Why hasn't Comcast screwed over it's customers yet? The answer: They are. They're choking their bandwidth, they're forcing their customers to pay twice to have their content delivered. They are more interested in squeezing every single cent out of every single person that wants to transfer a packet across their municipality sanctioned monopolies. Dvorak has some gall asking a question like "Where has the harm been done?"

Look at customer satisfaction ratings. Look at how they cripple their networks. Look at your cable bill!

Is the FCC the best option? No. But we've gone past the critical point. No longer can you purchase a connection and expect to get full bandwidth at peak times. No longer can you start a business and expect that your traffic will reach the it's destination without interference. If someone has a better idea, bring it forward. But tell me how they are going to get Comcast to accept it.

> Is the FCC the best option? No. But we've gone past the critical point. No longer can you purchase a connection and expect to get full bandwidth at peak times.

I don't see why you should be able to expect this unless your paying extra.

I've never understood the clamor for government regulated Internet.

Internet commerce (particularly in the United States) has flourished beyond anyone's wildest dreams over the last few decades without the federal government's intervention. Why exactly do we need a whole new set of laws to save us from a problem we don't have?

Corporations have a very long history of manipulating the very agencies that are supposed to regulate them...

It's not a new set of laws. It's the same set of rules that have been imposed on telephone companies and other utility providers for decades. It's a set of rules that the FCC already has the legal authority to impose. The google-able term is "common carrier".

Is that really an apt comparison? I assume the infrastructure for telephone companies in entirely different than the infrastructure for ISPs. Namely: that the variation in data that goes through phone companies is entirely different than the type that goes through ISPs.

You might not know it, but in asking me this question, you are asking me if I think that ISPs are telecommunications services.

Yes, I think that ISPs are telecommunications services. Ask AT&T what kind of spiky demand for phone bandwidth they see during and immediately after a hurricane, or on Mother's Day.

What about the danger of re-classifying internet services such as google as a common-carrier?

I really wish we had a society/government that thinks about policy the way we think about everything else. A new policy? Lets try it out in some small locations and see what happens. But instead we have gigantic shifts in policy enacted nationwide.

I don't really have an opinion on net neutrality and I'm very wary of anyone who does.

This is fairly balanced. A good read. What many people seem not to understand is the government control of information. The free market is really the only true way to handle this.

No, this is a terrible piece. The argument of, "if these ISPs are evil why do business with them?" makes me think he is not a respected name in the tech industry but a trollish hack. As for the comment of ”the free market is the only true way to handle this" it completely ignore the monopolistic aspect of most US internet provider markets where the "choice" is a single large company and if you are really lucky a small name company that leases the lines from the large company. That isn't a free market. Pull your so called libertarian head out of your a$$ and take a hard look at the way these corporations are using your ideology to rob you of your freedom.

Ugh, what an ugly comment. Please don't do this on HN.

You are right I apologize for the language I used. I am not apologizing for saying it is a terrible article. All of the points he make assume that consumers have a wide range of choice. Some people do, a large amount don't. @massyset you are very privileged to live in a city with 6 large ISPs. Many places I have lived have one cable and one DSL provider. The most has been 2 big name cable providers but they didn't cross each other's territory.

I never said consumers have access to a free market. I'm saying access to a free market would help solve the issue.

I live in a US city and have six choices for high speed internet access. This is a thriving free market. People are very quick to employ the coercive machinery of government to fix ills that do not exist.

For the past decade, I've only lived in cities with one choice for high speed internet access. There is no free market where I live.

Let me know when America has a free market in ISPs.

As if a hospital with remote surgery would use a residential-grade connection.

The examples here seem to evoke emotion out of FUD.