Net Neutrality Prevails In Historic FCC Vote

[kandrathe]

So, for the non-technical people in my life, I equate the internet to our interstate freeway system, built during and after WWII under the auspices of improving national security**. Some places do have local public or private toll roads, which benefit only those who can afford to use them. Treating the internet as a common carrier means that it will be treated more as our *free* interstate freeway. Just as a trucking company in California doesn't need to worry about negotiating the route of its produce heading to NYC, a free internet means producers of internet services do not need to deal with various tolls in getting their products to us, their market. This again does not preclude some large producer from using a "private high speed line" negotiated with a carrier to transmit some information at high speeds to a wealthy consumer, but it does ensure that the general public will have access to the common road at the same rate and price as everyone else. That private "road" just would not be on the internet.

** formerly known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

“Our unity as a nation is sustained by free communication of thought and by easy transportation of people and goods. The ceaseless flow of information throughout the Republic is matched by individual and commercial movement over a vast system of interconnected highways crisscrossing the country and joining at our national borders with friendly neighbors to the north and south.” -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 22 Feb 1955