The Internet, by design, is very different from the "natural monopolies" of water, sewer, etc. Because of the Internet's settlement-free peering regime (which the FCC also threatens to upend by starting to regulate peering), and because one can connect at any point and reach the others, there is no need for Internet infrastructure to be a monopoly. Our wireless ISP competes handily with cable, DSL, and all other forms of Internet service. Do you want to have a choice of providers, and be able to switch if you are not satisfied? Or do you want to be stuck with a monopoly -- one that (even worse) is run by unelected government bureaucrats and is therefore completely unaccountable to you?

There is no "muni network contract." The municipalities that petitioned the FCC want to get into the ISP business -- even outside their borders! They simply want to take over the business of broadband in and around their cities, without "bidding" on anything.

Actually, the FCC's action will have exactly the opposite effect. I own and operate a small, competitive ISP, and am quite willing to (and capable of) going up against any competitor on a level playing field. But I simply wouldn't enter any market where the city was providing service. Why? Because the city would engage in all of the following anticompetitive and predatory practices:

* The city would completely control my access to rights of way and pole attachments, and would be motivated to keep me from getting that access or make it expensive;

* I would be taxed and the taxes would be used to subsidize my competitor;

* The city would engage in horizontal monopoly leverage from its other monopoly businesses (trash, water, sewer, and in many places energy) and would enjoy cross-subsidies from them; for example, it wouldn't have to build a new billing system but could use its existing one;

* The city could also use its ability to tax, and bonding authority, to obtain capital for the buildout at bargain rates;

* The city, with its deep pockets and by expending some of that capital, could engage in predatory pricing, offering its service below cost due to taxpayer subsidies. It could do this at the outset, to take customers away, or possibly permanently;

* The city, because it provided those other services, would GET PAID more easily than I would because users wouldn't want their water, etc. cut off if they didn't pay the bill;

* The city would know when both owner-occupied and rental real estate was turning over (because of changes in the party being billed) and so could always sell to people as they moved into a new home before they would have a chance to consider my service;

* The city ISP would get the lucrative business of the city itself (eliminating one of the largest potential customers), as well as that of other government entities such as the county government and state government offices; and

* The city, under the FCC's new Title II regime, could demand franchise fees from me that it would not have to pay itself.

So, if you put yourself in the shoes of a hard working local ISP (which I am), or of a customer who wants choice, this no longer seems like such a good idea. Any ISP entering the market would have to fight an uphill battle against City Hall. So, new ISPs will not enter the market and existing broadband providers will have a strong incentive to pull out, leaving a monopoly. What is needed is FAIR, PRIVATE competition, not the unfair competition that turning unaccountable city bureaucrats loose would bring.

Our ISP is in a distant rural area, and the peering point to which we connect is not one of the ones where Netflix peers. We need to cache; this is the situation that caches are for. But just as banks will only give you a loan if you don't need it, Netflix will only give you a server if you don't need it.

My small ISP asked Netflix for a cache, but was refused. Apparently, unless you're a huge ISP like Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T, Netflix won't let you set up a storage node.... And they won't let you cache on your own, either. In short, if you are small enough to need a cache, you can't have one.

The user's service did not include permission to operate a server.

ISPs have no problems with their business models. It's Google who has a problem with their business models... if there's a penny left on the table that Google (which is the force behind the regulations) can't grab. Or if ISPs, who build the Internet, actually get to make something for their hard work.

The user is not paying us for the bandwidth or duty cycle to run a server. The content provider is hoping that we won't notice and that it can effectively become an unauthorized, non-paying user of our network resources. Google has had P2P built into the Flash player for use by YouTube, incidentally.

You, the user -- especially if you are a typical, naive user -- have no idea how much bandwidth you are using. Nor do you know whether the app you downloaded just to "access" a service actually turns your computer into a server, which the content provider hopes will be hosted on the ISP's network for free. ISPs are not making massive profits -- in part due to shenanigans such as these. But Google has multiple monopolies and is making billions.

Total BS. As the operator of an ISP (and a former columnist for InfoWorld who was dismissed because I didn't go along with Microsoft's monopoly propaganda... not much different from monopolist Google's fearmongering above), I can say with authority that no ISP wants to limit what sites users can visit. That's the scare tactics that the lobbyists are using to push so-called "network neutrality" regulations, which are not neutral at all; they're designed to tip the economic balance away from ISPs and toward content companies such as Google. The regulations prohibit ISPs from charging more when content providers waste bandwidth or attempt to demand priority delivery of their content -- in short, when they ask for something for nothing. They also prevent ISPs from blocking software that exploits the ISP's network for the benefit of a content provider. In short, they're all about regulating the Internet in ways that benefit powerful corporations. Worse still, they let the camel's nose into the tent. If the FCC can regulate the Net to advantage Google, it can also regulate it in other harmful ways. Want to see censorship? Government blocking of sites? Even more intense spying on your Internet activities? If these regulations are not overturned, the precedent will open the door to all of those things.

Do you have cellular service? From how many providers? All are broadband competitors. Can you see the sky? Then satellite is another. How many WISPs operate in your area? All of them can beat the performance of DSL. It is highly unlikely that you actually have only two options.

There's too much competition. I live in a small, rural town of 28,000 souls, and we have 12 (count them!) facilities-based ISPs and more non-facilities-based ones. ISPs know that if they do anything that riles customers, those customers are history.

On the other hand, every government that's gotten control of the Internet in its country has censored it. Without exception.

...for the nearly $1 million that Google gave to the Obama campaign and the similar amount that it gave to the Obama transition team. Not to mention the more than $100K it gave for the inauguration. The so-called "network neutrality" rules proposed by the FCC aren't the slightest bit neutral; they'd tie ISPs' hands while giving control of the Net's future to Google and preventing newcomers from arising to challenge Google's monopolies. And no wonder: they were written by Google lobbyists whom Obama -- breaking his pledge not to hire lobbyists -- hired into the administration. What's more, at least one of the FCC Commissioners -- Michael Copps, the most senior and the one who was Interim Chairman -- has already stated that he wants to use these new regulatory powers to censor the Net. (He's the one who went ballistic over the exposure of Janet Jackson's pastie at the Super Bowl many years ago.) ISPs won't censor the Net; in fact, they have NEVER censored legal content. But the FCC, given the power, will follow in the footsteps of the Australian government and will try to do so.

rd is wet and icy oops aaaaaaaaagh

Unfortunately, Atom-based Netbooks have a 100% failure rate with the latest updates to "Snow Leopard." :-S