A compromise on net neutrality

The internet is a monopoly and needs to be regulated as such.  While individual users might see several available ISPs, the backbone is shared by all.  Therefore, government regulators have a legitimate interest in how it functions. 

Net Neutrality is the requirement that all internet traffic get the same priority.  Free speech advocates say that without net neutrality, large telecoms could slow or block traffic from left wing blogs, for example.  On the other side, telecoms argue that they need the ability to give important and low bandwidth internet functions like email and blog surfing priority over bandwidth hogs like peer to peer file sharing and high resolution video. 

This should be a solvable problem.  Free speech advocates and telecom engineers should be able to design a multi tiered  system that gives large files lower priority without regard to content.  Unfortunately, politicians on both sides are blocking a purely technical solution.  Democrats do not trust telecoms to remain content neutral.  Indeed, without vigilant regulation, that is a serious worry.

Conservatives argue against government involvement of any kind.  This ignores the fact that the internet began as and remains a government program.  It demonstrates that government sometimes can, in the words of President Reagan, “be here to help”.  By opposing all regulation, they force free speech advocates to fight any packet priority system at all. 

Republican rigidity on net neutrality harmful to a technological solution to the bandwidth issue.  It also gives the impression that Republicans are more concerned about large telecoms than freedom of speech.  How different things would look if Republicans championed an innovative technological solution with content guarantees.  No longer would the word “intertubes” be a universal code word for old Republican technological ignorance (Senator Stevens described the internet as being like a network of tubes.). 

The Wikipedia article on net neutrality is surprisingly balanced, with links to all sides of the issue.