Net neutrality, TV, and what the smart people forget to tell you

People are rightly concerned about recent FCC statements about Net Neutrality. A lot of people, way smarter than me, discuss the regulatory and technology issues much better than me. My focus is on some of the basics which are pretty much always forgotten in Washington, even by some very smart people.

(Folks, please note I speak only for myself, not for any org that I started or anything else.)

Personal bottom line: I love TV, and looking forward to getting the good stuff via Internet services like Netflix and Amazon. Looks like a big ISP has already messed around with that, and I don’t know if we can trust the big ISPs to keep their promises.

That’s the big forgotten issue: can we trust telecoms, cable companies, and big ISPs to do what they promise to do?

You probably know the answer to that, considering broken promises, and that ISPs and telecoms often think it’s okay to break promises.

For that matter, the big guys seem to have forgotten that they make money using public property, like radio airwaves and rights of way, like where they bury cables or provide cell phone service. I feel that the American people expect the telecoms to embrace basic American values, like playing fair, like being trustworthy.

Sascha Meinrath says it well “we are the landlords and we have expected norms for the tenants of our property.”

We’re not really talking “regulation,” just enforcing the terms of the social contract between Americans and the telecoms who have the privilege of using our stuff for big profit.

Please remember that The Internet has worked really well for around thirty years with a Net Neutrality-based social contract.

If it works, don’t break it.

Bonus: an Internet-based movement emerged, a few years ago, to defeat some really bad law, SOPA. I’ve been quietly pushing the idea that we need that movement to emerge again, and become a permanent part of the US political landscape. This is the time.

Craig