CircleID

If you have followed the Comcast/FCC story, and if you have read alot of the blogs related to the topic, you'll find that most people (or at least those that feel strongly enough to writea comment) want a complete hands-off "net neutral" approach by ISPs.  The posts, often angry, are mostly vehemently opposed to ISPs doing anything other than routing the packets.  This is a shame because most fail to realize the technical and cost ramifications on broadband Internet access service if ISPs could not have some level of control.  Often, the posts I see are from people that are letting their frustration with what is more likely misleading or unclear advertising language used by broadband providers (definitely an issue) and general disdain for the cable company (which is probably not exclusively or even originally based on the cable company's Internet service but rather on their legacy cable TV service and customer service) get the best of them.  The reality is that, as you say, the Internet is filled with shared services, and service offerings that can drive T1-speed broadband down to $40/month for the general consumer are based on all kinds of oversubscription assumptions that, to some degree, the ISP must force if circumstances change that negate the original oversubscription model.  These models are not really any different than that of the legacy telephone network or cellular phone service.  The fact is that if ISPs cannot have some level of control over how they deal with traffic, including spam, security attacks and viruses for that matter, then service will eventually be degraded or prices will go up to cover the cost of network upgrades.  Right now, there is just not enough bandwidth at the access layer across the Internet to allow for a completely hands-off approach.  The angry net neutrality posts continue to call for the ISPs to upgrade upgrade upgrade without considering how that will be paid for and passed through to the consumer.  The expectation is that upgrades come for free, which is just not realistic.