Why is Net Neutrality so complicated!?!

So, this came up in an office hallway discussion this morning. I just don’t see why it needs to be 300 pages worth of complicated BS…except perhaps to fit in with the millions of pages worth of complicated BS that fills Federal Register.

Its true that business should be free to do what business does. The same is true for people. There are always conflicts that arise between businesses and consumers. In this debate we have a mishmash of telecom and entertainment media companies giving the business to the consumer.

We have this concept that the Internet is an Information Super Highway. It’s a fair concept, albeit simplistic. A better analogy might be the Information Super Railroad. Let me explain…

Since the Staggers Railroad Act of 1980, railroad transport has been pretty much self governed. The act deregulated the railroad industry, but put a few controls and procedures in place to keep abuses from happening. Since then, the US has one of the most efficient and profitable rail freight systems on earth. Rail lines are owned by individual rail companies, through federal land grants from the late 1800's. The pricing and rating of rail freight is complex but it works well. The 2012 average price per mile was 3.95¢/ton.

What we don’t see in the rail freight industry is a cargo contain that needs to get from New York to Seattle being stopped or slowed down in Chicago because the local rail company doesn't want to ship that cargo. Why wouldn’t it want to ship that cargo? Perhaps because that cargo is a curcial raw material that one of its competitor’s desperately needs.

This is exactly what is happening when Comcast throttles the broadband access of it’s subscribers who use Netflix. If the Super Highway model would still be more meaningful, then think of the Interstate Highways, where you get to drive the fastest, being owned by several different companies. Sure you can drive from one town or state to the next, but be prepared for a long slow trip in your Subaru when you cross over into Ford territory, since Subaru hasn’t paid Ford millions of dollars to secure rights for you to drive one of their models of car on Ford’s highways.

Why it so hard to see the simple problem that the access provider probably should not also be a content provider?