Level 3 Communications Challenges Comcast on "Net Neutrality"
Here's a strange question in the high-flying world of Internet technology: Should Broomfield-based Level 3 Communications have to pay cable and Internet giant Comcast fees for distributing content back to Comcast customers? That's exactly what Level 3, a broadband network wholesale provider, alleges is happening when Comcast charges it for downloads that Comcast customers make of streaming movies and other content distributed across the Level 3 network. While the size of a recent fee paid by Level 3 was not made public, the company complains that it was forced to accept a "take it or leave it" demand from Comcast to avoid interruptions to its customers, writes the Denver Business Journal.
Thomas Stortz, Level 3's chief legal officer, accuses Comcast of "putting up a toll booth" at the borders of its network and influencing the cost of its competitors' online programming, a move that threatens the idea of an open Internet and represents a "clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation's largest cable provider."
Joe Waz, Comcast's external affairs and public policy counsel, shoots back on Comcast's blog: "Level 3 has inaccurately portrayed the commercial negotiations between it and Comcast....Level 3 is trying to gain an unfair business advantage over its CDN competitors by claiming it's entitled to be treated differently and trying to force Comcast to give Level 3 unlimited and highly imbalanced traffic, and shift all the cost onto Comcast and its customers."
The Gigaom tech blog, meanwhile, wonders if Congress and regulators should intervene. "Just as in the recent retransmission fights in the pay TV world, these rumblings between giant companies leaves consumers in the lurch, even though they actually have paid for access to the Internet—that is the whole Internet, not one that is approved by Comcast or some other company. The problem, of course, is lack of competition in the broadband markets."
It depends on who owns the pipe and provides the content
If Comcast owns a section of the pipe over which content is distributed, it should be able to charge for the traffic. Yes, it's a toll booth, and yes it's moral and should be -- and/or should remain -- legal.
"Net neutrality" is just another phrase for socialized Internet, and is an attempt to take over private property and dictate the terms under which it is used. It's nonsense. Nobody has the moral "right" to the use of a service no matter how important, or to harness service providers and force them to offer the service on any terms other than what they desire. It's their property, period. Any law that says otherwise is a violation of their rights.
If it's freedom to use bandwidth that is desired, then restrictions on service should be lifted, because those restrictions are the source of any real problems that exist now. Currently there are licensing and customer agreement mandates for service providers. Such restrictions should be eliminated so that any competitor can enter the market in an unrestricted manner. Then, large, complacent providers would not be able to abuse their partners and customers because they have been granted a privileged position in the market by governments, like they do now.