[bamahead]

Well, DUH. If I pay for a 5MB connection, of course the guy who sold it to me doesn't have any right to throttle it back, any more than a butcher has a right to put his thumb on the scale when he sells me a pound of meat.

That guy has the right to do whatever it says in the contract that you agreed to when you established service with him. He may have sold you a 5MB capable circuit, but that doesn't mean he can't throttle what comes across it, if that's specified in your service terms that he can.

Step back for a second and ask yourself - considering that there are dozens of national ISP's, and several completely Wi-Fi based ISP's (like Clear Networks) which are picking up market share rapidly. If the big dogs really start heavy throttling of their traffic at the consumer level, do you actually think a competitor is not going to compete with that by offering 100% unfettered service? Even if the big dogs throttle specific traffic at the backbone level, there will even be a backbone provider who will not choose that business model, and who will see not going that route as a competitive advantage.

You seem very apt to bring the government in to solve a problem which is practically a case study waiting to happen in how the free market works. Why do you really feel that Government will serve the interests of the people if given this enormous regulation power?