[zeugma]

These big providers ... they do not own the “horizontal internet” (the coast to coast connections) nor do they own the “vertical internet” (the street to your house connection). They may own a small piece, or lease a small piece or have been given administration responsibilities for a piece or two as part of a franchise monopoly.

Not only that, but they entered into peering agreements with the other providers.

There is a lot of misinformation about 'net neutrality' because too many people do not really understand how the internet works.

To the people who say that Netflix should be paying for the bandwidth used to deliver their content, they already do. Do you think some ISP let's Netflix tie their OC48 pipes into their backbone without being compensated for it? I'd hate to think about paying the interconnect charges for a company like Netflix or Google. It aint cheap, because they do pay for their internet access the same as everyone else.

What 'net neutrality' is really all about is the various companies between them and you wanting to get an additional 'piece of the action' because they aren't smart enough (or lucky enough) to have content that you want delivered. If they were on the other side of this equation, you bet they'd be singing different tunes. You can be sure that companies like time/warner want to be the ones generating the traffic to get the advertizer dollars that netflix does. Rather than creating a compelling product that generates customers who want their product, they want to just skim additional revenue from companies who did.

 

[Usagi_yo]

“There is a lot of misinformation about ‘net neutrality’ because too many people do not really understand how the internet works.”

Yea, some of the responses I got are simply appalling with disinformation and willful misunderstanding.

Net Neutrality concept has been around for at least 2 decades. It’s not about government micromanaging the internet. It’s a doctrine that all the carriers and providers route traffic without bias and without surcharges.

Carrier — Like AT&T, Verizon et al.
Provider — innova.net .. leased DSL line to my house, (only the line is really owned by the carrier who wholesales it).
Content provider — Netflix — provides content that crosses various networks to get to your home.

BTW: Netflix uses distributed media servers hooked up downstream either co-hosted or leased space/bandwith from a carrier physically administered by the carrier, remotely controlled by Netflix. So see, they already pay. I think that’s how they settled things with verizon.