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As the following graph indicates, the rates for wireless data access from Rogers and Bell are sky high compared to other countries around the world, with better, and worse infrastructures. Read the original article here.

What does this have to do with Net Neutrality you ask? Simple. If this is the profit and pricing models that our telcos are using to simply carry wireless data (web page browsing, email, other data applications), then imagine what will happen when they have other services that they can sell to people. They will certainly ensure your packets moving through their networks will be prioritized to ensure that they can continue to charge as much as possible. Without Net Neutrality, these same telcos will ensure their packets are prioritized to keep your performance for their applications running smoothly while everyone else suffers. If you are on Bell, and want to access Rogers, expect that to be slowed down. The same will hold true in the reverse.

I received a comment to Yesterday’s Blog concerning Net Neutrality. I have responded to Richard Bennett’s comment and I am awaiting a follow up message.

This may actually turn in to an interesting topic of conversation, since Mr. Bennett views the Net Neutrality issue with an opposing point of view from my own. I linked to his blog so people can read both points and make up their own minds. I am looking forward to see where this goes.

After reading an article on Net Neutrality at The Hill Times where the big internet providers (Bell, Rogers, etc…) are quoted, it is clear that they either do not understand Net Neutrality, or are clearly trying to confuse others into thinking their way.

Lawson Hunter, executive VP at Bell Canada, told The Hill Times that net neutrality advocates are advocating for less consumer choice, not more.

“We’re distributors, and what they would say is tantamount to saying that all grocery stores should look exactly the same. That, of course, isn’t really in the consumer interest because you really don’t have differentiated products in the marketplace,” he said. He said Bell is “monitoring the issue closely” but is not yet actively lobbying on it, saying, “Why are we running around, preemptively regulating something where there isn’t an issue?”

What I do not understand is how hard a concept this is? I am an advocate of Net Neutrality, so I am going to use the term ‘we’. We are not advocating that every grocery store should look the same like Mr. Hunter indicated. We should be able to go to any grocery store we want, with out having to wait at the Bell Super Grocery Store first. We do not want artificial delays placed on us simply because we are not going to the Bell store.

That is what Net Neutrality is all about. We want to be able to go to any internet site, transfer any file using any protocol, without the telecommunications companies deciding that this protocol should be slowed down, in favour of another protocol that they may get paid money to support.

I pay for my bandwidth, and I want to use it how I want, not how they assume I should use it. If I get 60 Gig of transfer a month, and then pay for more, and I get 5 Mbps, then I want it all the time. If I use it up in the first 3 days, so be it, I have to pay to use more for the rest of the month. If not, and with current traffic shaping, it is hard to do, then I am not getting what I paid for. It did not say I could not use my 60 Gig, 5 Mbps at that rate between 7:00 PM and 11:00 PM, or trust me, I would have selected another carrier.

Lawrence Lessig has stepped up with an article on Net Neutrality that is worth a read. I have cited the best part below, to save you some reading if you like.

The core of this resistance comes from municipalities. Local governments are building neutral infrastructures that allow anyone, from ISPs to community networks, to use and extend blisteringly fast broadband networks. At the end of its first year, a project in Sandoval County, New Mexico, for example, already provides many in the area with more than 10 times the capacity than anywhere else in the US.

And municipal networks are just a first step. Many Linux-style volunteers are building free wireless networks that enable participants to share access and offer capacity to others. These volunteers are also building free protocols that enable legal access without shifting control to a last-mile access provider.

These activists recognize the basic truth of what I call the McAdams theorem: Monopolists, as Cornell economist Alan McAdams puts it, don’t monopolize themselves. If the monopoly-like asset is owned by the user, he has little incentive to exploit himself. Put differently, private ownership by users creates its own business model.

Will these grassroots alternatives check the power of the big companies? I remain skeptical. But the frantic efforts of traditional broadband providers to persuade states to ban municipal broadband should give you some clue as to the potential of these services.

Those who oppose network-neutrality regulation should also oppose this regulation of last-mile broadband’s most important competitor. Municipal competition won’t kill commercial broadband any more than Linux has killed Windows. Yet it could change the business model of last-mile broadband, just as Linux has changed the business model of Microsoft. If there’s going to be a Linux-like miracle to counteract innovation-threatening broadband business models, then, at a minimum, miracles must not be a crime.

Again, big business is trying to block something for their own gain to hurt the little guy, you and me. Why can this not get regulated to be left alone. I wish my municipality was planning a free high speed internet. I would switch, and happily pay them what I am paying for my current Rogers High Speed. Especially if I could get the access that the article talks about in New Mexico. 10 times the access rate of anywhere else in the US. That sounds like 50 Mbps to me, sign me up.

I think these municipal networks do not need to be free, just market them at the same rate as Rogers is charging for their 5 Mbps, at around $45 per month. If they were going to give it away, the extra money could certainly be put to use in your community for other projects. Image, a government project that actually had an Return on Investment (ROI), and was good for the community too. Wow.