Net Neutrality has become a rallying cry for keeping the internet open and free.

However, its really a pretty lame slogan. You can cry it out at the top of your lungs. You won't make any friends at dinner.

A better term is first amendment. Its the first amendment of cyberspace.

A non-neutral or tiered internet is an internet in which normal people cannot correctly gauge their cost of pipe. Currently, you can buy a 3 mbps connection. Wonderful.

But in a network that destroys first amendment architecture, you will be entering into a cloud that you will have to take someone's word for, as to what the path through it will be.

There is a dirty secret to all of this: the internet will never be anything other than a dust bunny. I am a network engineer (and a part time hacker - thanks for deleting my account, mydd!) - and I know this to be true. There was once MAE or multi acess experiments where the net would peer away to or from and these points were acting as concentrators. Now, the network peers using pretty heavy protocols that guarantee the use of the backbone fiber, bgp,  etc.  and the base type of routing (open shortest path first) which is all centered in mostly cisco equipment running on mostly everywhere including all over the world and definitely not just america.

So when you think internet, first, think of a basically american innovation - that has now become global.

Telcos are huge corporations , and if they are given the power to pretend that the internet is not a dust bunny (ok, this is my term for a "cloud") then what they can do is claim that you're going through the network faster or slower based entirely on their own settings. Here's a clue about telco settings. They will not tell anyone in their own company, or anyone in the government - what they are. The telcos keep this stuff locked down as company-proprietary confidential. Their highest classification. The passwords and routes they use are extremely confidential. The traceroute is not. you can do it yourself - just type tracert www.mydd.com at the command prompt. however, that trace is highly unreliable as a metric and its not going to tell you exact speeds esp. since the telcos are all fiber on the backbone now, and you are interested in knowing what the "path" is. in fact, it will be different every time. and it will always be different every time. there is no such thing as a guaranteed delivery vehicle.
So, they can tune the knobs on their side, but whenever one segment goes out of tune - they can claim, hey - you took the fastest path through +their+ network.  No American telco can ever guarantee a path through the internet. Ever.and since they are hiding behind a cloud. They will be able to charge you more ,for what they are already doing: the future of the internet is a high speed, to the door connectivity of about 100 mbps or more - and you as an end user should be able to set up your own website, or blog, or picture site of your kids, or whatever.  In other words, just like now.

In fact, a few more simple facts might shed light.

* the average cost of bandwidth for a phonecall is 19.2 kbps

• quality of service reservations can't be made through links that don't participate.
  
• no major telco is anything else but fiber all the way through. gigabit speed.

The killing joke of course of all of this is that the telcos started this whole ball rolling with a few corrupt texan politicians and lobbyists getting this bill out there. Nobody needed to vote to raise internet fees. Did you feel a deep need to create a new pricing structure for the internet? Did you call your congressman and ask him to propose legislation that lets telcos charge random prices for things?

And to hide their oily ways, they are hiding behind the idea that defending the american consitutional first amendment ideals that have been built into the net, is like regulating it. In other words, any lawmaker that defends the constitution is "legislating the internet". What legislation are we talking about? Keeping telcos from charging random fees?

Adopting an internet that abandons its basic first amendment architecture is taxation without representation.
This is not net neutrality. NPR reported it wrong: its not about bringing new services to your front door. The telcos can charge anything they want to charge.

Its net architecture. Do we let them build into the very fabric of our network - a way for faceless corporations to tithe us all?

We didn't let it happen with America when she was young. They took our tea, and added on a tax without our asking. I am sure they claimed the "tea of the future" would be better as a result of them being able to charge more for it. But they made a huge mistake: they thought they could build into the process, tuning out the voices of the overwhelming majority of Americans. Of the christian coalition. of moveon. nearly 2 million people and rising.

Our rallying cry is not neutrality. Thats for pussies. It is No taxation without representation.