[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Couldn't be helped. They tried self regulation. Didn't work.

Actually working just fine without the government involvement. The dispute between Comcast and Netflix was a business dispute. Netflix's service was flooding Comcast's network taking up about a third of the bandwith in the evening.

Of course Comcast is going to want to see some money from that. Also, there is good evidence that it was Netflix actually doing the throttling..

The internet was going towards a model that those with the deepest pockets get the bandwidth. Bandwidth should be the same price for all. Companies are free to charge whatever they want, but its the same price for everyone.

Bandwith is still a scarce resource. Those who pay the most for bandwith must need it the most. Bandwith can't be the same price for all because there are different capacities geographically.

I see the bandwidth as important to our daily lives as any utility. In our communities, we all pay the same price for Electricity, Gas, water etc. Same principle.

Not in my community. We have competitive electric companies where I live. I can change providers whenever I choose. Your community might have crappy monopolized services but not everybody does.

We don't have Ford/Macy's/Best Buy buying all the electricity they want and whats left, someone else buy. If there is not enough electricity left over for your business, too bad.

Without government intervention in your scenario here another power company will be more than willing to step in and provide more electricity particularly when price goes up. Price is a signal after all. That other company could possibly be a new company or one from the next town over.

Regulations and government created monopolies stop that from happening. They raise barriers to competition and entrench current players. If you think this is a good thing then you will probably be sadly mistaken not long down the road.