Re: Utility vs Service
As a US Internet consumer in a former life (part of a company with a large number of sales offices across the US), the major challenges that we hit were:
1. in many locations outside of big cities (and even in some big cities) you had the choice of one provider and what they offered was awful. Typically the reason for the poor choice was local government arrangements with cable companies and/or telcos creating monopolies.
2. newer ISP's struggling to provide sufficient interconnect bandwidth with incumbent providers. i.e. Cogent's challenges
3. the difficulties around getting new providers into buildings we were using. This is largely down to local regulations and business practices.
Most of the net neutrality debate, point (2) is presented as the cause of the problems when, from a consumer point of view, point (1) is the major issue that actually harms the majority US Internet users. If the monopoly on local loop access was lifted or if at least the minimum speed provided was increased and fees for the minimum service levels capped (including extras like wifi routers etc), the increased competition would lead to point (2) being addressed by an actual market. The monopolies on terrible service are the issue...
Point (2) is largely a contractual issue - companies can sort it out but choose not to to impede their competitors. While this harms consumers, I see the solutions also harming the Internet as QoS can be useful and the rules will likely favour the larger companies that can afford to pay for the bandwidth by passing the costs onto their locked in customers.
If you are in an area in the US which is well served by fixed line Internet (i.e. 50Mbps+ for under US$50 or better), I can see why you want net neutrality but the majority of the US has sub-12Mbps fixed line Internet access for US$100/month once you bundle in the modem/router, wifi and phone and opt for mobile Internet access instead. As the majority of mobile users are with the large telcos anyway, point (2) doesn't really affect them...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
