FROM THE THIS-SUCKS-LIKE-A-BILGE-PUMP DEPARTMENT: FCC Chief Kevin Martin is apparently supporting a two-tiered Internet.

I think that Net neutrality has gotten us this far, and I don’t see any reason to get rid of it. What’s more, I suspect the motives, and motivations, of those who are buying into this.

UPDATE: Reader Ed Clarkson emails:

If you look at the original story at (Link), at the very least Gralla’s interpretation is debatable (a number of the comments there concur). Martin, in fact, said:

“Any provider who blocks access to the Internet is inviting customers to find another provider,” Whitacre said in his keynote speech. “It’s bad business.” He then emphatically stated that AT&T would not block
independent services, “nor will we degrade [Internet access]. Period,
end of story.”

The apparent confusion comes from the part of the article that says: “…Martin also added that he supports network operators’ desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing — a so-called “tiered” Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment.”

Thus, from that summary it’s hard to tell whether Martin was referring to different total bandwith packages (e.g., $5/month for 4 GB; $10 for 10 GB; etc.), bandwith rate packages (e.g., $40/month for 6 Gb/s) or something else. In any case, I think it’s a bit premature to assign dire motives to Martin from the little hard information that’s available. If nothing else, I think it might be worth linking to the original story so people can decide for themselves.

Done. I certainly hope this is right.