New clause in AT&T contracts:

Have you taken a look at AT&T's Terms of Service for High-Speed Internet (HSI) lately? Some changes they've made are downright draconian. In the section labeled "5.1 Suspension/Termination," AT&T says the normal stuff about lack of payment and so forth. But clause (c) says they can terminate your service for conduct that AT&T believes:

(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. Source: AT&T Terms of Service

And then there's Verizon's clause (which, so far as I know, is not new):

Without prejudice to any other rights that Verizon may have, Verizon reserves the right and sole discretion to change, limit, terminate, modify at any time, temporarily or permanently cease to provide the Service or any part thereof to any user or group of users, without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.

Martin at Scholars and Rogues thinks this is about net neutrality, and in a neutral sense it is. But in a larger sense it's about oligopoly and monopoly - and about free markets. Let me start with a digression. I've been reading about Franklin Roosevelt lately, and what I just read about today, specifically, was the rural electrification of America. See, until Roosevelt, 9 out of 10 rural citizens didn't have electric power, though most of the cities did. Roosevelt desperately wanted them to have power and made very sincere efforts to convince them to provide it. But they weren't interested. It just wasn't "worth it" to them to do so and every farmer who was market efficient to serve was already being served, because of course the if there was a profit to be made, someone would have made it.

So the government went ahead and did it themselves, and in response, rather than letting the government grab them all up, the private companies suddenly started doing it themselves. Massive new electrical projects drove rates through the floor, by 1950 9/10 farmers had electricity, and the companies were even making profits off it (public and private companies.)

More After the Jump

This history, by the way, is essentially identical for modern sewage systems - private enterprise could not, or woiuld not, do it and so in almost every country the government (often municipal) had to step in and do it. Later, perhaps, they sold off such utilities, but at the beginning they were generally created by government.

Telecom is much more similiar to a utility than it is to, say, the market for hand tools. It is pretty much a necessity for communities and people who want to participate in the bleeding edge of the economy. It is where the future is. That doesn't mean that most jobs aren't off the internet, off the telecom networks - but it does mean that most hi-tech jobs do require you have internet, and increasingly good internet. Every American needs it, and every American isn't getting it, and when they do get it, it's pretty much crap compared to countries like Korea or Japan.

Meanwhile, forget free speech, you can't even hook up the phone of your choice to the networks. The telecos have sued rather than allow municipalities to set up free wireless internet. They deliberately cripple features on phones they don't like, which is why the Europeans and Asians are kicking America's ass in handheld accessories ('cause you can, like, use them.)

Properly functioning utilities let everyone use them. Phone lines were driven out to everyone. Electricity was dirven out to everyone. Indoor plumbing was driven out to pretty much everyone.

And a properly operating telecom network, as was demonstrated in the 90's, lets everyone in and lets everyone do what they want with it so long as it doesn't threaten the operation of the utility itself. Everyone needs to be able to get on, do what they want, say what they want. Telecom companies need to become like the old regulated utilities - they get their 5% profit, they have a mandate to get the internet out to everyone and to upgrade it, and they have no influence over the content, who connects to it if it isn't a threat to stability, or anything else. Unless you're sucking down a TON of power the power company doesn't ask what you've attached to the power outlet - it's none of their damn business - they give you the specs, you stay within the specs, you can do what you want.

What the telecom network needs then is to be both more and less open than it is. Everyone should be able to tap into any line by playing blanket rates that cover operating and upgrading costs. Standards are determined cross-utility. Anything that meets the standards can be plugged in. All traffic is treated the same, because the utility doesn't care, it's just selling access and making sure there's enough pipe and it always sets rates, transparently and publicly, to maintain and build out.

But this isn't a net with less competition, it's a telecom net with much, much more cmpetittion, because now, as in the 90's, anyone can set up an ISP. Anyone can set up a phone company and resell time. Anyone can make phones and if they meet standards, sell them to anyone to use anywhere in the country. Full mobile computing becomes really possible, with full access to the net everwhere. Telepresence, VR goggles - a world of possibilities open up, because every step of the way there isn't a gatekeeper saying "can I make money off of this?" It doesn't matter, in this model, if the utility can make money, only that someone can.

And in a model like this, that net neutrality thing? Pretty much built in. By mandate the telecom utilities won't be able to screw with that stuff unless proactively legislated to do so. Nor will they have any reason to.