Paul Kapustka writes:

One idea I kicked around a bit at this past weekend's Vloggercon (in no small agreement with fellow blogger Matt Sherman, who is about 179 degrees away from me on most net neutrality matters) was the idea of Google (or Microsoft, anyone with buckets of folding money and a desire to get into online apps) buying or building an online application that would show anyone who wants to use it exactly what's happening to their packets as they course to and fro.

Sure, that's a simplistic view but it's the consumer version of what all the self-proclaimed net wizards are talking about when they tell you how to "ping" a server. Why not use some of that Google cash, some of the otherwise wasted programming talent chasing Web 2.0 dreams (how many social network/hookup/map mashups do we need, anyway?) and build something we'd all like to see -- a desktop dashboard that could flash red when an ISP tries to block or degrade service, or starts narrowing the pipe for Skype?

I've seen all the flashy demos from the equipment providers who are mining enterprise dollars in this territory, so I know it's possible. Maybe not easy, but one little app -- call it the Google Desktop Bandwidth Detector (tm) -- could go a long way to keeping Big Ed and his pipes honest and open.

That would just be too easy.

Note Bene: More required reading in this post of Paul's, too.