Comcast thinks it owns the Internet

Every day, terabytes of data are added to the Internet. With the availability of relatively cheap bandwidth, we’ve been able to create streaming, high definition video. We’ve been able to produce sites that host any video you want to upload. We’ve successfully removed the need for physical discs to store our music and movies. But Comcast doesn’t care about any of this. They’d rather cap usage so that they can generate more profit for being a gateway to the Internet. What good is streaming video if it just ends up costing consumers more money?

They’re supposedly trying a number of different tests, one of which is tiering data usage. If you use 5 GB a month — I go over that every single month, without fail, by myself — they want to charge you an overage fee. The worst part, actually is that they want to cap your downlink speed, too, at 768 kbps. What? They want people to pay them $30 per month for limited usage at crappy downlink speeds?

The message I get from this is that while big businesses abhor government regulation and oversight, they’re eager and willing to impose them on their customers. So yes, free markets are more efficient…at allowing companies to exploit their customers. Because of the lack of broadband options, many customers are stuck with Comcast — like many are stuck with Time Warner in New York City.

Big business would hate this suggestion, but why don’t we make a national fiber infrastructure a priority? There are plenty of economic benefits to creating such an infrastructure. Oh, but big cable companies won’t be able to meter your bandwidth and restrict your access. What ever shall we do then?

A free and open Internet has and will continue to open new opportunities. There are aspects we haven’t even considered yet that will be enabled in the future by the Internet? So why are companies trying to control access? Profit. Like a bureaucracy inevitably moves towards furthering itself rather than achieving its goals, a private corporation inevitably moves towards short-term profits. Even if the long-term effect is detrimental to the nation.