You say it seems more likely to foster development of new technologies but that’s not the truth, as an article in the Bangor News points out. “The network operators’ plans to violate network neutrality to create tiered networks will only inject more complexity, and cost into operating networks and at the same time create incompatible networks with no standards for performance. And while quality network access will cost more, the resulting infrastructure will be technically capable of far less, diminishing the United States’ traditional leadership role in the development of Internet technologies . . . For example, today, students and faculty at the University of Maine in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and other research labs and schools are engaged in developing new life-changing technologies like those in the areas of biomedical engineering. With the two-tiered Internet being proposed, what may be the fast lane for the University of Maine, may be the slow lane for the NIH rendering collaboration opportunities futile.”

The last time we gave the Telecomms tax incentives to build out the network in 1996 they used the money for their bottom line and didn’t spend a dime on “putting broadband in every home.” Instead those who in rural areas are as disenfranchised as ever, while European and Japanese broadband users pay MUCH LESS for better quality broadband and have many more choices of providers. And a huge chunk of that money went to lobbying Congress for ways to protect their bottom line even more. They’re spending OUR tax dollars to screw us. That pisses me off.