Got those common carrier blues

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 5:54 AM on April 27, 2006.

Friends of net neutrality failed to pass a pro-neutrality amendment in Congress, so the telecom bill will now proceed to the Senate. As attorney iocaste explains, it's deja vue all over again. It's not like broadband carriers are the first privately-held monopolies to attempt to discriminate amongst their customers for gain. Railroads gouged Western grain farmers, later truckers got in to the act.
Eventually the government created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC; 1887 - 1995). Iocaste continues:

However flawed it may have been in practice, the ICC, and its heirs, were created to deal with precisely the problem that Congress seems bent on repeating: Large common carriers (railroads, telephones, etc) could discriminate in the provision of their services, thus furthering monopolistic ends. Regulation and rate-setting followed.

Perhaps time has come to consider a modern-day successor to the ICC. How 'bout it, Democratic leadership?

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Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.