Net Neutrality

When Congress went home, it left unresolved the matter of "net neutrality," thank goodness. In one of the more brazen territory grabs since the TV industry tried to hang on to spectrum it promised to give back in the move to digital television, owners of big telco networks tried to persuade Congress that they should have no common carrier responsibilities. Somehow, the telcos managed to frame the debate as being about "over-regulation" and "ownership rights." Had they prevailed, it would have been possible, for instance, for Verizon to stop carrying traffic to or from Google if it had signed a deal with Yahoo. Or to squelch Vonage traffic in favor of Skype. Now the telcos get to try again with a Democratic Congress.