Hot Air » Blog Archive » It’s a series of tubes!
Madison has some points here, however one large point missed and construed unevenly to the property rights argument is that of the “networks” owning their network… some of it they do own as in property but much of it and the most important and long standing part of the “network” is the communication lines, whether they be fiber-optic or coaxial or copper, they are owned not by the Tele-Communication companies but by you the local and state citizens.
The telecoms got permission or more likely bid for the Right to install the lines and then they lease the Right to continue to use them. therefore they don’t own the network…consider MCI and what happened to them, they went belly up and yet they installed more Fiber-optic line than anyone… they didn’t get to sell all of that network afterwards… they lost their lease… and now other companies use that line you sell their services.
Like airwaves, Tele-Communication companies lease the Right to serve the people… and that service should have standards that live up to our constitution and equal protection under the law. and just like in real life, the cops can’t stop every car on a given road in hopes of finding a wrong-doer. oh yeah… they do that already… hmmmm. So as with the FCC and TV it doesn’t look good for internet “anarchists”.
I believe that the internet or the “network” should be only governed by laws as they apply to the given country/state of the individuals involved. The internet should remain an open and unencumbered space, where individuals are free to test the bounds of system in order to improve it. What’s more those companies should be free to offer the service that best suits their customers; if a Christian Based company wants to offer a limited restricted “family” service, they should be allowed to do so, and in kind another company should be allowed to offer complete and unrestricted access. Let individual countries/states deal with the laws broken by individual users in their area.
