Theres actually a bill trying to get pushed through as well called McCain's Internet Freedom Act or something like that.  Apparently its to prevent the FCC from getting involved with the internet, BUT it would grandfather any bill that got put into place before it.

My main probelm when this issue is brought up is monopoly of cable companies in certain areas.  Where I'm at now, theres no competing company that offers high-speed internet.  So whenever I try to discuss this with people, they say they have no choice, and because theres no other options, the cable company should be forced into net nuetrality.  Anyone know how to counter this?

I work for a civil engineering company and can make an assumption based on some authority why you have no choices in your area. It is probably government granted monopoly privilege. When you want to run a utility in the right-of-way of any road you have to get a lease with the municipality or department of transportation. These utility easements are expensive and can be approved or denied on the whim of the local planning department. So companies, in order to guarantee a return on the investment of digging up the road, installing boxes, surveying, designing and all the permits and approvals, ask if they could restrict other companies from doing so. Usually, if they offer other companies the ability to use the lines for a fee they get accepted, but the other companies have no incentive to offer service if they cannot own their own lines. Also even if the companies don't get guaranteed monopoly privilege, anytime another company wants to run a line where there already is one, the municipality will deny approval on that basis. Who need two lines?

The reason local phone providers became monopolies was because there were too many lines cluttering up the sky. It was an "eyesore" so local government granted their buddies the sole ownership and rights to put up lines. AT&T became a monopoly because during WWI the federal government nationalized the phone system. And in 1934 privatized it again and granted AT&T sole ownership.

I don't think you would believe how hard it is to get a cell phone tower approved. We do a lot of them and the cost of permitting is always more expensive then designing or building. Our engineers spend far more time talking to bureaucrats then engineering. Two years ago we wanted to move one over on the same lot. A chain pharmacy wanted to lay out a site in the spot and it would have taken up too much space to fit in both where the tower was situated. So the pharmacy got permission from the cell phone company and the neighboring property owners. The town this was in had very few zoning laws and was in the middle of nowhere. When we asked the town planning department if there was any reason we couldn't do this they gave none. We designed and submitted the plans for approval, a full set of grading, utilities, profiles and details. After 6 months of resubmitting, redesigning and pleading we finally got an emphatic no. Though our company still got paid for our work the pharmacy was out tens of thousands of dollars.

Next time you question why your phone bill is so high or your internet is so slow or why your pills cost so much, just remember how much effort it took just to get permission to sell you those things.

Thank you Gard for the post read on the podcast. I'm glad I could contribute. Everyone can blame Leo Laporte and TWiT for getting me bothered enough to post something after their reactionary rants on episode 219. They talk about McCain's internet Freedom Act which might be the first time I can support something he proposed. They seemed to back off to a more reasonable position on the next episode though. If I wasn't such a geek I would probably have stopped listening to them out of moral disgust.

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