In the same area, the value of property should increase when the amount of space increases.

Sort of like they do with corporate property tax? They’re charged more for occupying more space.

I do see access akin to a public utility. Some cities also view it as one, and this is part of their justification for free WiFi. That said, I can see both sides of this. Cities build roads and don’t charge you for having more or bigger cars. They just make sure that the road is maintained and goes by your house. It is your responsibility to connect to the road and deal with everything on your property. But electricity, water, and gas (and sometimes sewer) have both base fees and usage based fees. You can easily compare access to electricity where you pay for what you use.

The difference is that the service providers never say that they will change the fees charged to the consumers. They want to charge the sources more money for better access. This would be like your city charging one power plant more money than the other because they were bigger.

For instance, http://www.news.com/Debate-heats-up-over-Net-neutrality/2100-1037_3-6049863.html talks about AT&T and Verizon planning to create a tiered Internet system that would require big bandwidth hogs like Google or Yahoo to pay more for their access.

And so presumably “Net Neutrality” would stop this tiered system for these mega giant companies.

Unless I’m missing something huge, how is this a free speech issue.

From what I’ve seen, the prices for basic access wouldn’t be impacted.

However, I would imagine that if the sites that require huge amounts of bandwidth don’t have to pay on a tiered system, then the overall price will rise for all.

You might say that education is the same way…private schools for those that can pay more. Which is fine. I believe this is appropriate for education.

Basic infrastructure is different. If you want to support a strong middle class, which I think is more important now than ever, you have to provide free and equal access to the infrastructure that enables that middle class….otherwise you simply become the land of the privileged and powerful. Whether that is appealing depends on your viewpoint, but one thing the privileged and powerful never seem to see is that a strong middle class is in their interest. Without it, when the middle class breaks down, you have tyranny. Its been that way throughout history. Support the middle class infrastructure or risk being pillaged by desperate people.

I’m going to extremes in this discussion, but it starts by chipping away at equality in favor of the privileged and powerful. That’s exactly what net neutrality is intended to fight.

Not in my state of NJ.

Not only are their tolls, but larger vehicles pay higher tolls, since they’re having a great impact on the roads.

If the Internet were “protected as a public utility,” would you then be OK with costs being based on usage like other public utilities?

By one account, fascism has been defined as collusion between government and corporations. That is just what we currently have. Call it a corporatocracy, or call it fascism. But please, don’t call it a republic (and certainly not a democracy.)

But I digress. The internet should be protected as a public utility. It is this equality of transportation on the infohighway that will provide the same growth and innovation that the other mentioned public utilities provided early in our nations history. And if there is anything we need right now, it is at least an equal footing with the rest of the world on the Internet. We’re already lagging behind in broadband due to being duped by the U.S. telecomm industry after they were awarded the rights to carry our Web traffic. Now that they have it, they don’t want to invest in the build out they promised at the time. Meanwhile Asia and Europe are eating our lunch in broadband and cellular technology and speed. Makes me sick! Greedy bastards!