Court Decides All Bits Are Equal; New York Times, 6/15/16

Quentin Hardy, New York Times; Court Decides All Bits Are Equal:

"Count on an appeal, and most likely a final decision by the Supreme Court, because the concept of net neutrality touches on key philosophical and pragmatic aspects of modern life.

Is fast internet service now essential, since we need it to get a job or find out when the movie is on? Is broadband so essential that companies providing it must be regulated by the F.C.C. in how they treat customers?

What sort of essential commodity is the delivery of bits — is it like electricity, which is often priced against periods of peak usage? Is it like water, which must be provided at all times, but has different costs around the country based on difficulty of delivery? Is it something new?

On the other side, shouldn’t a company developing a new product have to consider how many bits it will be using, or other constraints it is putting on a system counted on by millions of people? When companies build a network for one purpose, and the network is overwhelmed by a new digital product that uses more bandwidth, should the old pricing rules apply?"