The plan now under consideration would separate broadband into two distinct services: a retail one, in which consumers would pay broadband providers for I

The plan now under consideration would separate broadband into two distinct services: a retail one, in which consumers would pay broadband providers for Internet access; and a back-end one, in which broadband providers serve as the conduit for websites to distribute content. The FCC would then classify the back-end service as a common carrier, giving the agency the ability to police any deals between content companies and broadband providers. At first glance, this looks bad. Really, really bad. The Internet was based upon the concept that each node would be both a producer and consumer of content. And as speeds for the end-user have increased, truly becomes feasible (especially as FTTP becomes more common). What this proposal does instead is play into the hands of the cable industry and their view of the Internet is a broadcast mechanism, and the consumers as primarily passive consumers and not really producers or highly interactive. What's really needed is more competition. Unfortunately, the only entities with the capital which can provide that competition are munis. Private investors and other entities don't really seem to care that much about this.