More and more people are using broadband connections, and with those broadband connections come more video, more audio -- more, more, MORE of everything that can potentially slow up the pipes. The broadband providers are saying their capacity can't handle the booming traffic, and that they need to start finding a way to finance infrastructure improvements. One idea floated by AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre is to start charging sites such as Google, Yahoo or Vonage an extra fee for their sites to load faster. Eventually, that comment led to a furor with many interest groups and e-commerce sites demanding that Congress enshrine in law "Net neutrality" that would guarantee that Internet service providers treat all Net traffic equally.
What do you think? Should Congress step in to do something? What kind of law makes sense? Or do the telecoms and cable companies deserve the freedom to charge what they want, as they were the ones who built these pipes? You can read more about this subject in a deep story on News.com, an editorial against Net neutrality in Techweb, and a defense of Net neutrality in a Christian Science Monitor editorial. I'll use the best answers here in the Your Take roundup next week.
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