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Donald Fagin had it right
The most galling thing about this whole issue is how many lies are being peddled as truth, right down to the astroturf groups who are screaming Hands Off The Internet!! and paying for it with money earned by regulated monopolies (or by companies which used that route to get to where they are today.) There is so much money floating around Capitol Hill, and so many politicos and spin doctors with sudden deep understandings of net infrastructure (Mike McCurry comes to mind), that I've got to wonder how we will think our way out of this. (Money in Washington is normally paid to help legislators and their staffs to not think too deeply.)
This all comes down to Whom Do You Trust, which is a tossup when the choices are government regulators or telcom/cable companies. Yes, routers do make decisions on packets as Richard Bennett corrects, and this may be the Achilles' Heel of the Internet. What was that Donald Fagin lyric? Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision Maybe the answer is something you almost suggest when you change the subject to competition: Continued Net Neutrality (the recent merger telcoms agreed to it keep in in place for two years as a condition of their merger), until we can go through Divestiture, The Sequel. We wouldn't be talking about this if there were real competition at the last-mile level.
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